Engineering Commons^™

Electric Power Grid Resilience Under Extreme Weather Events, Orlando Quezada Simental

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Electric power distribution grids are experiencing blackouts at higher rates than ever before due to extreme weather, leaving hundreds of customers without electric energy for hours or even days. While these events are considered low-probability events, the socioeconomic costs and impacts are extensive as the distribution systems are unreliable under emergency events. The improvement of the resilience of the power distribution system can be accomplished through the implementation of microgrids (MGs) throughout the grid, which can be constituted by distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar roof-top PV generation and electric vehicles (EVs) and many others. The development of new …

Development Of An Automated Electronic Prototyping System, Cesar Yahir Sanchez Zambrano

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Prototyping systems with interconnected components can be a time and resource expensive process. The process consists of three main phases (design, build and analysis) with each having their own associated cost. For the case of electronic circuits, the building phase is the costliest phase among the three, being prone to human errors which causes the circuit to fail. All three phases of the prototyping process are important. However, often a disproportionate amount of time is spent on the build phase due to the difficulty of making and troubleshooting circuits by hand. In this thesis we will discuss a system that …

Installation Of Electrical System For Paso Robles Police Department, Peter D. Strykers, Jacob M. Studebaker

Construction Management

This paper outlines the process that Peter Strykers and Jacob Studebaker went through to set up the lighting and power system for the Paso Robles Police Department gun range located off highway 46. Before our installation, the gun range had zero lighting so the officers could not use it after sunset. We allowed the officers to light the gun range with outdoor LED lights, light up both the storage units on site, and have access to multiple outlets inside and out of the storage units. The power source that the electrical system runs on comes from a Kubota generator because …

Analysis And Optimization Of The Two-Phase Series Capacitor Buck Dc-Dc Converter, Salahaldein Ali Aboajila Ahmed

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current sharing schemes for conventional multi-phase converters are based on sensing each phase current to deliver the current information to their controllers. In conventional buck converters, this fact may require a preset current sharing ratio at the expense of efficiency, which eventually requires a larger sensing circuit to achieve the sensing accuracy of each phase. Introducing the concept of automatic current sharing is one of the solutions to tackle this issue. Automatic current sharing (Current Sharing Mechanism CSM) is an advanced way to distribute heat generation in multi-phase switching topologies at full load. A two-phase series capacitor buck converter (2-pscB) …

Insole Fall Prevention Device, Nick M. Hughes, Andrew M. Slaboda

Biomedical Engineering

Falls among the aging population occur every single day, with 1 in every 5 resulting in some injury and 300,000 hospitalized every year with a hip fracture [1]. The most popular and effective way to mitigate these falls is through physical therapist intervention. However, with the increased popularity in telerehab, many patients at risk for falls cannot accurately convey their gait tendencies to their physical therapists from the comfort of their home or while not in direct contact with the PT. A device like an insole, implanted with force sensors, which measures different parts of a patient’s foot, could convey …

Photoassisted Nanoscale Memory Resistors, Amir Shariffar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Memristors or memory resistors are promising two-terminal devices, which have the potential to revolutionize current electronic memory technologies. Memristors have been extensively investigated and reported to be practical devices, although they still suffer from poor stability, low retention time, and laborious fabrication processes.

The primary aim of this project was to achieve a device structure of quantum dots or thin films to address a fundamental challenge of unstable resistive switching behavior in memristors. Moreover, we aimed to investigate the effects of light illumination in terms of intensity and wavelength on the performance of the fabricated memristor. The parameters such as …

Design And Implementation Of I2c Bus Protocol On Master And Slave Data Transfer Based On Fpga, Mohamad Khairi Ishak, Meenal Pradeep Kumar

Makara Journal of Technology

This paper presents the design of the inter-integrated circuit (I2C) protocol with different types of features, such as combined messages, addressing modes, different data patterns and start addresses, clock frequencies, and types of modes between the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and test card. Moreover, all these features can be randomized and run for long hours. The FPGA and the test card respectively act as master and slave. The design architecture comprises master and slave. The master generates a START condition, in which the serial data will transact between high to low levels and the serial clock will remain high. Then, …

Enhancement Of Biogas Production Through Solid-State Anaerobic Co-Digestion Of Food Waste And Corn Cobs, Lukhi Mulia Shitophyta, Anisa Salsabila, Firanita Angraini Putri, Siti Jamilatun

Makara Journal of Technology

Although biogas has been primarily produced through liquid anaerobic digestion, this method leads to the floating and stratification of fibers and non-homogeneous mixing, which can reduce the biogas yield. Alternatively, biogas can be produced by the solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) of organic material with a high solid content, such as corn cobs. We investigated the co-digestion of food waste and corn cobs as a biomass feedstock for SS-AD in biogas production. We measured the effects of the total solid (TS) content, percentage of food waste, and reduction in volatile solids (VS), from which we determined its appropriate kinetic model. We …

Control Strategy For Solar Energy-Saving Lamps For Optimized Energy Utilization And Sustainability Of Operation Durability: Indonesia Case, Burhanuddin Halimi, Agus Purwadi, Nana Heryana

Makara Journal of Technology

To solve the electrification ratio issue, the Indonesian government has promoted the use of solar energy-saving lamps. This study proposes a control strategy that adopts current reference time-based profiling for solar energy-saving lamps. For optimal energy consumption, the current reference profile is determined according to users’ daily energy requirements. From the aspect of user comfort, a gradual step reference profile is also introduced to provide a subtle change in lighting intensity level. The proposed control strategy can minimize energy consumption and optimize the operation durability of the system. The concept is verified by simulating four scenarios, the results of which …

Autonomous Navigator Mobile Robot Upgrade, David Sansoucy

Thinking Matters Symposium

The mobile robot platform has been developed over the course of 10 years at USM. In Spring 2020, Belle-Isle and Werner updated the previous framework by rewriting the software to use the ROS framework running on an on-board Raspberry Pi 3. They also implemented navigation using an A* motion planning algorithm and image processing. In Summer 2021, Ames incorporated Lidar and Kinect sensors onto the robot to improve its real-time navigation capabilities. He also made improvements to the power distribution systems. This project aimed to build on the ROS frameworks developed by the previous 2 teams with the main goal …

Design, Development, And Calibration Of An Electric Field Probe For Use On Sounding Rockets, Anthony Oreo

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Earth’s ionosphere is a dynamic environment that has yet to be fully understood. Interactions of high-energy particles from space with atmospheric plasma and the Earth’s natural magnetic field create many interesting interactions, many of which have direct impacts on the planet and human life. Understanding the dynamics of the upper atmosphere is a compelling endeavor, with much of the research being conducted through high-altitude sounding rockets. These rockets allow for in-situ measurements of the physical parameters of the upper atmosphere which in turn helps in the answering of important questions in space science. In order to quantify the force a …

A Low-Cost, Arduino-Based Platform For Emulating Energy Harvesting In Wireless Sensor Networks, Braden A. Miller

ONU Student Research Colloquium

This paper presents an Arduino-based platform for emulating energy harvesting in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) as a form of hardware-in-the-loop simulation. The platform makes use of a battery monitoring circuit and code implemented on the Arduino as an alternative to using significantly more expensive fully equipped energy harvesting nodes. Using embedded code to emulate the energy harvesting process allows for various energy harvesting models and processes to be tested using the same platform. The main contributions of this paper are the experimental data and analyses demonstrating the energy use characterization of the Arduino-based platform in a three-node relay network using …

Second-Order Enhanced Coupling Strength Grating Out-Couplers For A Monolithic Laser-Electro-Absorption Modulator, Maryam Dezfuli

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Conventional grating out-couplers in III-V waveguides typically require lengths of several hundreds of microns to outcouple 50 to 90% of the incident optical power. Enhanced coupling strength (ECS) gratings, which reduce the out-coupler grating length to tens of microns, have a large relative permittivity difference between the materials on either side of the grating boundary along with a high index cover layer. With appropriately chosen permittivity and layer thicknesses, the addition of a cover layer “pulls” the peak of the optical mode towards the grating region, resulting in a significant increase in the grating confinement factor. The resulting ECS out-coupler …

Microscopic Nuclei Classification, Segmentation, And Detection With Improved Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (Dcnn), Md Zahangir Alom, Vijayan K. Asari, Anil Parwani, Tarek M. Taha

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Background Nuclei classification, segmentation, and detection from pathological images are challenging tasks due to cellular heterogeneity in the Whole Slide Images (WSI). Methods In this work, we propose advanced DCNN models for nuclei classification, segmentation, and detection tasks. The Densely Connected Neural Network (DCNN) and Densely Connected Recurrent Convolutional Network (DCRN) models are applied for the nuclei classification tasks. The Recurrent Residual U-Net (R2U-Net) and the R2UNet-based regression model named the University of Dayton Net (UD-Net) are applied for nuclei segmentation and detection tasks respectively. The experiments are conducted on publicly available datasets, including Routine Colon Cancer (RCC) classification and …

Dc Microgrid Fault Detection Using Multiresolution Analysis Of Traveling Waves, Rudy Montoya

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Fast detection and isolation of faults in a DC microgrid is of particular importance. Fast tripping protection (i) increases the lifetime of power electronics (PE) switches by avoiding high fault current magnitudes and (ii) enhances the controllability of PE converters. This thesis proposes a traveling wave (TW) based scheme for fast tripping protection of DC microgrids. The proposed scheme utilizes a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to calculate the high-frequency components of DC fault currents. Multiresolution analysis (MRA) using DWT is utilized to detect TW components for different frequency ranges. The Parseval energy calculated from the MRA coefficients are then used …

Novel Platforms For Large-Scale Adherent Culture Of Mammalian Cells, Ashkan Yekrangsafakar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With recent advances in biotechnology, there is a strong and urgent need for robust platforms to culture mammalian cells on a large scale to produce biopharmaceuticals. To this end, various bioreactors have been developed over the past decades, but their capacity and efficiency are often limited by insufficient mass transfer rate and excessive shear stress. In this work, multiple novel bioreactors for the large-scale adherent culture of anchorage-dependent cells were developed.

Hollow MicroCarriers (HMC) was developed as an alternative solution for the microcarrier-based culture system in a stirred-tank bioreactor. In the conventional microcarrier technique, cells are exposed to the harmful …

Towards Improved Inertial Navigation By Reducing Errors Using Deep Learning Methodology, Hua Chen, Tarek M. Taha, Vamsy P. Chodavarapu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Autonomous vehicles make use of an Inertial Navigation System (INS) as part of vehicular sensor fusion in many situations including GPS-denied environments such as dense urban places, multi-level parking structures, and areas with thick tree-coverage. The INS unit incorporates an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to process the linear acceleration and angular velocity data to obtain orientation, position, and velocity information using mechanization equations. In this work, we describe a novel deep-learning-based methodology, using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), to reduce errors from MEMS IMU sensors. We develop a CNN-based approach that can learn from the responses of a particular inertial sensor …

Considerations For Radio Frequency Fingerprinting Across Multiple Frequency Channels, Jose A. Gutierrez Del Arroyo, Brett J. Borghetti, Michael A. Temple

Faculty Publications

Radio Frequency Fingerprinting (RFF) is often proposed as an authentication mechanism for wireless device security, but application of existing techniques in multi-channel scenarios is limited because prior models were created and evaluated using bursts from a single frequency channel without considering the effects of multi-channel operation. Our research evaluated the multi-channel performance of four single-channel models with increasing complexity, to include a simple discriminant analysis model and three neural networks. Performance characterization using the multi-class Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC) revealed that using frequency channels other than those used to train the models can lead to a deterioration in performance from …

Utilization Of Characteristic Modal Analysis For Antenna Design Needed For An Afit Satellite, Scott C. Podlogar

Theses and Dissertations

Antenna design is a pervasive, growing field for electrical engineers. As the number of new materials and techniques increase so too does the demand and requirements pushing forth new innovative ideas. Among these ideas is a leading edge analytic technique called Characteristic Modal Analysis (CMA) originally credited to Garbacz and Turpin. CMA works to break down the current distribution along a structure in a way that can offer great insights into how that structure operates as an antenna. This technique has great merits in post design analytics but it is rarely seen to be integrated into the design process. This …

Towards The Integration Of Ferroelectric Negative Capacitance With Gallium Oxide Semiconductors For High Power Applications, Guillermo A. Salcedo

Theses and Dissertations

Gallium oxide is a relatively new semiconductor material with characteristics auspicious for high frequency and high-voltage applications. Although several research groups have already demonstrated radio-frequency (RF) devices on Ga₂O₃ with remarkable features, there is still room for improvement. For instance, the operating frequency of RF field-effect transistors (FET) decreases with the parasitic capacitance, which can be counteracted by higher gate capacitance. Implementing ferroelectric dielectrics with suitable parameters in Ga₂O₃ FET promises to enhance the gate capacitance and therefore increase operating frequency. This work investigated the effect of various factors (film composition, film thickness, TiN …

Load Slammer Design For Dc-Dc Converter Testing, Jonathan Hidalgo, Quinton Lacomb

Electrical Engineering

In this work, we dive into the detailed design of a test load or load slammer circuit for DC/DC converters to ensure their correct functioning. This is accomplished through quick variations in frequency, amplitude, and duty cycle of the current being drawn by the converter into the load. Computer simulations of the design were performed using LTSpice and the results show that the load current could be varied per design objectives. Hardware implementation of the design was also conducted and then tested. Results were then compared with the design requirements at lower currents to evaluate the validity of the design. …

Electro‐Driven Materials And Processes For Lithium Recovery—A Review, Anna Siekierka, Marek Bryjak, Amir Razmjou, Wojciech Kujawski, Aleksandar N. Nikoloski, Ludovic F. Dumée

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The mass production of lithium‐ion batteries and lithium‐rich e‐products that are required for electric vehicles, energy storage devices, and cloud‐connected electronics is driving an unprecedented demand for lithium resources. Current lithium production technologies, in which extraction and purification are typically achieved by hydrometallurgical routes, possess strong environmental impact but are also energy‐intensive and require extensive operational capabilities. The emergence of selective membrane materials and associated electro‐processes offers an avenue to reduce these energy and cost penalties and create more sustainable lithium production approaches. In this review, lithium recovery technologies are discussed considering the origin of the lithium, which can be …

Real-Time Complex Hand Gestures Recognition Based On Multi- Dimensional Features, Isack Bulugu

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Gesture recognition is broadly utilized within the field of sensing. There are basically three gesture recognition methods based on computer vision, depth sensor and motion sensor. Motion sensor-based gesture recognition has few input data, fast speed, and direct access to three- dimensional information of the hand. The advantages of traditional motion sensor-based gesture recognition have gradually become a current research hotspot. The essence of traditional motion sensor-based gesture recognition is a pattern recognition problem, and its accuracy depends heavily on the feature dataset extracted from prior experience. Unlike traditional pattern recognition methods, deep learning can be used to a large …

Economic Analysis Of Islanded Microgrid: A Case Study Of Kisiju Village - Coastal Region, Jackson Justo

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The concept of Microgrid (MG) has gained significant attention of researchers and projects on the business side of electrical power generation and utilization, particularly in electrification of islanded areas such as villages. Most of these microgrids are powered by renewable energy resources (RERs) and they distribute power in low voltage distribution networks. Hence, these systems are faced with reliability problems due to the intermittency nature of RERs which affect the technical as well as the return on Investment of specific projects. In the latter context, reliability and economic analysis of the MG systems is an inevitable choice. This paper presents …

Complete Neighbourhood Search Heuristic Algorithm For Portfolio Optimization, Collether John

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

In portfolio optimization, the fundamental goal of an investor is to optimally allocate investments between different assets. Mean-variance optimization methods make unrealistic assumptions to solve the problem of optimal allocation. On the other hand, when realistic constraints like holding size and cardinality are introduced it leads to optimal asset allocation which differ from the mean variance optimization. The resulting optimization problem become quite complex as it exhibits multiple local extrema and discontinuities. Heuristic algorithms work well for the complex problem. Therefore, a heuristic algorithm is developed which is based on hill climbing complete (HC-C). It is utilized to solve the …

The Surface Conditions Of Spacecraft Panels May Significantly Affect Spacecraft Survivability, Trace Taylor

Research on Capitol Hill

USU junior Trace grew up in Brigham City and studies physics and electrical engineering. The majority of spacecraft failure is caused by electron charging on the outer surfaces of the craft. Additionally, contaminants on the craft can cause a film over surface panels, increasing the problem. Trace is studying how roughness on panels can mitigate this contamination as it affects the charging that can lead to craft failure. This research will help determine what optimal panel materials should be used in future spacecraft construction. Trace started research almost as soon as he came to campus in his freshman year, and …

Integration Of Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy For Multichannel Cell Culture Measurement, Conard Chan

Master's Theses

ELECTROCHEMICAL IMPEDANCE SPECTROSCOPY (EIS) has been widely used to study the electrical properties of biological material due to its non-invasive nature and experimental reliability. However, most of the precision impedance analyzers used in EIS only provide single- or two-channel measurements which are inadequate for larger-scale multiplexed measurements, such as those found in modern microfluidic cell culture experiments. The Biomedical Microsystems Laboratory has developed a 16-channel cell culture platform with integrated electrode arrays for monitoring cell growth and electrical properties (i.e., the so-called “electrical phenotype”). In this paper, a system consisting of a 16-channel solid-state analog multiplexer (MUX)paired with a low-cost, …

Investigating The Variation In The Optical Properties Of Tio2 Thin-Film Utilized In Bifacial Solar Cells Using Machine Learning Algorithm, Ziad Khalifa, Sameh Abdellatif, Ahmed Fathi, Kareem Abdullah, Minatallah Hassan

Chemical Engineering

Among various solar cell architectures, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and perovskite solar cells have demonstrated the capability of being bifacial as both can be fabricated on conducting glass electrodes. In both cells, TiO2 plays a key role in the optoelectronic properties of the cell. Various studies have reported a range of recipes and deposition techniques for TiO2 thin films. Such variety introduces some uncertainties into the optical properties of the prepared films as well as in the process repeatability. Here, we utilized machine learning methods to correlate the film porosity to the film refractive index, making it capable of studying …

A Comparison Of Sporadic-E Occurrence Rates Using Gps Radio Occultation And Ionosonde Measurements, Rodney Carmona, Omar A. Nava, Eugene V. Dao, Daniel J. Emmons

Faculty Publications

Sporadic-E (E_s) occurrence rates from Global Position Satellite radio occultation (GPS-RO) measurements have shown to vary by a factor of five between studies, motivating the need for a comparison with ground-based measurements. In an attempt to find accurate GPS-RO techniques for detecting E_s formation, occurrence rates derived using five previously developed GPS-RO techniques are compared to ionosonde measurements over an eight-year period from 2010–2017. GPS-RO measurements within 170 km of a ionosonde site are used to calculate E_s occurrence rates and compared to the ground-truth ionosonde measurements. The techniques are compared individually for each ionosonde site …

Characterization Of Li-Ion Battery Internal Short Circuit Caused Failures Using Smart Nails, Guangsheng Zhang, Mary Long

Summer Community of Scholars (RCEU and HCR) Project Proposals

No abstract provided.