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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Forensics Image Background Matching Using Scale Invariant Feature (Sift)Transform And Speeded Up Robust Features (Surf), Paul N. Fogg Ii Dec 2007

Forensics Image Background Matching Using Scale Invariant Feature (Sift)Transform And Speeded Up Robust Features (Surf), Paul N. Fogg Ii

Theses and Dissertations

In criminal investigations, it is not uncommon for investigators to obtain a photograph or image that shows a crime being committed. Additionally, thousands of pictures may exist of a location, taken from the same or varying viewpoints. Some of these images may even include a criminal suspect or witness. One mechanism to identify criminals and witnesses is to group the images found on computers, cell phones, cameras, and other electronic devices into sets representing the same location. One or more images in the group may then prove the suspect was at the crime scene before, during, and/or after a crime. …


Radar System Characterization Extended To Hardware In The Loop Simulation For The Lab-Volt™ Training System, Oscar C. Mayhew Sep 2007

Radar System Characterization Extended To Hardware In The Loop Simulation For The Lab-Volt™ Training System, Oscar C. Mayhew

Theses and Dissertations

Modeling RADAR signals in software allows the testing of potential electronic counter measures and electronic counter counter measures without the associated RADAR hardware and test facilities. Performing a characterization process on a real world RADAR system reveals all imperfections within the system. The Lab-Volt™ RADAR system served as the characterized real world RADAR system. The characterization process consisted of measurements at selected front panel locations on the Lab-Volt™ transmitter module, antenna pedestal, receiver module, and dual channel sampler module. Due to the overwhelming influence of antenna parameters on a received signal, the characterization process also attempted to derive an antenna …


Real-Time Gps-Alternative Navigation Using Commodity Hardware, Jordon L. Fletcher Jun 2007

Real-Time Gps-Alternative Navigation Using Commodity Hardware, Jordon L. Fletcher

Theses and Dissertations

Modern navigation systems can use the Global Positioning System (GPS) to accurately determine position with precision in some cases bordering on millimeters. Unfortunately, GPS technology is susceptible to jamming, interception, and unavailability indoors or underground. There are several navigation techniques that can be used to navigate during times of GPS unavailability, but there are very few that result in GPS-level precision. One method of achieving high precision navigation without GPS is to fuse data obtained from multiple sensors. This thesis explores the fusion of imaging and inertial sensors and implements them in a real-time system that mimics human navigation. In …


Parallel Fast Multipole Method For Molecular Dynamics, Reid G. Ormseth Jun 2007

Parallel Fast Multipole Method For Molecular Dynamics, Reid G. Ormseth

Theses and Dissertations

We report on a parallel version of the Fast Multipole Method (FMM) implemented in the classical molecular dynamics code, NAMD (Not Another Molecular Dynamics program). This novel implementation of FMM aims to minimize interprocessor communication through the modification of the FMM grid to match the hybrid force and spatial decomposition scheme already present in NAMD. This new implementation has the benefit of replacing all-to-all communications broadcasts with direct communications between nearest neighbors. This results in a significant reduction in the amount of communication compared to earlier attempts to integrate FMM into common molecular dynamics programs. The early performance of FMM …


Voice And Video Capacity Of A Secure Wireless System, Jason R. Seyba Jun 2007

Voice And Video Capacity Of A Secure Wireless System, Jason R. Seyba

Theses and Dissertations

Improving the security and availability of secure wireless multimedia systems is the purpose of this thesis. Specifically, this thesis answered research questions about the capacity of wireless multimedia systems and how three variables relate to this capacity. The effects of securing the voice signal, real-time traffic originating foreign to a wireless local area network and use of an audio-only signal compared with a combined signal were all studied. The research questions were answered through a comprehensive literature review in addition to an experiment which had thirty-six subjects using a secure wireless multimedia system which was developed as part of this …


Performance Analysis And Comparison Of Multiple Routing Protocols In A Large-Area, High Speed Mobile Node Ad Hoc Network, Daniel K. Roberts Jun 2007

Performance Analysis And Comparison Of Multiple Routing Protocols In A Large-Area, High Speed Mobile Node Ad Hoc Network, Daniel K. Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. Air Force is interested in developing a standard ad hoc framework using "heavy" aircraft to route data across large regions. The Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) has the potential to provide seamless large-scale routing for DOD under the Joint Tactical Radio System program. The goal of this study is to determine if there is a difference between routing protocol performance when operating in a large-area MANET with high-speed mobile nodes. This study analyzes MANET performance when using reactive, proactive, and hybrid routing protocols, specifically AODV, DYMO, Fisheye, and ZRP. This analysis compares the performance of the four routing protocols …


Use Of Tabu Search In A Solver To Map Complex Networks Onto Emulab Testbeds, Jason E. Macdonald Mar 2007

Use Of Tabu Search In A Solver To Map Complex Networks Onto Emulab Testbeds, Jason E. Macdonald

Theses and Dissertations

The University of Utah's solver for the testbed mapping problem uses a simulated annealing metaheuristic algorithm to map a researcher's experimental network topology onto available testbed resources. This research uses tabu search to find near-optimal physical topology solutions to user experiments consisting of scale-free complex networks. While simulated annealing arrives at solutions almost exclusively by chance, tabu search incorporates the use of memory and other techniques to guide the search towards good solutions. Both search algorithms are compared to determine whether tabu search can produce equal or higher quality solutions than simulated annealing in a shorter amount of time. It …


Aphid: Anomaly Processor In Hardware For Intrusion Detection, Samuel A. Hart Mar 2007

Aphid: Anomaly Processor In Hardware For Intrusion Detection, Samuel A. Hart

Theses and Dissertations

The Anomaly Processor in Hardware for Intrusion Detection (APHID) is a step forward in the field of co-processing intrusion detection mechanism. By using small, fast hardware primitives APHID relieves the production CPU from the burden of security processing. These primitives are tightly coupled to the CPU giving them access to critical state information such as the current instruction(s) in execution, the next instruction, registers, and processor state information. By monitoring these hardware elements, APHID is able to determine when an anomalous action occurs within one clock cycle. Upon detection, APHID can force the processor into a corrective state, or a …


Parametric Reliability Of Space-Based Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Joseph C. Pomager Mar 2007

Parametric Reliability Of Space-Based Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Joseph C. Pomager

Theses and Dissertations

The high cost of failure for microelectronic devices operating in the space environment has led to a need for an accurate characterization of a device's reliability prior to being deployed. In addition, significant cost savings can be achieved by determining this reliability prior to fabrication. With the increased performance needs required for many missions, designers are seeking to utilize devices that have smaller and smaller feature sizes. Specifically, feature sizes as small as 130, 90, and 65 nm. A characterization of the space environment is constructed specifically to address the extreme conditions that can affect the performance and functionality of …


Using Concept Maps To More Efficiently Create Intelligence Information Models, Christopher E. Coryell Mar 2007

Using Concept Maps To More Efficiently Create Intelligence Information Models, Christopher E. Coryell

Theses and Dissertations

Information models are a critical tool that enables intelligence customers to quickly and accurately comprehend U.S. intelligence agency products. The Knowledge Pre-positioning System (KPS) is the standard repository for information models at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). The current approach used by NASIC to build a KPS information model is laborious and costly. Intelligence analysts design an information model using a manual, butcher-paper-based process. The output of their work is then entered into KPS by either a single NASIC KPS "database modeler" or a contractor (at a cost of roughly $100K to the organization). This thesis proposes …


Hardware Virtualization Applied To Rootkit Defense, Douglas P. Medley Mar 2007

Hardware Virtualization Applied To Rootkit Defense, Douglas P. Medley

Theses and Dissertations

This research effort examines the idea of applying virtualization hardware to enhance operating system security against rootkits. Rootkits are sets of tools used to hide code and/or functionality from the user and operating system. Rootkits can accomplish this feat through using access to one part of an operating system to change another part that resides at the same privilege level. Hardware assisted virtualization (HAV) provides an opportunity to defeat this tactic through the introduction of a new operating mode. Created to aid operating system virtualization, HAV provides hardware support for managing and saving multiple states of the processor. This hardware …


Implementation And Optimization Of The Advanced Encryption Standard Algorithm On An 8-Bit Field Programmable Gate Array Hardware Platform, Ryan J. Silva Mar 2007

Implementation And Optimization Of The Advanced Encryption Standard Algorithm On An 8-Bit Field Programmable Gate Array Hardware Platform, Ryan J. Silva

Theses and Dissertations

The contribution of this research is three-fold. The first is a method of converting the area occupied by a circuit implemented on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to an equivalent as a measure of total gate count. This allows direct comparison between two FPGA implementations independent of the manufacturer or chip family. The second contribution improves the performance of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) on an 8-bit computing platform. This research develops an AES design that occupies less than three quarters of the area reported by the smallest design in current literature as well as significantly increases area efficiency. …


Exploring Hardware Based Primitives To Enhance Parallel Security Monitoring In A Novel Computing Architecture, Stephen D. Mott Mar 2007

Exploring Hardware Based Primitives To Enhance Parallel Security Monitoring In A Novel Computing Architecture, Stephen D. Mott

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores how hardware-based primitives can be implemented to perform security-related monitoring in real-time, offer better security, and increase performance compared to software-based approaches. In doing this, we propose a novel computing architecture, derived from a contemporary shared memory architecture, that facilitates efficient security-related monitoring in real-time, while keeping the monitoring hardware itself safe from attack. This architecture is flexible, allowing security to be tailored based on the needs of the system. We have developed a number of hardware-based primitives that fit into this architecture to provide a wide array of monitoring capabilities. A number of these primitives provide …


A Study Of Rootkit Stealth Techniques And Associated Detection Methods, Daniel D. Nerenberg Mar 2007

A Study Of Rootkit Stealth Techniques And Associated Detection Methods, Daniel D. Nerenberg

Theses and Dissertations

In today's world of advanced computing power at the fingertips of any user, we must constantly think of computer security. Information is power and this power is had within our computer systems. If we cannot trust the information within our computer systems then we cannot properly wield the power that comes from such information. Rootkits are software programs that are designed to develop and maintain an environment in which malware may hide on a computer system after successful compromise of that computer system. Rootkits cut at the very foundation of the trust that we put in our information and subsequent …


Effective Mobile Routing Through Dynamic Addressing, Heungsoon Park Mar 2007

Effective Mobile Routing Through Dynamic Addressing, Heungsoon Park

Theses and Dissertations

Military communications has always been an important factor in military victory and will surely play an important part in future combat. In modern warfare, military units are usually deployed without existing network infrastructure. The IP routing protocol, designed for hierarchical networks cannot easily be applied in military networks due to the dynamic topology expected in military environments. Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) represent an appropriate network for small military networks. But, most ad-hoc routing protocols suffer from the problem of scalability for large networks. Hierarchical routing schemes based on the IP address structure are more scalable than ad-hoc routing but are …


Distributed Fault-Tolerant Quality Of Service Routing In Hybrid Directional Wireless Networks, Larry C. Llewellyn Ii Mar 2007

Distributed Fault-Tolerant Quality Of Service Routing In Hybrid Directional Wireless Networks, Larry C. Llewellyn Ii

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a distributed fault-tolerant routing protocol (EFDCB) for QoS supporting hybrid mobile ad hoc networks with the aim of mitigating QoS disruption time when network failures occur. The experimental design presented in this thesis describes 22 experiments aimed at illustrating EFDCB's ability to handle fault-tolerance. The interpreted results show that EFDCB excels over a global rerouting protocol at this challenge which is the goal of this work.


Hardware Realization Of A Transform Domain Communication System, Marshall E. Haker Mar 2007

Hardware Realization Of A Transform Domain Communication System, Marshall E. Haker

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to implement a Transform Domain Communication System (TDCS) in hardware and compare experimental bit error performance with results published in literature. The intent is to demonstrate the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a TDCS in communicating binary data across a real channel. In this case, an acoustic channel that is laden with narrowband interference was considered. A TDCS user pair was constructed to validate the proposed design using Matlab™ to control a PC sound card. The proposed TDCS design used the Bartlett method of spectrum estimation, the spectral notching algorithm found in TDCS literature, quadrature …


Analysis Of Routing Worm Infection Rates On An Ipv4 Network, James Gorsuch Mar 2007

Analysis Of Routing Worm Infection Rates On An Ipv4 Network, James Gorsuch

Theses and Dissertations

Malicious logic, specifically worms, has caused monetary expenditure problems to network users in the past. Worms, like Slammer and Code Red, have infected thousands of systems and brought the Internet to a standstill. This research examines the ability of the original Slammer worm, the Slammer based routing worm proposed by Zou et al, and a new Single Slash Eight (SSE) routing worm proposed by this research to infect vulnerable systems within a given address space. This research investigates the Slammer worm's ability to generate a uniform random IP addresses in a given address space. Finally, a comparison of the speed …


Performance Evaluation Of Ad Hoc Routing In A Swarm Of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles, Matthew T. Hyland Mar 2007

Performance Evaluation Of Ad Hoc Routing In A Swarm Of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles, Matthew T. Hyland

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the performance of three mobile ad hoc routing protocols in the context of a swarm of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It is proposed that a wireless network of nodes having an average of 5.1774 log n neighbors, where n is the total number of nodes in the network, has a high probability of having no partitions. By decreasing transmission range while ensuring network connectivity, and implementing multi-hop routing between nodes, spatial multiplexing is exploited whereby multiple pairs of nodes simultaneously transmit on the same channel. The proposal is evaluated using the Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing (GPSR), …


On-Demand Key Distribution For Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, Daniel F. Graham Mar 2007

On-Demand Key Distribution For Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, Daniel F. Graham

Theses and Dissertations

Mobile ad-hoc networks offer dynamic portable communication with little or no infrastructure. While this has many benefits, there are additional shortcomings specific to wireless communication that must be addressed. This research proposes gossip-based on-demand key distribution as a means to provide data encryption for mobile ad-hoc networks. This technique uses message keys to avoid encrypting and decrypting a message at every node. Other optimizations used include secure channel caching and joint rekey messages. The use of gossip makes the scheme robust to node failure. Experimental results show only a 15% increase in end-to-end delay with a node failure rate of …


Overcoming Tcp Degradation In The Presence Of Multiple Intermittent Link Failures Utilizing Intermediate Buffering, Duane F. Harmon Mar 2007

Overcoming Tcp Degradation In The Presence Of Multiple Intermittent Link Failures Utilizing Intermediate Buffering, Duane F. Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

It is well documented that assumptions made in the popular Transmission Control Protocol's (TCP) development, while essential in the highly reliable wired environment, are incompatible with today's wireless network realities in what we refer to as a challenged environment. Challenged environments severely degrade the capability of TCP to establish and maintain a communication connection with reasonable throughput. This thesis proposes and implements an intermediate buffering scheme, implemented at the transport layer, which serves as a TCP helper protocol for use in network routing equipment to overcome short and bursty, but regular, link failures. Moreover, the implementation requires no modifications to …