Engineering Commons^™

High Voltage Pulse Measurement System, Angelo J. Ballungay

Master's Theses

Using isolation and noise immunity techniques, this thesis designs and constructs a low cost measurement system to safely and accurately measure high voltage, high frequency pulses in harsh EM environments. High voltage pulses apply to medical, plasma, and food industries. The difficulty of accurately measuring high voltage pulses continues to pose an issue. Measuring high voltage systems can cause damage to the system, the measurement system, and the user. High voltage and high frequency pulses create a harsh environment of electromagnetic fields that can disrupt the circuitry of the measurement system and harm the user. Implementing isolation from the high …

Design Of A Low Power Cargo Security Device Using A Micropower Ultra-Wideband Impulse Radar, Brian M. Wihl

Master's Theses

Each year, thousands of cargo containers are broken into during shipping, costing billions of dollars in lost and damaged goods. In addition to removing its contents, intruders can also add unwanted and dangerous materials to a container, posing a threat to National Security. The possibilities of cargo container break-ins require that the containers go through check points at which they are physically searched. These searches often require the opening of the container, unloading and inspecting all cargo, and then loading the container and resealing it. This is a long and costly process.

Because of the high costs of break-ins and …

Enhancing Gan Led Efficiency Through Nano-Gratings And Standing Wave Analysis, Gabriel M. Halpin

Master's Theses

Improving energy efficient lighting is a necessary step in reducing energy consumption.Lighting currently consumes 17% of all U.S. residential and commercial electricity, but a report from the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy projects that switching to LED lighting over the next 20 years will save 46% of electricity used in lighting.GaN LEDs are used for their efficient conversion of electricity to light, but improving GaN efficiency requires optically engineering the chip to extract more light.Total internal reflection limits GaN LED performance since light must approach the chip surface within 23.6° of normal to escape into air.This thesis …

Digital Control Board For Phased Array Antenna Beam Steering In Adaptive Communication Applications, Mayur Bansal

Master's Theses

The application of adaptive communication techniques for mobile communications has attracted considerable interest in the last decade. One example of these techniques is spatial filtering through planar antenna array beam forming.

This thesis describes the development of a digital system that adaptively controls a phased array antenna. The radiating structure of the phased antenna array is tetrahedral-shaped and contains four antenna elements on each of its three faces. The overall system comprises of a digital control board with an external computer interface, an RF control board, and the phased antenna array. The RF controls the main lobe direction on the …

A Compact, Reconfigurable Uhf Communication System Design For Use With Polysat's Embedded Linux Platform, Austin Williams

Master's Theses

The beginning of this thesis provides an overview of the heritage UHF Communication System design flown on CP2, CP3, CP4, CP5, and CP6, summarizing previous analysis of its performance, and providing the justification for a complete system re-design. High level requirements for the new UHF System are defined, and a trade study is performed on state-of-the-art single chip transceivers, low noise amplifiers, and transmit power amplifiers. These components are then designed into a functional communication system, with key components analyzed for proper impedance matching and performance characterization compared to expected datasheet values. Next, the system as a whole is characterized …

System Design Considerations And The Feasibility Of Passively Compensated, Permanent Magnet, Iron-Core Compulsators To Power Small Railgun Platforms, Collin Taylor Macgregor

Master's Theses

This thesis provides insight into the different aspects of compulsator design for use with railgun systems. Specifically, the design space is explored for passively compensated, permanent magnet iron-core compulsators. Seven design parameters are varied within a compulsator model developed for the Cal Poly Compulsator (CPCPA). The Matlab code for this model is included within the appendix. Efforts were made to compare and validate this compulsator model to published data from existing systems. The compulsator model was found to match closely with discharge pulse length, but resulted in lower values for peak current and projectile velocity by 50% and 30% respectively …

Metamaterial Enhanced Wireless Power Transmission System, Travis Jade Heffernan

Master's Theses

Nikolai Tesla's revolutionary experiments demonstrated the possible benefits of transmitting power wirelessly as early as 1891. Applications for the military, consumers, emergency personnel, remote sensors, and others use Tesla’s discovery of wireless power. Wireless power transmission (WPT) has the potential to be a common source of consumable energy, but it will only receive serious consideration if the transmit and receive systems are extremely efficient and capable of delivering usable amounts of power. Research has been conducted to improve the efficiency and performance of nearly every aspect of WPT systems, but the relatively new field of metamaterials (MTMs) has yet to …

Computational Modeling To Evaluate Helical Electrode Designs For Use In Vagus Nerve Stimulation, Anthony W. Cowley

Master's Theses

An estimated 0.5% of world’s population has been diagnosed with epilepsy. Of these patients 20-30% will be unable to achieve seizure control with anti-epileptic drugs. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) may be an appropriate treatment option for some patients with pharmaceutically refractory, partial-onset seizures.

VNS therapy uses a helical electrode to interface between the implantable pulse generator and the vagus nerve. While there have been several studies related to the mechanical and electrical safety of such electrodes, little work has been done toward understanding the effectiveness of the helical electrode in nerve stimulation. A better understanding of the voltage field and …

Characterization And Modeling Of An O-Band 1310 Nm Sampled-Grating Distributed Bragg Reflector (Sg-Dbr) Laser For Optical Coherence Tomography (Oct) Applications, Desmond Charles Talkington

Master's Theses

In this project, the performance aspects of a new early generation 1310 nm Sampled-Grating Distributed Bragg Reflector (SG-DBR) semiconductor laser are investigated. SG-DBR lasers are ideal for Source Swept Optical Coherence Tomography (SS-OCT), a Fourier-Domain based approach for OCT, necessitating a tunable wavelength source. Three internal sections control the frequency output for tuning, along with two amplifiers for amplitude control. These O-band SG-DBR devices are now being produced in research quantities. SG-DBR lasers have been produced at 1550 and 1600 nm for some times. Fundamental questions regarding the performance of the 1310 nm devices must be quantified. Standard metrics including …

Applications Of Artificial Neural Networks To Synthetic Aperture Radar For Feature Extraction In Noisy Environments, David James Roberts

Master's Theses

It is often that images generated from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) are noisy, distorted, or incomplete pictures of a target or target region. As the goal for most SAR research pertains to automatic target recognition (ATR), extensive filtering and image processing is required in order to extract the features necessary to carry out ATR. This thesis investigates the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in order to improve upon the feature extraction process by laying the foundation for ANN SAR ATR algorithms and programs. The first technique investigated is that of an ANN edge detector designed to be invariant to …

Multiple Input Single Output (Miso) Tablet/ Phone Charger, Kevin Wong

Master's Theses

This thesis entails the design and implementation of a multiple input single output (MISO) DC-DC converter using the flyback topology to charge tablets/ smartphones or any USB powered portable device. The MISO converter will enable the use of various renewable energy sources such as a solar panel/ rechargeable battery combination, bicycle dynamo, hydroelectric power, and wind turbine. This paper will cover the design, simulations, and test results of the MISO converter. The flyback topology was chosen due to its low part count and its efficiency at low power. The proposed converter has a nominal 12V input to output USB 2.0 …

Impact Of Photovoltaic System Penetration On The Operation Of Voltage Regulator Equipment, Abesh Sorab Mubaraki

Master's Theses

The growing popularity of photovoltaic (PV) generation systems leads to an increase in the number of residential and commercial grid-tied PV systems that interconnect to the distribution circuit. This affects the characteristics of the distribution circuit; for example, the assumption that the voltage profile of a radial line decreases down-stream becomes invalid because of the addition of the PV system on the line. This poses new challenges when setting the parameters of voltage regulating devices. Add to that the fact that PV systems are intermittent, especially on cloudy days, which make the line even more difficult to regulate, and the …

Affine Image Registration Using Artificial Neural Networks, Pramod Gadde

Master's Theses

This thesis deals with image registration of MRI images using neural networks. Image registration combines multiple images of the same subject that were taken at different points in time, from different sensors, or from different points of views into a single image and coordinate system. Image registration is widely used in medical imaging and remote sensing. In this thesis feed forward neural networks and wavelet neural networks are used to estimate the parameters of registration. Simulations show that the wavelet networks provide significantly more accurate results than feed forward networks and other proposed methods including genetic algorithms. Both methods are …

Design And Modeling Of Centralized Distribution Network For The Dc House Project, Harpreet S. Bassi

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on the design, modeling, simulation, and performance evaluation of Centralized Distribution Network for the DC House Project. Power System Computer Aided Design (PSCAD) is used to model a Centralized PV Source, Battery Bank, and Distribution Network for 25 DC Houses. Design and modeling of each component in the proposed system are described. For the performance evaluation, emphasis is on voltage stability and system reliability under different operating conditions. Results from the simulation demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed Centralized Distribution Network for the DC House Project to support the houses during non-generation periods and distribution network voltage …

Eye "R" Glasses: Development Of An Infrared Sensor System For Detecting The Human Body, Rick Wong

Master's Theses

Throughout the years, sensors have been an integral part of automation, alert, and medical systems. Many of these systems measure physiological characteristics of the human body to alert themselves of their current conditions. Drowsy driver systems, for instance, measure the eyes and facial movements with a camera to determine if the driver is falling asleep at the wheel. Electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG), and electromyography (EMG) employ electrodes on the human body to measure electrical activity of a patient’s REM sleep cycle patterns. Pulse oximeters use optical light through a process called photoplethysmography (PPG) to measure heart rate.

As diverse as …

Early Wildfire Detection Using Temporal Filtering And Multi-Band Infrared Analysis, Ansel John Boynton

Master's Theses

Every year wildfires threaten or destroy ecological habitats, man-made infrastructure and people’s lives. Additionally millions of dollars are spent each year trying to prevent and control these fires. Ideally if a wildfire can be detected before it rages out of control it can be extinguished and avoid large scale devastation. Traditional manned fire lookout towers are neither cost effective nor particularly efficient at detecting wildfire. It is proposed that temporal filtering can be used to isolate the signals created at the beginnings of potential wildfires. Temporal filtering can remove any background image and any periodic signals created by the camera …

A Novel Unit Cell Antenna For Highly Integrated Phased Arrays In The Shf Band, Timothy Bryan Ogilvie

Master's Theses

Phased arrays are electromagnetic antenna systems comprised of many radiating elements and processing electronics. Radiating elements are typically positioned in an orderly grid within the antenna aperture. In the receive mode of operation, radiating elements capture some of the signal energy from incoming radiation and guide these signals to processing electronics. Signals are filtered and amplified to maintain the desired sensitivity and complexly weighted using circuits with reconfigurable amplification gain and phase delay. Finally, all signals are combined. The summation of these complexly weighted spatial samples forms a spatial filter in the same way complexly weighted temporal samples establish a …

Cuda Enhanced Filtering In A Pipelined Video Processing Framework, Austin Aaron Dworaczyk Wiltshire

Master's Theses

The processing of digital video has long been a significant computational task for modern x86 processors. With every video frame composed of one to three planes, each consisting of a two-dimensional array of pixel data, and a video clip comprising of thousands of such frames, the sheer volume of data is significant. With the introduction of new high definition video formats such as 4K or stereoscopic 3D, the volume of uncompressed frame data is growing ever larger.

Modern CPUs offer performance enhancements for processing digital video through SIMD instructions such as SSE2 or AVX. However, even with these instruction sets, …

Synthetic Aperture Radar Rapid Detection Of Range And Azimuth Velocities Implemented In Matlab, Cheuk Yu David So

Master's Theses

The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) algorithm processes multiple radar returns from the target space to generate a single high-resolution image. Targets moving through the target space during the capture sequence will appear distorted on the final image. In addition, there is no velocity information that is calculated as part of the processing. The objective of this thesis is to develop techniques to determine the azimuth and range velocities of moving objects in the target space in the early stages of SAR processing. The typical SAR processing steps are Range Compressed, Range Doppler, and final image generation. The range velocity of …

Early Forest Fire Heat Plume Detection Using Neural Network Classification Of Spectral Differences Between Long-Wave And Mid-Wave Infrared Regions, Raul-Alexander Aldama

Master's Theses

It is difficult to capture the early signs of a forest fire at night using current visible-spectrum sensor technology. Infrared (IR) light sensors, on the other hand, can detect heat plumes expelled at the initial stages of a forest fire around the clock. Long-wave IR (LWIR) is commonly referred to as the “thermal infrared” region where thermal emissions are captured without the need of, or reflections from, external radiation sources. Mid‑wave IR (MWIR) bands lie between the “thermal infrared” and “reflected infrared” (i.e. short-wave IR) regions. Both LWIR and MWIR spectral regions are able to detect thermal radiation; however, they …

Design, Fabrication, And Testing Of An Emr Based Orbital Debris Impact Testing Platform, Jeffrey J. Maniglia Jr.

Master's Theses

This paper describes the changes made from Cal Poly’s initial railgun system, the Mk. 1 railgun, to the Mk. 1.1 system, as well as the design, fabrication, and testing of a newer and larger Mk. 2 railgun system. The Mk. 1.1 system is developed as a more efficient alteration of the original Mk. 1 system, but is found to be defective due to hardware deficiencies and failure, as well as unforeseen efficiency losses. A Mk. 2 system is developed and built around donated hardware from the Naval Postgraduate School. The Mk. 2 system strove to implement an efficient, augmented, electromagnetic …

Bi-Directional Flyback Dc-Dc Converter For Battery System Of The Dc House Project, Austin J. Luan

Master's Theses

The DC House project strongly relies on renewable energy sources to provide power to the house for various loads. However, when these sources are unable to provide power at a certain time, a back-up energy source from a battery must be readily available to fulfill the house’s power needs. This thesis proposes a bi-directional flyback power converter to allow a single-stage power path to charge the battery from and to discharge the battery to the DC House 48 V system bus. The design, simulation, and hardware prototype of the proposed flyback bi-directional converter will be conducted to demonstrate its feasibility. …

Applied Hw/Sw Co-Design: Using The Kendall Tau Algorithm For Adaptive Pacing, Kenneth W. Chee

Master's Theses

Microcontrollers, the brains of embedded systems, have found their way into every aspect of our lives including medical devices such as pacemakers. Pacemakers provide life supporting functions to people therefore it is critical for these devices to meet their timing constraints. This thesis examines the use of hardware co-processing to accelerate the calculation time associated with the critical tasks of a pacemaker. In particular, we use an FPGA to accelerate a microcontroller’s calculation time of the Kendall Tau Rank Correlation Coefficient algorithm. The Kendall Tau Rank Correlation Coefficient is a statistical measure that determines the pacemaker’s voltage level for heart …

Design Of Portable Dc Light Bulb For The Dc House Project, Jan Marvin Perez Macairan

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on the design and implementation of the Portable DC Light Bulb system for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s DC House Project. The DC Portable Light Bulb highlights the NiMH battery charging circuit, buck converter, and boost converter. The system is intended as a flashlight adaptor placed in between the dimmable DC light bulb and its screw base. The adaptor adds a portability feature to the DC light bulb to provide lighting wherever the user pleases. The Portable DC Light Bulb system is designed to operate with an input range of 24V-60V and regulate an output voltage of …

Designing Anti-Islanding Detection Using The Synchrophasor Vector Processor, Ruth Christiana Huang

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

Designing Anti-Islanding Detection Using the Synchrophasor Vector Processor

Ruth Huang

The need for distributed generation (DG) has become more and more popular because of the adverse effects of fossil fuels and the fear of running out of fossil fuels. By having DG, there are less transmission losses, voltage support, controllability of the system, decreased costs in transmission and distribution, power quality improvement, energy efficiency, and reduced reserve margin. The adverse effects of DG are voltage flicker, harmonics, and islanding. Islanding occurs when the DG continues to energize the power system when the main utility is disconnected. Detecting islanding is …

The Bicycle-Powered Smartphone Charger, Chris Arntzen

Master's Theses

This thesis entails the design and fabrication of a smartphone charger that is powered by a bicycle dynamo hub. In addition to the design and validation of the charger prototype, this thesis involves the testing and characterization of the dynamo hub power source, the design and construction of specialized test equipment, and the design and prototyping of a handlebar-mounted case for the smartphone and charging electronics. With the intention of making the device a commercial product, price, aesthetics, and marketability are of importance to the design. An appropriate description of the charger circuit is a microcontroller-based energy management system, tailored …

Voltage Stability Analysis Using Simulated Synchrophasor Measurements, Allan Agatep

Master's Theses

An increase in demand for electric power has forced utility transmission systems to continuously operate under stressed conditions, which are close to instability limits. Operating power systems under such conditions along with inadequate reactive power reserves initiates a sequence of voltage instability points and can ultimately lead to a system voltage collapse. Significant research have been focused on time-synchronized measurements of power systems which can be used to frequently determine the state of a power system and can lead to a more robust protection, control and operation performance. This thesis discusses the applicability of two voltage stability synchrophasor-based indices from …

Modeling And Analysis Of A Dynamic Voltage Regulator, Timothy David Haskell

Master's Theses

Increased government funding and incentives in recent years has led to an increase in the number of grid-tied renewable energy sources as their economic benefits become more renowned. Unfortunately, the outputs of these renewable resources are often highly variable, resulting in undesirable voltage disruptions that are harmful to sensitive loads. In addition to the energy variability of renewable energy sources, random voltage sags, swells and disruptions are already a major issue in power systems. Recent advances in power electronic devices have provided a platform for new solutions to the voltage support problem in power systems. One promising solution is the …

Modeling And Analysis Of A Pv Grid-Tied Smart Inverter's Support Functions, Benjamin Anders Johnson

Master's Theses

The general trends in the past decade of increasing solar cell efficiency, decreasing PV system costs, increasing government incentive programs, and several other factors have all combined synergistically to reduce the barriers of entry for PV systems to enter the market and expand their contribution to the global energy portfolio. The shortcomings of current inverter functions which link PV systems to the utility network are becoming transparent as PV penetration levels continue to increase. The solution this thesis proposes is an approach to control the inverters real and reactive power output to help eliminate the problems associated with PV systems …

Dc, Rf, And Thermal Characterization Of High Electric Field Induced Degradation Mechanisms In Gan-On-Si High Electron Mobility Transistors, Matthew Anthony Bloom

Master's Theses

Gallium Nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are becoming increasingly popular in power amplifier systems as an alternative to bulkier vacuum tube technologies. GaN offers advantages over other III-V semiconductor heterostructures such as a large bandgap energy, a low dielectric constant, and a high critical breakdown field. The aforementioned qualities make GaN a prime candidate for high-power and radiation-hardened applications using a smaller form-factor. Several different types of semiconductor substrates have been considered for their thermal properties and cost-effectiveness, and Silicon (Si) has been of increasing interest due to a balance between both factors.

In this thesis, the DC, …