Engineering Commons^™

Towards The Development Of A Wearable Tremor Suppression Glove, Yue Zhou

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) often associate with tremor. Among other symptoms of PD, tremor is the most aggressive symptom and it is difficult to control with traditional treatments. This thesis presents the assessment of Parkinsonian hand tremor in both the time domain and the frequency domain, the performance of a tremor estimator using different tremor models, and the development of a novel mechatronic transmission system for a wearable tremor suppression device. This transmission system functions as a mechatronic splitter that allows a single power source to support multiple independent applications. Unique features of this transmission system include low …

Energy Forecasting For Event Venues: Big Data And Prediction Accuracy, Katarina Grolinger, Alexandra L'Heureux, Miriam Am Capretz, Luke Seewald

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Advances in sensor technologies and the proliferation of smart meters have resulted in an explosion of energy-related data sets. These Big Data have created opportunities for development of new energy services and a promise of better energy management and conservation. Sensor-based energy forecasting has been researched in the context of office buildings, schools, and residential buildings. This paper investigates sensor-based forecasting in the context of event-organizing venues, which present an especially difficult scenario due to large variations in consumption caused by the hosted events. Moreover, the significance of the data set size, specifically the impact of temporal granularity, on energy …

Wireless Device Authentication Techniques Using Physical-Layer Device Fingerprint, Peng Hao

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Due to the open nature of the radio signal propagation medium, wireless communication is inherently more vulnerable to various attacks than wired communication. Consequently, communication security is always one of the critical concerns in wireless networks. Given that the sophisticated adversaries may cover up their malicious behaviors through impersonation of legitimate devices, reliable wireless authentication is becoming indispensable to prevent such impersonation-based attacks through verification of the claimed identities of wireless devices.

Conventional wireless authentication is achieved above the physical layer using upper-layer identities and key-based cryptography. As a result, user authenticity can even be validated for the malicious attackers …

Adaptive Single-Phase Reclosing In Transmission Lines, Farzad Zhalefar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research work is mainly concerned about dealing with temporary short circuit faults in power system transmission lines. In fact, there are two types of electrical faults in power systems, namely temporary and permanent. When a fault is permanent, the only way to clear it is to de-energize the transmission line by opening the associated circuit breakers. However, in many cases the fault is not solid and is caused by objects such as flying birds or broken branches of trees. For these cases, electrical arc plays a major role. For such fault cases, it is also possible to de-energize the …

Secrecy Enhancement In Cooperative Relaying Systems, Elham Nosrati

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Cooperative communications is obviously an evolution in wireless networks due to its noticeable advantages such as increasing the coverage as well as combating fading and shadowing effects. However, the broadcast characteristic of a wireless medium which is exploited in cooperative communications leads to a variety of security vulnerabilities. As cooperative communication networks are globally expanded, they expose to security attacks and threats more than ever. Primarily, researchers have focused on upper layers of network architectures to meet the requirements for secure cooperative transmission while the upper-layer security solutions are incapable of combating a number of security threats, e.g., jamming attacks. …

On Enhancements Of Physical Layer Secret Key Generation And Its Application In Wireless Communication Systems, Kang Liu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As an alternative and appealing approach to providing information security in wireless communication systems, secret key generation at physical layer has demonstrated its potential in terms of efficiency and reliability over traditional cryptographic methods. Without the necessity of a management centre for key distribution or reliance on computational complexity, physical layer key generation protocols enable two wireless entities to extract identical and dynamic keys from the randomness of the wireless channels associated with them.

In this thesis, the reliability of secret key generation at the physical layer is examined in practical wireless channels with imperfect channel state information (CSI). Theoretical …

Analysis And Compensation Of Power Amplifier Distortions In Wireless Communication Systems, Sharath Manjunath

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Wireless communication devices transmit message signals which should possess desirable power levels for quality transmission. Power amplifiers are devices in the wireless transmitters which increase the power of signals to the desired levels, but produce nonlinear distortions due to their saturation property, resulting in degradation of the quality of the transmitted signal. This thesis talks about the analysis and performance of communication systems in presence of power amplifier nonlinear distortions.

First, the thesis studies the effects of power amplifier nonlinear distortions on communication signals and proposes a simplified design for identification and compensation of the distortions at the receiver end …

Empirical Investigation Of Key Business Factors For Digital Game Performance, Saiqa Aleem, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Game development is an interdisciplinary concept that embraces software engineering, business, management, and artistic disciplines. This research facilitates a better understanding of the business dimension of digital games. The main objective of this research is to investigate empirically the effect of business factors on the performance of digital games in the market and to answer the research questions asked in this study. Game development organizations are facing high pressure and competition in the digital game industry. Business has become a crucial dimension, especially for game development organizations. The main contribution of this paper is to investigate empirically the influence of …

Modeling, Construction, And Validation Of A Simulator For A Nuclear Process Control Test Facility, Binggang Cui

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis presents the modeling, construction, and validation of a software simulator for a facility with physical components, referred to as NPCTF (Nuclear Process Control Test Facility). The simulator focuses simulation functionalities on dynamic behaviours of thermal-hydraulic systems related to nuclear power plants.

The modeling techniques adopted to construct the simulator are based on physical principles. Dynamic models are developed to reproduce the dynamic characteristics of NPCTF. Based on these mathematical relationships, computer codes are developed with the toolbox Simscape. The simulator can be used to investigate specific scenarios of NPCTF under similar operating conditions.

A simulation environment, the toolbox …

Charging Level And Deposition Of Droplets In Electrostatic Painting, Husam Osman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The process of electrostatic painting has become a very important method of coating in a wide range of industrial applications including those used in the automobile industry. The general principle of spray coating is to deposit liquid droplets or solid powder particles on coated targets having various shapes. The electrostatic coating process consists of three main stages: droplet formation and charging, transportation and deposition. The complication of this process is caused by various factors, such as the physical properties of the material to be used, the appropriate electrical and mechanical conditions and the target surface to be coated, which affects …

Secondary Electrohydrodynamic Flow Generated By Corona And Dielectric Barrier Discharges, Mohammadreza Ghazanchaei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of the main goals of applied electrostatics engineering is to discover new perspectives in a wide range of research areas. Controlling the fluid media through electrostatic forces has brought new important scientific and industrial applications. Electric field induced flows, or electrohydrodynamics (EHD), have shown promise in the field of fluid dynamics. Although numerous EHD applications have been explored and extensively studied so far, most of the works are either experimental studies, which are not capable to explain the in depth physics of the phenomena, or detailed analytical studies, which are not time effective. The focus of this study is …

Endoscopic Targeting Tasks Simulator: An Approach Using Game Engines, Shaun W. Carnegie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The pervasiveness of simulators used in professions requiring the skilled control of expensive machinery such as is the case in the aviation, mining, construction, and naval industries raises an intriguing question about the relatively poor adoption within the field of medicine. Certain surgical procedures such as neuro-endoscopic and laparoscopic lend themselves well to the application of virtual reality based simulators. This is due to the innate ability to decom- pose these complex macro level procedures into a hierarchy of subtasks that can be modelled in a software simulator to augment existing teaching and training techniques.

The research in this thesis …

Gamification Framework For Sensor Data Analytics, Alexandra L'Heureux

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Data in all of its form is becoming a central part of our existence, it is being captured in every facets of our everyday life: social media, pictures, smartphones, wearable devices, smart building etc. One of the main drivers of this Big Data Revolution is the Internet of Things, which enables inert objects to communicate through a multitude of sensors. The data amassed fuels a thirst for information, the extraction of such knowledge is rendered possible through Data Analytics Techniques.

However, when it comes to sensor data our large-scale ability to perform analytics is highly limited by the difficulties associated …

Elastic Highly Available Cloud Computing, Hassan Hawilo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

High availability and elasticity are two the cloud computing services technical features. Elasticity is a key feature of cloud computing where provisioning of resources is closely tied to the runtime demand. High availability assure that cloud applications are resilient to failures. Existing cloud solutions focus on providing both features at the level of the virtual resource through virtual machines by managing their restart, addition, and removal as needed. These existing solutions map applications to a specific design, which is not suitable for many applications especially virtualized telecommunication applications that are required to meet carrier grade standards. Carrier grade applications typically …

A 3-Dof Stewart Platform For Trenchless Pipeline Rehabilitation, Derek K. Brecht

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A major component of the infrastructure of any modern city is a network of underground pipes that transport drinking water, storm water and sewage. Most of the pipes currently being used are made out of concrete or various plastics. As with any material, they have an expected lifespan after which deterioration begins to occur. This can result in cracks, and in some cases, even large holes in the pipe which can cause a complete loss of function of the pipe. These defects invariably lead to water losses that necessitate the repair of the pipeline, which is an expensive undertaking.

The …

Modern Optimization Algorithms And Applications: Architectural Layout Generation And Parallel Linear Programming, Bradley J. De Vlugt

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines two topics from the field of computational optimization; architectural layout generation and parallel linear programming. The first topic, a modern problem in heuristic optimization, focuses on deriving a general form of the optimization problem and solving it with the proposed Evolutionary Treemap algorithm. Tests of the algorithm's implementation within a highly scalable web application developed with Scala and the web service framework Play reveal the algorithm is effective at generated layouts in multiple styles. The second topic, a classical problem in operations research, focuses on methodologies for implementing the Simplex Algorithm on a parallel computer for solving …

Real Time Testing And Validation Of A Novel Short Circuit Current (Scc) Controller For A Photovoltaic Inverter, Vishwajitsinh H. Atodaria

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

About 45% applications from PV solar farm developers seeking connections to the distribution grids in Ontario were denied in 2011-13 as the short circuit current (SCC) capacity of several distribution substations had already been reached. PV solar system inverters typically contribute 1.2 p.u. to 1.8 p.u. fault current which was not considered acceptable by utility companies due to the need for very expensive protective breaker upgrades. Since then, this cause has become a major impediment in the growth of PV based renewable systems in Ontario.

A novel predictive technique has been patented in our research group for management of short …

Location Estimation In Wireless Communication Systems, Kejun Tong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Localization has become a key enabling technology in many emerging wireless applications and services. One of the most challenging problems in wireless localization technologies is that the performance is easily affected by the signal propagation environment. When the direct path between transmitter and receiver is obstructed, the signal measurement error for the localization process will increase significantly. Considering this problem, we first propose a novel algorithm which can automatically detect and remove the obstruction and improve the localization performance in complex environment. Besides the environmental dependency, the accuracy of target location estimation is highly sensitive to the positions of reference …

Smart Pv Inverter Control For Distribution Systems, Ehsan M. Siavashi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

PV solar systems employ inverters to transform dc power from solar panels into ac power for injecting into the power grids. Inverters that perform multiple functions in addition to real power production are known as “smart inverters”.

This thesis presents a novel control of PV inverter as a dynamic reactive power compensator – STATCOM. This “smart PV inverter” control enables a PV solar inverter to operate in three modes – i) Full PV, ii) Partial STATCOM, and iii) Full STATCOM, depending upon system needs. The novel control is developed and demonstrated for the objectives of a) symmetrical voltage regulation, b) …

Exploitation Of Data Correlation And Performance Enhancement In Wireless Sensor Networks, Tianqi Yu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

With the combination of wireless communications and embedded system, lots of progress has been made in the area of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The networks have already been widely deployed, due to their self-organization capacity and low-cost advantage. However, there are still some technical challenges needed to be addressed. In the thesis, three algorithms are proposed in improving network energy efficiency, detecting data fault and reducing data redundancy.

The basic principle behind the proposed algorithms is correlation in the data collected by WSNs. The first sensor scheduling algorithm is based on the spatial correlation between neighbor sensor readings. Given the …

In Need Of A Domain-Specific Language Modeling Notation For Smartphone Applications With Portable Capability, Hamza Ghandorh, Luiz Fernando Capretz Dr., Ali Bou Nassif Dr.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

The rapid growth of the smartphone market and its increasing revenue has motivated developers to target multiple platforms. Market leaders, such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft, develop their smartphone applications complying with their platform specifications. The specification of each platform makes a platform-dedicated application incompatible with other platforms due to the diversity of operating systems, programming languages, and design patterns. Conventional development methodologies are applied to smartphone applications, yet they perform less well. Smartphone applications have unique hardware and software requirements. All previous factors push smartphone developers to build less sophisticated and low-quality products when targeting multiple smartphone platforms. Model-driven …

Design Of Novel Sensors And Instruments For Minimally Invasive Lung Tumour Localization Via Palpation, Anish Srinivasan Naidu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Minimally Invasive Thoracoscopic Surgery (MITS) has become the treatment of choice for lung cancer. However, MITS prevents the surgeons from using manual palpation, thereby often making it challenging to reliably locate the tumours for resection. This thesis presents the design, analysis and validation of novel tactile sensors, a novel miniature force sensor, a robotic instrument, and a wireless hand-held instrument to address this limitation. The low-cost, disposable tactile sensors have been shown to easily detect a 5 mm tumour located 10 mm deep in soft tissue. The force sensor can measure six degrees of freedom forces and torques with temperature …

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Compatible Remote Catheter Navigation System, Mohammad Ali Tavallaei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Many vascular and cardiac diseases are diagnosed and treated using a medical technique known as percutaneous transluminal catheter intervention (PTC). In PTC, the interventionalist inserts a catheter into the vasculature, and using the vessel as the guiding passageway, the catheter is navigated to desired anatomical targets where it would be used for various purposes such as catheter ablation for the treatment/management of cardiac arrhythmias. The catheterization procedure is conventionally guided with x-ray fluoroscopic imaging and more recently, but rarely, with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). X-ray imaging irradiates the patient directly during the procedure, and the staff and interventionalists indirectly through …

Non-Linear Chirp Spread Spectrum Communication Systems Of Binary Orthogonal Keying Mode, Quan Wang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Chirp spread spectrum (CSS) is a suitable choice of modulation signals for wireless communications, due to its inherited advantages such as low transmission power, simplicity of implementation, good interference rejection capability. Linear chirps are common choices in practical CSS systems of binary orthogonal keying (BOK) mode. However, linear chirps generally require the time-bandwidth product of each chirp signal to be 60 sHz or more in order to achieve desirable orthogonality requirements. Thus, a BOK CSS system based on linear chirps has to occupy very wide bandwidth, which is a very precious resource for wireless communication. Clearly, the requirement on broad …

Hardware Implementations For Symmetric Key Cryptosystems, Hayssam El-Razouk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The utilization of global communications network for supporting new electronic applications is growing. Many applications provided over the global communications network involve exchange of security-sensitive information between different entities. Often, communicating entities are located at different locations around the globe. This demands deployment of certain mechanisms for providing secure communications channels between these entities. For this purpose, cryptographic algorithms are used by many of today's electronic applications to maintain security. Cryptographic algorithms provide set of primitives for achieving different security goals such as: confidentiality, data integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation. In general, two main categories of cryptographic algorithms can be used …

Control System Design, Analysis, And Simulation Of A Photovoltaic Inverter For Unbalanced Load Compensation In A Microgrid, Elizabeth K. Tomaszewski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis presents a control scheme for a single-stage three-phase Photovoltaic (PV) converter with negative sequence load current compensation.

In this thesis a dual virtual impedance active damping technique for an LCL filter is proposed to address the issue of LCL filter resonance. Both inverter-side current and the capacitor current are used in the feedback loop. Using both signals provides higher DC rejection than using capacitor current alone. The proposed active damping scheme results in a faster transient response and higher damping ratio than can be obtained using inverter-side current alone. The feedback gains can be calculated to achieve a …

Power Management Strategies For A Wind Energy Source In An Isolated Microgrid And Grid Connected System, Devbratta Thakur

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis focuses on the development of power management control strategies for a direct drive permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) based variable speed wind turbine (VSWT). Two modes of operation have been considered: (1) isolated/islanded mode, and (2) grid-connected mode.

In the isolated/islanded mode, the system requires additional energy sources and sinks to counterbalance the intermittent nature of the wind. Thus, battery energy storage and photovoltaic (PV) systems have been integrated with the wind turbine to form a microgrid with hybrid energy sources. For the wind/battery hybrid system, several energy management and control issues have been addressed, such as DC …

Force Sensing In Arthroscopic Instruments Using Fiber Bragg Gratings, Daniel S. Yurkewich

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Minimally-invasive surgery has revolutionized many medical procedures; however, it also impedes the ability to feel the interaction between the surgical tool and the anatomical part being operated on. In order to address this problem, it is necessary to obtain accurate measurements of the interaction forces exerted on the surgical tools during surgery. These forces can then be manifested to the surgeon via a haptic device or presented visually (visual-force feedback). This thesis describes the use of a fiber optic device to measure and display to the surgeon interaction forces acting on an arthroscopic tool. The sensorization of the tool involves …

Novel Physical Layer Authentication Techniques For Secure Wireless Communications, Jiazi Liu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Due to the open nature of radio propagation, information security in wireless communications has been facing more challenges compared to its counterpart in wired networks. Authentication, defined as an important aspect of information security, is the process of verifying the identity of transmitters to prevent against spoofing attacks. Traditionally, secure wireless communications is achieved by relying solely upon higher layer cryptographic mechanisms. However, cryptographic approaches based on complex mathematical calculations are inefficient and vulnerable to various types of attacks. Recently, researchers have shown that the unique properties of wireless channels can be exploited for authentication enhancement by providing additional security …

Configuration, Programming, Implementation, And Evaluation Of Distributed Control System For A Process Simulator, Ximing Liu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Abstract

A common industrial distributed control system (DCS), DeltaV, is configured and programmed to control and monitor the Nuclear Process Control Test Facility (NPCTF). A cabinet which holds the hardware of the DelatV DCS system, including programmable logic controller (PLC), power supplies, input/output (I/O) cards, terminals, and relays are configured and wired to field devices of NPCTF. A workstation and HMI screen are configured and setup.

To implement the main functions of NPCTF in the DelatV system, the programming architecture is designed in the DelatV system. The main control and monitoring functions of NPCTF are programmed using industrial languages of …