Engineering Commons^™

Design Of Power Switched-Capacitor Converters And Their Performance Analysis In A Soft-Charging Operation, Ayoob Alateeq

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Switched-capacitor (SC) converters have gained more interest due to their high power density and appropriateness for small circuit integration. Building a SC DC-to-DC converter with only capacitors and switches is the main reason to seek a higher power density achievement. However, the SC converters suffer dominant losses related to their capacitors and switches. These losses can be determined and optimized by calculating the converter's output impedance in its two asymptotic limits.

We proposed a high voltage gain and a very low output impedance power switched-capacitor converter (PSC) with a lower number of components compared to other step-up switched-capacitor topologies. The …

Simulation Of Sic Mosfet Power Converters, Mustafa Nameer Albadri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the use of wide bandgap devices (SiC-MOSFET) in the design and implementation of various power converters (Push-pull inverter, Buck converter). Different parameters and scenarios were discussed and implemented for both silicon and silicon carbide MOSFET cases. A comparison between same circuits is done using silicon in the first case and silicon carbide MOSFET was implemented under the same conditions and parameters to investigate the silicon carbide MOSFET enhancement to the circuit. The modeling for silicon and silicon carbide MOSFET was created using the spice model provided from leading electronics companies as ROHM, CREE and INFINION. This spice …

Design And Operation Of Distribution Markets, Sina Parhizi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The growing penetration of distributed prosumers especially microgrids poses new challenges to the operation of wholesale markets and distribution power systems. Price spikes and higher uncertainty are among these consequences. Distribution markets are envisioned as a remedy to streamline integration of distributed resources and microgrids in the electricity market. This dissertation offers an analytical formulation of electricity markets in the distribution level, considering various prevailing aspects of the market operation problem.

The prevailing challenges in regards to integration of microgrids in the electricity markets are illustrated first, and the distribution market operator (DMO) construct is outlined. The day-ahead scheduling of …

Optimized Trajectory Generation For Car-Like Robots On A Closed Loop Track, Tyler Friedl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a method for generating an optimized path through a given track. The path is generated by choosing waypoints throughout the track then iteratively optimizing the position of these waypoints. The waypoints are then connected by optimized paths represented by curvature polynomials. The end result is a path through the track represented as a spline of curvature polynomials. This method is applied to multiple simulated tracks and the results are presented. By generating and representing the paths in the continuous domain, the method has improved computational efficiency from many of the discrete methods used to generate an optimal …

Effect Of Exponential Correlation Model On Spectral And Energy Efficiency For Massive Mimo Systems, Saleh Albdran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the past few years, the number of wireless devices has been increasing rapidly. Wireless networks are serving and connecting billions of wireless devices where these devices are demanding higher data rate and lower latency to be able to support voice, video and gaming applications. Moreover, the consumed energy by the wireless systems will be increasing. Hence, the Fifth generation (5G) wireless networks needs to provide higher data rate, serve larger number of users simultaneously and be more energy efficient. One of the promising technologies that can meet the above requirements is Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO). The main …

Optimal Capacity And Energy Efficiency Of Massive Mimo Systems, Ahmed Alshammari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A lot of effort has been made during the last two decades to study and apply the concepts of MIMO technology in most of the wireless standards. Therefore, a huge improvement in the performance of wireless communications has been made. However, Demand for wireless services has exponentially increased during the past ten years. Hence, high throughput is very important for all users to get the best experience with the offered services. This creates many technical challenges that are difficult to handle with the existing technology. Therefore, massive multiple input multiple output (massive MIMO) is a new technology that has been …

Data-Centric Situational Awareness And Management In Intelligent Power Systems, Xiaoxiao Dai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rapid development of technology and society has made the current power system a much more complicated system than ever. The request for big data based situation awareness and management becomes urgent today. In this dissertation, to respond to the grand challenge, two data-centric power system situation awareness and management approaches are proposed to address the security problems in the transmission/distribution grids and social benefits augmentation problem at the distribution-customer lever, respectively.

To address the security problem in the transmission/distribution grids utilizing big data, the first approach provides a fault analysis solution based on characterization and analytics of the synchrophasor …

Risk Optimized Microgrid Resource Management, Thomas William Cashel Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis proposes a risk based price adjustment method for a day ahead scheduling of a distribution side tiered community microgrid within a transactive energy style market. The system is organized into a master controller and local controller confïguration to simulate behind meter activity that is not visible to the master controller. Conditional value at risk is used to asses the risk of distributed energy resources in each local controller and the risk for each local controller is aggregated providing each local controller a single risk value. Each device's, or local controller's, risk value is used to adjust the price …

Simultaneous Behavior Onset Detection And Task Classification For Patients With Parkinson Disease Using Subthalamic Nucleus Local Field Potentials, Nazanin Zaker Habibabadi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to develop of methods for behavior onset detection of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), as well as to investigate the models for classification of different behavioral tasks performed by PD patient. The detection is based on recorded Local Field Potentials (LFP) of the Subthalamic nucleus (STN), captured through Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) process.

One main part of this work is dedicated to the research of various properties and features of the STN LFP signals of several patients' behavior conditions. Features based on temporal and time-frequency analysis of the signals are developed and implemented. Evaluation and comparison of …

System Frequency Support Of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator-Based Wind Power Plant, Ziping Wu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With ever-increasing penetration of wind power into modern electric grids all over the world, a trending replacement of conventional synchronous generators by large wind power plants will likely result in the poor overall frequency regulation performance. On the other hand, permanent magnet synchronous generator wind Turbine System (PMSG-WTG) with full power back to back converters tends to become one of the most promising wind turbine technologies thanks to various advantages. It possesses a significant amount of kinetic energy stored in the rotating mass of turbine blades, which can be utilized to enhance the total inertia of power system. Additionally, the …

A Comprehensive Methodology For Design Of A Circulation Control Small-Scale Unmanned Aircraft, Konstantinos Kanistras

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become increasingly prevalent and important for a wide spectrum of civilian and military operations. When focusing on small-scale fixed-wing UAVs, payload, power and energy requirements limit considerably their utilization and flexibility allowing them to complete only those specific missions they are designed for. Circulation Control (CC) is an active flow control method used to produce increased lift over the traditional systems (flaps, slats, etc...) currently in use. This dissertation focuses on the foundations of a comprehensive methodology from design to implementation and experimental testing of Coanda-based Circulation Control Wings (CCW) for unmanned aircraft. The …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Kesterite Cu2znsns4 (Czts) Thin Films For Solar Cell Application, Mohamed M.A. Abusnina

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The quaternary compound Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) gained considerable attention in the last decade due to its potential as an active-layer semiconductor for low-cost thin-film solar cells. The material is composed of nontoxic and Earth-abundant constituents, has optical properties suitable for photovoltaic application, and can be synthesized using a wide variety of methods.

Polycrystalline CZTS was grown in this work using vacuum-based deposition to first deposit metal films (precursors) of Cu, Zn, and Sn. In a subsequent step, the precursors underwent an annealing treatment in sulfur vapor environment (sulfurization) to form CZTS. Using sputtering, a physical vapor deposition (PVD) …

Autonomous Collision Avoidance For A Teleoperated Uav Based On A Super-Ellipsoidal Potential Function, Mohammed Salim Qasim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the design of a super-ellipsoidal potential function (SEPF) that can be used, in a static and dynamic environment, for autonomous collision avoidance of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in a 3-dimensional space. In the design of the SEPF, we have the full control over the shape and size of the potential function. In our proposed approach, a teleoperated UAV can not only autonomously avoid collision with surrounding objects but also track the operator' control input as closely as possible. As a result, an operator can always be in control of the UAV for his/her high-level guidance and …

Power Grid Management In Response To Extreme Events, Rozhin Eskandarpour

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Power system management in response to extreme events is one the most important operational aspects of power systems. In this thesis, a novel Event-driven Security Constrained Unit Commitment (E-SCUC) model and a statistical method, based on regression and data mining to estimate the system components outages, are proposed. The proposed models help consider the simultaneous outage of several system components represented by an N-1-m reliability criterion and accordingly determine the proper system response. In addition, an optimal microgrid placement model with the objective of minimizing the cost of unserved energy to enhance power system resilience is proposed.

The …

Integrated Phev Charging Loads Forecasting Model And Optimization Strategies, Yin Yao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, an integrated Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PHEV) charging loads forecasting model is developed for regular distribution level system and microgrid system. For regular distribution system, charging schedule optimization is followed up. The objectives are 1. Better cooperation with renewable energy sources (especially wind). 2. Relieving the pressure of current distribution transformers in condition of high penetration level PHEVs. As for microgrid, renewable energy power plants (wind, solar) plays a more important role than regular system. Due to the fluctuation of solar and wind plants' output, an empirical probabilistic model is developed to predict their hourly output. On the …

Design And Control Of Islanded Microgrid, Zeya Cai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The control of frequency and power has always been a problem in the development of microgrid. This thesis focuses on the design and control of islanded microgrid; more specifically, it includes the design of the PV system and wind power system and the control of the frequency, voltage and the power output of the islanded microgrid.

Microgrid consists of the power sources, the control system, the distribution network and the load. More specifically, the power sources are composed of PV system and wind turbine system; the control system in the microgrid includes the droop controller, the Maximum Power Point Tracking …

A Reserve-Based Method For Mitigating The Impact Of Renewable Energy, Ibrahim Krad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The fundamental operating paradigm of today's power systems is undergoing a significant shift. This is partially motivated by the increased desire for incorporating variable renewable energy resources into generation portfolios. While these generating technologies offer clean energy at zero marginal cost, i.e. no fuel costs, they also offer unique operating challenges for system operators. Perhaps the biggest operating challenge these resources introduce is accommodating their intermittent fuel source availability. For this reason, these generators increase the system-wide variability and uncertainty. As a result, system operators are revisiting traditional operating strategies to more efficiently incorporate these generation resources to maximize the …

Implementation Of An Air Supply Unit Control Scheme For The Uc2av (Unmanned Circulation Control Aerial Vehicle), Cameron Rosen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The expanded prevalence of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in recent years has created many opportunities to research novel applications for their use, enabled by the reduced cost, mission flexibility, and reduced risk that small-scale unmanned platforms provide in comparison to larger aircraft. Despite the versatility of unmanned aviation, limitations on payload size and weight, fuel and power capacity, and takeoff and landing infrastructure can restrict UAV applications, and have created a need for lift augmenting technologies that can reduce the impact of these limitations. Circulation Control (CC) is an active flow technique that has been proven as a method for …

Synchrophasor Sensing And Processing Based Smart Grid Security Assessment For Renewable Energy Integration, Huaiguang Jiang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the evolution of energy and power systems, the emerging Smart Grid (SG) is mainly featured by distributed renewable energy generations, demand-response control and huge amount of heterogeneous data sources. Widely distributed synchrophasor sensors, such as phasor measurement units (PMUs) and fault disturbance recorders (FDRs), can record multi-modal signals, for power system situational awareness and renewable energy integration.

An effective and economical approach is proposed for wide-area security assessment. This approach is based on wavelet analysis for detecting and locating the short-term and long-term faults in SG, using voltage signals collected by distributed synchrophasor sensors.

A data-driven approach for fault …

Microgrid Optimal Scheduling Considering Impact Of High Penetration Wind Generation, Abdulaziz Furreh Alanazi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to study the impact of high penetration wind energy in economic and reliable operation of microgrids. Wind power is variable, i.e., constantly changing, and nondispatchable, i.e., cannot be controlled by the microgrid controller. Thus an accurate forecasting of wind power is an essential task in order to study its impacts in microgrid operation. Two commonly used forecasting methods including Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) have been used in this thesis to improve the wind power forecasting. The forecasting error is calculated using a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and …

Spontaneous Facial Behavior Computing In Human Machine Interaction With Applications In Autism Treatment, Seyedmohammad Mavadati

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Digital devices and computing machines such as computers, hand-held devices and robots are becoming an important part of our daily life. To have affect-aware intelligent Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) systems, scientists and engineers have aimed to design interfaces which can emulate face-to-face communication. Such HMI systems are capable of detecting and responding upon users' emotions and affective states. One of the main challenges for producing such intelligent system is to design a machine, which can automatically compute spontaneous behaviors of humans in real-life settings. Since humans' facial behaviors contain important non-verbal cues, this dissertation studies facial actions and behaviors in HMI …

Electroencephalogram Based Causality Graph Analysis In Behavior Tasks Of Parkinson’S Disease Patients, Abdulaziz Saleh Almalaq

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electroencephalographic (EEG) signals of the human brains represent electrical activities for a number of channels recorded over a the scalp. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the interactions and causality of different parts of a brain using EEG signals recorded during a performance subjects of verbal fluency tasks. Subjects who have Parkinson's Disease (PD) have difficulties with mental tasks, such as switching between one behavior task and another. The behavior tasks include phonemic fluency, semantic fluency, category semantic fluency and reading fluency. This method uses verbal generation skills, activating different Broca's areas of the Brodmann's areas (BA44 …

Particle Swarm Optimization Based Reactive Power Dispatch For Power Networks With Distributed Generation, Xiao Kou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reactive power is critical to the operation of the power networks on both safety aspects and economic aspects. Unreasonable distribution of the reactive power would severely affect the power quality of the power networks and increases the transmission loss. Currently, the most economical and practical approach to minimizing the real power loss remains using reactive power dispatch method.

Reactive power dispatch problem is nonlinear and has both equality constraints and inequality constraints. In this thesis, PSO algorithm and MATPOWER 5.1 toolbox are applied to solve the reactive power dispatch problem. PSO is a global optimization technique that is equipped with …

Towards Closed-Loop Deep Brain Stimulation: Behavior Recognition From Human Stn, Soroush Niketeghad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) provides significant therapeutic benefit for movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD). Current DBS devices lack real-time feedback (thus are open loop) and stimulation parameters are adjusted during scheduled visits with a clinician. A closed-loop DBS system may reduce power consumption and side effects by adjusting stimulation parameters based on patient’s behavior. Thus behavior detection is a major step in designing such systems. Various physiological signals can be used to recognize the behaviors. Subthalamic Nucleus (STN) Local field Potential (LFP) is a great candidate signal for the neural feedback, because it can be recorded from the …

Identification Of Geostationary Satellites Using Polarization Data From Unresolved Images, Andy Speicher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In order to protect critical military and commercial space assets, the United States Space Surveillance Network must have the ability to positively identify and characterize all space objects. Unfortunately, positive identification and characterization of space objects is a manual and labor intensive process today since even large telescopes cannot provide resolved images of most space objects. Since resolved images of geosynchronous satellites are not technically feasible with current technology, another method of distinguishing space objects was explored that exploits the polarization signature from unresolved images.

The objective of this study was to collect and analyze visible-spectrum polarization data from unresolved …

Locational Marginal Pricing At The Power Distribution Level, Jun Hao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the development of smart grid at distribution level, the realization of real-time nodal pricing is one of the key challenges. This thesis proposes a novel methodology of locational marginal pricing at power distribution level. The nodal pricing mechanism is implemented utilizing both Direct Current Optimal Power Flow and Alternate Current Optimal Power Flow. The University of Denver campus power grid is used to develop the simulation test bed of the distribution level power system. In order to realize our approach, the first step is to extract the network topology from the DU campus grid utility map. The network topology …

Islanded Wind Energy Management System Based On Neural Networks, Ziqiao Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wind power, as the main renewable energy source, is increasingly deployed and connected into electrical networks thanks to the development of wind energy conversion technologies. This dissertation is focusing on research related to wind power system include grid-connected/islanded wind power systems operation and control design, wind power quality, wind power prediction technologies, and its applications in microgrids. The doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) wind turbine is popular in the wind industry and thus has been researched in this Dissertation. In order to investigate reasons of harmonic generation in wind power systems, a DFIG wind turbine is modeled by using general …

Statistical Scheduling Of Economic Dispatch And Energy Reserves Of Hybrid Power Systems With High Renewable Energy Penetration, Yi Gu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A statistical scheduling approach to economic dispatch and energy reserves is proposed in this paper. The proposed approach focuses on minimizing the overall power operating cost with considerations of renewable energy uncertainty and power system security. A hybrid power system generates electricity from both conventional and renewable energy sources. In such a system, it is challenging and yet an open question on the scheduling of economic dispatch together with energy reserves, due to renewable energy generation uncertainty, and spatially wide distribution of energy resources. The hybrid power system scheduling is formulated as a convex programming problem to minimize power operating …

Condition Monitoring System Of Wind Turbine Generators, Khaled Bubaker Abdusamad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development and implementation of the condition monitoring systems (CMS) play a significant role in overcoming the number of failures in the wind turbine generators that result from the harsh operation conditions, such as over temperature, particularly when turbines are deployed offshore. In order to increase the reliability of the wind energy industry, monitoring the operation conditions of wind generators is essential to detect the immediate faults rapidly and perform appropriate preventative maintenance. CMS helps to avoid failures, decrease the potential shutdowns while running, reduce the maintenance and operation costs and maintain wind turbines protected. The knowledge of wind turbine …

Solar Power Deployment: Forecasting And Planning, Mohana Shandal Alanazi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rapid growth of Photovoltaic (PV) technology has been very visible over the past decade. Recently, the penetration of PV plants to the existing grid has significantly increased. Such increase in the integration of solar energy has brought attention to the solar irradiance forecasting. This thesis presents a thorough research of PV technology, how solar power can be forecasted, and PV planning under uncertainty.

Over the last decade, the PV was one of the fastest growing renewable energy technologies. However, the PV system output varies based on weather conditions. Due to the variability and the uncertainty of solar power, the …