Engineering Commons^™

Combined Beamforming And Space-Time Block Coding With A Sparse Array Antenna, Robert H. Morelos-Zaragoza, Mohammad Ghavami

Faculty Publications

We continue our investigation of joint beamforming and transmit diversity with space-time block coding. In particular, the performance of a four-element array antenna is considered, in the context of an indoor wireless communication system. The main contribution is to show that transmit diversity may be practically achieved, even with correlated beams produced by a sparse array antenna.

Wireless Lans, Jack Glas, Mihai Banu, Joachim Hammerschmidt, Vladimir I. Prodanov, Peter Kiss

Electrical Engineering

Wireless LANs based on the IEEE 802.11 standard have achieved wide customer acceptance in the enterprise environment. They are expected to continue to expand in popularity and become ubiquitous communication systems even in private and public places. This paper discusses the basics of the wireless LAN physical layer, focusing on radio transceiver specifications and design options.

Automatic Speechreading With Applications To Human-Computer Interfaces, Xiaozheng Zhang, Charles C. Broun, Russell M. Mersereau, Mark A. Clements

Electrical Engineering

There has been growing interest in introducing speech as a new modality into the human-computer interface (HCI). Motivated by the multimodal nature of speech, the visual component is considered to yield information that is not always present in the acoustic signal and enables improved system performance over acoustic-only methods, especially in noisy environments. In this paper, we investigate the usefulness of visual speech information in HCI related applications. We first introduce a new algorithm for automatically locating the mouth region by using color and motion information and segmenting the lip region by making use of both color and edge information …

Parameter Estimation For Transformer Modeling, Sung Don Cho

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Large Power transformers, an aging and vulnerable part of our energy infrastructure, are at choke points in the grid and are key to reliability and security. Damage or destruction due to vandalism, misoperation, or other unexpected events is of great concern, given replacement costs upward of $2M and lead time of 12 months. Transient overvoltages can cause great damage and there is much interest in improving computer simulation models to correctly predict and avoid the consequences.

EMTP (the Electromagnetic Transients Program) has been developed for computer simulation of power system transients. Component models for most equipment have been developed and …

The Need For Pfc Abatement In Semiconductor Manufacturing, Mohsen Manesh, Brian Kendrick

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

Perfluorocompounds (PFCs) are highly stable chemical compounds used in two integral steps of semiconductor manufacturing: chemical vapor deposition (CVD) chambers and etch chambers. Unfortunately, PFCs are also greenhouse gases linked to global warming. This, combined with their long atmospheric lifetimes gives them global warming potentials much higher than C02 the principal greenhouse gas. In a series of voluntary agreements with the United States and other national governments, the worldwide semiconductor industry has set a goal of reducing PFC emissions to 90% of their 1995 levels. To reach this goal, researchers have explored four main methods of reduction: substitution of PFCs, …

Finger Mouse And Text-To-Speech Application As Additions To The Smart Wheelchair, Karla Conn

Kaleidoscope

The smart wheelchair project is a unique investigation into the possibilities of helping the impaired navigate in a mobile chair. Many disabled people who need the help of a wheelchair to move about also need help communicating orally. This project allows the “walking” wheelchair to do some “talking.” A communication program for the wheelchair was developed, as well as a finger mouse that was implemented into all the programs. The finger mouse is a switch button small enough to wear on one’s finger. When the button is pressed, a signal is sent out from the transmitter and picked up by …

Audio-Visual Speech Recognition By Speechreading, Xiaozheng Zhang, Russell M. Mersereau, Mark A. Clements

Electrical Engineering

Speechreading increases intelligibility in human speech perception. This suggests that conventional acoustic-based speech processing can benefit from the addition of visual information. This paper exploits speechreading for joint audio-visual speech recognition. We first present a color-based feature extraction algorithm that is able to extract salient visual speech features reliably from a frontal view of the talker in a video sequence. Then, a new fusion strategy using a coupled hidden Markov model (CHMM) is proposed to incorporate visual modality into the acoustic subsystem. By maintaining temporal coupling across the two modalities at the feature level and allowing asynchrony in the state …

Bimodal Fusion In Audio-Visual Speech Recognition, Xiaozheng Zhang, Russell M. Mersereau, Mark A. Clements

Electrical Engineering

Extending automatic speech recognition (ASR) to the visual modality has been shown to greatly increase recognition accuracy and improve system robustness over purely acoustic systems. especially in acoustically hostile environments. An important aspect of designing such systems is how to incorporate the visual component Into the acoustic speech recognizer to achieve optimal performance. In this paper, we investigate methods of Integrating the audio and visual modalities within HMM-based classification models. We examine existing integration schemes and propose the use of a coupled hidden Markov model (CHMM) to exploit audio-visual interaction. Our experimental results demonstrate that the CHMM consistently outperforms other …

Effect Of Ga Content On Defect States In Cuin1-XGaXSe2 Photovoltaic Devices, Jennifer T. Heath, J. David Cohen, William N. Shafarman, Dongxiang Liao, Angus Rockett

Faculty Publications

Defects in the band gap of CuIn_1-xGa_xSe₂ have been characterized using transient photocapacitance spectroscopy. The measured spectra clearly show response from a band of defects centered around 0.8 eV from the valence band edge as well as an exponential distribution of band tail states. Despite Ga contents ranging from Ga/(In+Ga)=0.0 to 0.8, the defect bandwidth and its position relative to the valence band remain constant. This defect band may act as an important recombination center, contributing to the decrease in device efficiency with increasing Ga content.

Implementation And Validation Of Range Imaging On A Uhf Radar Wind Profiler, P. B. Chilson, Tian-You Yu, Richard G. Strauch, Andreas Muschinski, Robert D. Palmer

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

The available range resolution of pulsed radar wind profilers is usually limited by bandwidth restrictions. Range imaging (RIM) has recently been developed as a means of mitigating these limitations by operating the wind profilers over a small set of distinct transmitter frequencies. A constrained optimization method can then be used to generate high-resolution maps of the reflectivity field as a function of range. This paper presents a description of how the RIM technique has been recently implemented on the Platteville 915-MHz tropospheric profiler, the first such implementation at UHF. Examples of data collected during a two-part experiment on 10 April …

Multiple Model Networks In Non-Linear System Modelling For Control – A Review, Ruiyao Gao, Aidan O'Dwyer

Conference papers

Non-linear processes, by their nature, are non-uniform and invariably require custom designed control schemes to deal with individual characteristics. No general theory deals comprehensively with the wide range of non-linear systems encountered. In an attempt to accurately model non-linear dynamical systems, a wide variety of techniques have been developed such as non-linear auto-regressive moving average with exogeneous inputs (NARMAX) models (Chen and Billings, 1989), Weiner models (Schetzen, 1981), Hammerstein models (Billings and Fakhouri, 1982) and Multiple Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural networks (Narendra and Kannan, 1990). While the accuracy of such models offers a potentially significant improvement over linear models, the …

Uniqueness Of Bilevel Image Degradations, Elisa H. Barney Smith

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Two major degradations, edge displacement and corner erosion, change the appearance of bilevel images. The displacement of an edge determines stroke width, and the erosion ofa corner affects crispness. These degradations are functions of the system parameters: the point spread function (PSF) width and functional form, and the binarization threshold. Changing each of these parameters will affect an image differently. A given amount of edge displacement or amount of erosion of black or white corners can be caused by several combinations of the PSF width and the binarization threshold. Any pair of these degradations are unique to a single PSF …

New Architecture For Heterogeneous Real-Time Simulation, Mandar Anil Mathure

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates a new architecture for modeling and simulating complex distributed real-time systems. Modeling adequately a large distributed real time system may involve, due to its complexity, several different theoretical vehicles such as queuing theory, finite state machines, and others. Currently there are no software tools, which would offer combining such heterogeneous features into a single comprehensive simulation environment.

This study involves integrating 3 tools, SES/workbench, an offline simulator using queuing theory as its modeling discipline, ObjecTime as a real-time simulator based on finite state machines as its modeling discipline, and VxWorks real-time kernel used for free modeling in …

The Effect Of Weak Acids Hydrolysis On The Sol-Gel Fabrication Of Silica Thin Film, Abdul Hamid

Student Works (2000-2009)

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A Vhdl Implementation Of Bist Technique In Uart Design, Mohd. Yamani Idna Idris

Student Works (2000-2009)

No abstract provided.

Modelling Of Space Charge Effects In The Electrical Discharge Of Nitrogen Gas Laser, Chin Yang Chia

Student Works (2000-2009)

A computer model for the simulation of a nitrogen gas discharge has been built and studied. This model was based on the fluid description of the discharge plasma. The Phoenical SHASTA Flux-Corrected Transport (FCT) algorithm is used for the solution of the fluid equations and its accuracy has been tested. The distribution of the local electrical field was calculated by the Poisson equation. The internal discharge current was calculated by Sato's equation. The motion of the charge particles was taken into account. The electrical discharge behavior was simulated by the circuit equation and solved using the fourth order Runge-Kutta method …

Design Of Low Phase Drift Cmos Frequency Synthesisers, Cyril Patrick Hervé Florent Lahuec

Theses

This thesis presents a methodology for the development of high performance video clock synthesisers that have high (2000) input to output clock multiplication ratios. The synthesisers are required to be compatible with standard CMOS technologies and they must exhibit very low drift between their input and output clocks.

The methodology used borrows techniques established for RF synthesisers in the GHz range. In the RF domain there are significant constraints on spectral spread and because of this there has been significant interest in phase noise generated by intrinsic device noise. Simple and accurate models were developed that help understand the up …

Servo Response And Modelling Issues In Generalised Predictive Control, Ben Griffin

Theses

One of the more popular control strategies, of late, is the Generalised Predictive Controller (GPC). It has received widespread dissemination in academia and numerous successful applications in industry testify to its usefulness. Its popularity partly stems from its superiority to its predecessors, e.g. the generalised minimum variance and pole-placement controllers, but also from the GPC ‘tuning knobs’, which have simple time-domain interpretations and extremely robust default settings. However, despite the widespread interest, there would appear to be some issues relating to the specification of the closed-loop serv^o response that have not been covered in any great detail in the GPC …

Esd Currents And Fields On The Vcp And The Hcp Modeled Using Quasi-Static Approximations, David Pommerenke, Wang Kai, Thomas Van Doren

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The horizontal coupling plane (HCP) and the vertical coupling plane (VCP) are essential elements of the standardized electrostatic discharge (ESD) test. They are used for testing the robustness of equipment against indirect (nearby) discharges. This article analyzed the current and the fields on the HCP and the VCP using plane wave, transmission line, quasi-static theory. The objective is to illustrate the dominating physical processes on these planes. The work is based on measurements of the transient currents and fields using broadband sensors.

A 0.5 Μm Thick Polysilicon Schottky Diode With Rectification Ratio Of 10^6, Elena A. Guliants, Chunhai Ji, Young J. Song, Wayne A. Anderson

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Polycrystalline Si films, 0.5-mm thick, were obtained as a result of metal-induced growth by sputtering from a Si target on 25 nm thick Ni prelayers at 525 °C. Silicon grew heteroepitaxially on the NiSi2 layer formed due to the reaction between the sputtered Si atoms and Ni. Schottky diodes were fabricated on the Si films by deposition of a Schottky metal on the front surface of the film while Ni disilicide provided an intimate ohmic contact at the back. A Pd/n-Si diode using an n-Si film annealed for 2 h at 700 °C in forming gas demonstrated a rectification ratio …

Improved Energy Model For Membrane Electroporation In Biological Cells Subjected To Electrical Pulses, R. P. Joshi, Q. Hu, K. H. Schoenbach, H. P. Hjalmarson

Bioelectrics Publications

A self-consistent model analysis of electroporation in biological cells has been carried out based on an improved energy model. The simple energy model used in the literature is somewhat incorrect and unphysical for a variety of reasons. Our model for the pore formation energy E(r) includes a dependence on pore population and density. It also allows for variable surface tension, incorporates the effects of finite conductivity on the electrostatic correction term, and is dynamic in nature. Self-consistent calculations, based on a coupled scheme involving the Smoluchowski equation and the improved energy model, are presented. It is shown that E(r) becomes …

Electrical Network-Based Time-Dependent Model Of Electrical Breakdown In Water, R. P. Joshi, J. Qian, K. H. Schoenbach

Bioelectrics Publications

A time-dependent, two-dimensional, percolative approach to model dielectric breakdown based on a network of parallel resistor–capacitor elements having random values, has been developed. The breakdown criteria rely on a threshold electric field and on energy dissipation exceeding the heat of vaporization. By carrying out this time-dependent analysis, the development and propagation of streamers and prebreakdown dynamical evolution have been obtained directly. These model simulations also provide the streamer shape, characteristics such as streamer velocity, the prebreakdown delay time, time-dependent current, and relationship between breakdown times, and applied electric fields for a given geometry. The results agree well with experimental data …

Theoretical Predictions Of Electromechanical Deformation Of Cells Subjected To High Voltages For Membrane Electroporation, R. P. Joshi, Q. Hu, K. H. Schoenbach, H. P. Hjalmarson

Bioelectrics Publications

An electromechanical analysis based on thin-shell theory is presented to analyze cell shape changes in response to external electric fields. This approach can be extended to include osmotic-pressure changes. Our calculations demonstrate that at large fields, the spherical cell geometry can be significantly modified, and even ellipsoidal forms would be inappropriate to account for the deformation. Values of the surface forces obtained from our calculations are in very good agreement with the 1–10 mN/m range for membrane rupture reported in the literature. The results, in keeping with reports in the literature, demonstrate that the final shape depends on membrane thickness. …

Sar Simulations In Wireless Communication And Safety Discussions In The Society, M. O. Özyalçin, Funda Akleman, Levent Sevgi̇

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Numerical simulation in cellular phone - human tissue interaction is discussed in this paper. The powerful time domain (TD) techniques, the transmission line matrix (TLM) and the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods, are used to model mutual effects. The purpose is to calculate specific absorption rate (SAR; defined as the power absorbed by the unit mass of the tissue), validate the codes and verify the results. Also, effectiveness of the SAR parameter in determination of the exposure limits for human health and environmental pollution is discussed.

Annular Planar Monopole Antennas, Z. N. Chen, Max Ammann, W.Y. W. Chia, T.S. P. See

Conference papers

A type of annular planar monopole antenna is presented. The impedance and radiation characteristics of the monopole with different holes and feed gaps are experimentally examined. The measured results demonstrate that the proposed antenna is capable of providing significantly broad impedance bandwidth with acceptable radiation performance.

Precise Chemical Analysis Development For Si And Gaas Surfaces, T. A. Briantseva, Z. M. Lebedeva, D. V. Lioubtchenko, M. Nolan, T. S. Perova, R. A. Moore, Kevin Berwick

Articles

Precise chemical analysis (PCA) was developed to allow the study of non-interconnected atoms on crystalline semiconductor surfaces, such as those produced during rapid thermal processing (RTP) of silicon and electron beam lithography on gallium arsenide (GaAs). The PCA method is based on selectively dissolving the different components present on the semiconductor surface using preferential etchant solutions. After etching, the etchant solution, containing the etched component, is analyzed by a photometric technique. In this paper, we present photometric measurements of the amount of “free” (non-interconnected) atoms that remain on semiconductor surfaces following electron beam and RTP processing. In this context, “free” …

A Congestion Controlled Logical Topology For Multihop Optical Networks, U. Bhattacharya, D. Datta, Badrul H. Chowdhury, G. C. Saha, B. K. Sikdar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper considers the problem of designing the logical topology for any wavelength routed optical network, given the traffic matrix. An heuristic algorithm is proposed here for designing topologies based on the De-Bruijn graph and we compare our results with those obtained through the deterministic approach. The De-Bruijn graph is selected in this context as the logical topology due to some of its characteristic features like simple routing scheme, low diameter and small degree.

Intelligent Control Of Turbogenerator Exciter/Turbine On The Electric Power Grid To Improve Power Generation And Stability, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald G. Harley, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A review of the applications of intelligent control to replace/augment the conventional excitation and/or turbine control of turbogenerators on the electric power grid is presented in the paper. The intelligent controller designs are based on neural networks and adaptive critic designs (ACDs). The feedback variables are completely based on local measurements from the generators. Simulations and some practical laboratory implementations on a single-machine-infinite-bus and a three-machine power system demonstrate that intelligent controllers are much more effective than the conventional PID control for improving dynamic performance and stability of the power grid under small and large disturbances. The safety margins on …

A New Control Strategy For The Unified Power Flow Controller, Lin Zhang, Liangying Dong, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The unified power flow controller (UPFC) is the most versatile among a variety of flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices, which can be used for power flow control, enhancement of transient stability, damping system oscillations and voltage regulation. In this paper, we propose a new PI based approach for the dynamic control of UPFC. With the new control strategy, not only the active and reactive power flow control but also the system oscillations damping can be achieved. The digital simulation results developed in MATLAB and PSCAD/EMTDC environments are presented to verify the efficiency of the proposed control algorithm.

Cpl: A Language For Real-Time Distributed Object Programming, Erhan Saridoğan, Nadi̇a Erdoğan

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

As processing and time requirements of computer systems increase over the borders of single processor architectures, it is becoming more and more attractive to use distributed computing with additional real-time capabilities. In several cases, traditional programming languages have become insufficient to build distributed systems easily, especially when real-time issues and basic software quality factors are concerned. In this paper, a concurrent, object-oriented, distributed real-time programming language, CPL, with a supportive run-time system, namely the CORD-RTS, is introduced and new language features are described. The new language provides an efficient solution for command and control systems by embedding distribution and real-time …