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Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

A Smart Uav Platform For Railroad Inspection, Ryan Debevec Jan 2019

A Smart Uav Platform For Railroad Inspection, Ryan Debevec

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using quadcopters for analysis of an environment has been an intriguing subject of study recently. The purpose of this work is to develop a fully autonomous UAV platform for Railroad inspection The dynamics of the quadrotor is derived using Euler's and Newton's laws and then linearized around the hover position. A PID controller is designed to control the states of the quadrotor in a manner to effectively follow a vision-based path, using the down facing camera on a Parrot Mambo quadrotor. Using computer vision the distance from the position of the quadrotor to the position of the center of the …


Semiconductor Device Modeling, Simulation, And Failure Prediction For Electrostatic Discharge Conditions, Hang Li Jan 2019

Semiconductor Device Modeling, Simulation, And Failure Prediction For Electrostatic Discharge Conditions, Hang Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) caused failures are major reliability issues in IC industry. Device modeling for ESD conditions is necessary to evaluate ESD robustness in simulation. Although SPICE model is accurate and efficient for circuit simulations in most cases, devices under ESD conditions operate in abnormal status. SPICE model cannot cover the device operating region beyond normal operation. Thermal failure is one of the main reasons to cause device failure under ESD conditions. A compact model is developed to predict thermal failure with circuit simulators. Instead of considering the detailed failure mechanisms, a failure temperature is introduced to indicate device failure. …


Analysis, Design And Efficiency Optimization Of Power Converters For Renewable Energy Applications, Xi Chen Jan 2019

Analysis, Design And Efficiency Optimization Of Power Converters For Renewable Energy Applications, Xi Chen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

DC-DC power converters are widely used in renewable energy-based power generation systems due to the constant demand of high-power density and high-power conversion efficiency. DC-DC converters can be classified into non-isolated and isolated topologies. For non-isolated topologies, they are typically derived from buck, boost, buck-boost or forth order (such as Cuk, Sepic and Zeta) converters and they usually have relatively higher conversion efficiency than isolated topologies. However, with the applications where the isolation is required, either these topologies should be modified, or alternative topologies are needed. Among various isolated DC-DC converters, the LLC resonant converter is an attractive selection due …


Arterial-Level Real-Time Safety Evaluation In The Context Of Proactive Traffic Management, Jinghui Yuan Jan 2019

Arterial-Level Real-Time Safety Evaluation In The Context Of Proactive Traffic Management, Jinghui Yuan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the context of pro-active traffic management, real-time safety evaluation is one of the most important components. Previous studies on real-time safety analysis mainly focused on freeways, seldom on arterials. With the advancement of sensing technologies and smart city initiative, more and more real-time traffic data sources are available on arterials, which enables us to evaluate the real-time crash risk on arterials. However, there exist substantial differences between arterials and freeways in terms of traffic flow characteristics, data availability, and even crash mechanism. Therefore, this study aims to deeply evaluate the real-time crash risk on arterials from multiple aspects by …


Investigation Of The Flow Field And Associated Heat Transfer Within An Asymmetrical Leading Edge Jet Impingement Array, Jorge Torres Jan 2019

Investigation Of The Flow Field And Associated Heat Transfer Within An Asymmetrical Leading Edge Jet Impingement Array, Jorge Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the turbulent flow features present in asymmetrical leading edge jet impingement and their effects from a fluid and heat transfer prospective using both numerical and experimental techniques. The jet-centerline plane flow field was quantified experimentally through the non-intrusive experimental method of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), while an area average heat transfer was acquired via a traditional copper block method. The numerical element served to investigate how well the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) k-? SST turbulence model predicts the flow field and heat transfer within the leading edge and further investigate the results outside of the experimental scope. …


Assessing Pedestrian Safety Conditions On Campus, Morgan Morris Jan 2019

Assessing Pedestrian Safety Conditions On Campus, Morgan Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pedestrian-related crashes are a significant safety issue in the United States and cause considerable amounts of deaths and economic cost. Pedestrian safety is an issue that must be uniquely evaluated in a college campus, where pedestrian volumes are dense. The objective of this research is to identify issues at specific locations around UCF and suggest solutions for improvement. To address this problem, a survey that identifies pedestrian safety issues and locations is distributed to UCF students and staff, and an evaluation of drivers reactions to pedestrian to vehicle (P2V) warning systems is studied through the use of a NADS MiniSim …


Design And Implementation Of Silicon-Based Mems Resonators For Application In Ultra Stable High Frequency Oscillators, Sarah Shahraini Jan 2019

Design And Implementation Of Silicon-Based Mems Resonators For Application In Ultra Stable High Frequency Oscillators, Sarah Shahraini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this work is to design and implement resonators for ultra-stable high-frequency ( > 100MHz) silicon-based MEMS oscillators. Specifically, two novel types of resonators are introduced that push the performance of silicon-based MEMS resonators to new limits. Thin film Piezoelectric-on-Silicon (TPoS) resonators have been shown to be suitable for oscillator applications due to their combined high quality factor, coupling efficiency, power handling and doping-dependent temperature-frequency behavior. This thesis is an attempt to utilize the TPoS platform and optimize it for extremely stable high-frequency oscillator applications. To achieve the said objective, two main research venues are explored. Firstly, quality factor …


A Multi-Species Single-Led Hazardous Gas Sensor For Commercial Space Applications, Akshita Parupalli Jan 2019

A Multi-Species Single-Led Hazardous Gas Sensor For Commercial Space Applications, Akshita Parupalli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the interest of furthering both commercial and government-funded opportunities for deep space exploration, the safety of life and equipment onboard must be absolutely certain. In this regard, the presence of any hazardous gases or combustion events onboard space vehicles must be quickly characterized and detected. Several hazardous gases of interest have absorption features in the mid-infrared range and can be detected with an infrared light source, via the principles of absorption spectroscopy. A non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) sensor that follows these principles has been developed to utilize light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for gas detection and quantification. LEDs contain a particular advantage …


An Assessment Of Biosorption Activated Media For The Removal Of Pollutants In Up-Flow Stormwater Treatment Systems, Andrew Hood Jan 2019

An Assessment Of Biosorption Activated Media For The Removal Of Pollutants In Up-Flow Stormwater Treatment Systems, Andrew Hood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nitrogen and phosphorus are often the limiting nutrients for marine and freshwater systems respectively. Additionally, stormwater often contains elevated levels of pathogens which can pollute the receiving water body and impact reuse applications [1-4]. The reduction of limiting nutrients and pathogens is a common primary target for stormwater best management practices (BMPs) [5]. Traditional BMPs, such as retention/detention treatment ponds require large footprints and may not be practical in ultra-urban environments where above ground space is limited. Upflow filters utilizing biosorption activated media (BAM) that can be placed underground offer a small footprint alternative. Additionally, BAM upflow filters can be …


Soft-Error Resilience Framework For Reliable And Energy-Efficient Cmos Logic And Spintronic Memory Architectures, Faris Alghareb Jan 2019

Soft-Error Resilience Framework For Reliable And Energy-Efficient Cmos Logic And Spintronic Memory Architectures, Faris Alghareb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The revolution in chip manufacturing processes spanning five decades has proliferated high performance and energy-efficient nano-electronic devices across all aspects of daily life. In recent years, CMOS technology scaling has realized billions of transistors within large-scale VLSI chips to elevate performance. However, these advancements have also continually augmented the impact of Single-Event Transient (SET) and Single-Event Upset (SEU) occurrences which precipitate a range of Soft-Error (SE) dependability issues. Consequently, soft-error mitigation techniques have become essential to improve systems' reliability. Herein, first, we proposed optimized soft-error resilience designs to improve robustness of sub-micron computing systems. The proposed approaches were developed to …


Lithium Polysulfide Battery With Improved Capacity And Cycle Performance Using Carbon Black Coated Free-Standing Carbon Cloth, Zhen Wei Jan 2019

Lithium Polysulfide Battery With Improved Capacity And Cycle Performance Using Carbon Black Coated Free-Standing Carbon Cloth, Zhen Wei

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) have been used in various applications such as portable electronics, grid storages, and electric vehicles (EVs). Despite its commercial success, further advancement of the battery is necessary to satisfy the increasing demands for low-cost and high- performance energy storage devices as LIB is reaching its theoretical limits. Lithium sulfur battery (LSB) is one of the promising candidates for the next generation energy storage technologies. LSB uses sulfur cathode which is a low-cost and earth abundant material with an extremely high theoretical capacity of 2600 Wh kg-1. Although there have been numerous researches aiming to establish the …


Development Of S-Nitroso-N-Acetylpenicillamine (Snap) Impregnated Medical Grade Polyvinyl Chloride For Antimicrobial Medical Device Interfaces, Corbin Feit Jan 2019

Development Of S-Nitroso-N-Acetylpenicillamine (Snap) Impregnated Medical Grade Polyvinyl Chloride For Antimicrobial Medical Device Interfaces, Corbin Feit

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the clinical setting, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) accounts for 25% of all polymers used in medical device applications. However, medical devices fabricated with PVC, such as endotracheal tubes, extracorporeal circuits (ECCs), or intravenous catheters suffer from thrombosis and infection. Mortality associated with hospital associated infections (HAIs) exceed 100,000 deaths each year. One method to overcome these challenges is to develop bioactive polymers with nitric oxide (NO) release. Nitric oxide exhibits many physiological roles including, antibacterial, antithrombic, anti-inflammatory activity. In this study, Tygon® PVC tubing was impregnated with a NO donor molecule, S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP), via a simple solvent-swelling-impregnation method, where polymer …


Reliability And Robustness Enhancement Of Cooperative Vehicular Systems: A Bayesian Machine Learning Perspective, Hossein Nourkhiz Mahjoub Jan 2019

Reliability And Robustness Enhancement Of Cooperative Vehicular Systems: A Bayesian Machine Learning Perspective, Hossein Nourkhiz Mahjoub

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Autonomous vehicles are expected to greatly transform the transportation domain in the near future. Some even envision that the human drivers may be fully replaced by automated systems. It is plausible to assume that at least a significant part of the driving task will be done by automated systems in not a distant future. Although we are observing a rapid advance towards this goal, which gradually pushes the traditional human-based driving toward more advanced autonomy levels, the full autonomy concept still has a long way before being completely fulfilled and realized due to numerous technical and societal challenges. During this …


Probabilistic Spatio-Magnitude Sinkhole Hazard Analysis For East Central Flrodia, Yong Je Kim Jan 2019

Probabilistic Spatio-Magnitude Sinkhole Hazard Analysis For East Central Flrodia, Yong Je Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Karst areas, sinkholes are a major geohazard that creates damage and economic loss to building and civil infrastructure. The main goal of the proposed study is to develop a probabilistic spatio-magnitude sinkhole susceptibility model that predicts the potential of sinkhole occurrence on a regional scale. The dissertation presents statistical techniques such as frequency ratio (FR) and logistic regression (LR), and a machine learning technique such as artificial neural network (ANN) to develop the sinkhole hazard models. The study area was limited to the East Central Floria (ECF) region. Seven hydrogeological factors were identified as key contributing factors to sinkhole …


Assessing The Safety And Operational Benefits Of Connected And Automated Vehicles: Application On Different Roadways, Weather, And Traffic Conditions, Md Sharikur Rahman Jan 2019

Assessing The Safety And Operational Benefits Of Connected And Automated Vehicles: Application On Different Roadways, Weather, And Traffic Conditions, Md Sharikur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technologies have recently drawn an increasing attention from governments, vehicle manufacturers, and researchers. Connected vehicle (CV) technologies provide real-time information about the surrounding traffic condition (i.e., position, speed, acceleration) and the traffic management center's decisions. The CV technologies improve the safety by increasing driver situational awareness and reducing crashes through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). Vehicle platooning with CV technologies is another key element of the future transportation systems which helps to simultaneously enhance traffic operations and safety. CV technologies can also further increase the efficiency and reliability of automated vehicles (AV) by collecting real-time …


Programmable Low Loss Orthogonal Frequency Coded Surface Acoustic Wave Correlator Filters, Marshall Smith Jan 2019

Programmable Low Loss Orthogonal Frequency Coded Surface Acoustic Wave Correlator Filters, Marshall Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Simultaneous Transmit and Receive (STAR) communication is being developed as a means of improving spectral efficiency in wireless communication systems. If the obstacle of self-interference can be sufficiently overcome, it is possible to double the spectral efficiency of an equivalent time or frequency division duplexed system. Spread spectrum techniques can reduce self-interference by using orthogonal or pseudo-orthogonal codes to encode the transmit signal and decode the receive signal. Hardware correlator filters are developed for use with STAR radio systems using orthogonal frequency coded (OFC) surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. OFC is a type of spread spectrum communication that can be …


Development Of In Vitro Point Of Care Diagnostics (Ivpcd) Based On Aptamers Integrated Biosensors, Nileshi Saraf Jan 2019

Development Of In Vitro Point Of Care Diagnostics (Ivpcd) Based On Aptamers Integrated Biosensors, Nileshi Saraf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The global market for the medical diagnostic industry is worth 25 billion dollars in the United States and is expected to grow exponentially each year. Presently available methods for biodetection, such as immunoassays, chemiluminescence and fluorescent based assays are expensive, time consuming and require skilled labor with high-end instruments. Therefore, development of novel, passive colorimetric sensors and diagnostic technologies for detection and surveillance is of utmost importance especially in resource constrained communities. The present work focusses on developing novel and advanced in vitro biodiagnostic tools based on aptamer integrated biosensors for an early detection of specific viral proteins or small …


Improving Turbine Performance: A Contribution To The Understanding Of Heat Transfer And Vortical Structures In Staggered Pin Fin Arrays, Marcel Otto Jan 2019

Improving Turbine Performance: A Contribution To The Understanding Of Heat Transfer And Vortical Structures In Staggered Pin Fin Arrays, Marcel Otto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the comparison of flow structures, velocity contours, turbulence statistics, and additional flow quantities, the error sources of RANS are qualitatively described. The findings in this work will help gas turbine design engineers to tweak their turbulence models and give guidance on the interpretation of their results. The novelty is the application of the transient TLC method on this type of geometry as well as the near-wall PIV measurements. The advancements in additive manufacturing disrupt the classic turbine cooling development for casted airfoils. More and more complicated shapes and cooling schemes are possible. Nonetheless, a detailed physical understanding of fundamental …


A Theoretical, Numerical, And Experimental Study Of Trapped Droplet Coalescence And Mixing, Passively And Under Electric Field, Alireza Karbalaei Baba Jan 2019

A Theoretical, Numerical, And Experimental Study Of Trapped Droplet Coalescence And Mixing, Passively And Under Electric Field, Alireza Karbalaei Baba

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Passive and electrically active coalescence and mixing of pairs of trapped squeezed nanodroplets were studied in this work. PDMS-glass microfluidic devices were designed and fabricated using multilevel photolithography technique. Flow-focusing method was used to generate nanoliter droplets of died glycerol inside oleic acid. The effect of factors such as flow rates and their ratio, interfacial tension, and viscosities on the size and frequency of droplet generation was studied and concluded by demonstrating the capillary number effect. A passive droplet trapping technique based on minimizing the surface energy of the droplets was employed to minimize the shear flow effects and increase …


Stragglers-Robust First-Order Distributed Optimization Algorithms Over Networks Utilizing Gradient Coding, Elie Atallah Jan 2019

Stragglers-Robust First-Order Distributed Optimization Algorithms Over Networks Utilizing Gradient Coding, Elie Atallah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers distributed algorithms for centralized and decentralized networks that solve general convex optimization problems. First, a centralized algorithm is explored for parameter server networks robust to the straggler problem. It is proved that the server nodes' estimates converge to the minimizer of the global objective function with connections vulnerable to an allowed number of stragglers. We then show that convergence is also attained in other different cases: Either by using only the received local gradients scenario or the scenario of using delayed local gradients for the non received gradients. Concurrently, the convergence rates for the above aforementioned scenarios …


Mechanical Study On Edge-Oxidized Graphene Oxide (Eogo) Reinforced Concrete, Mohammad Khawaji Jan 2019

Mechanical Study On Edge-Oxidized Graphene Oxide (Eogo) Reinforced Concrete, Mohammad Khawaji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is known that graphene oxide (GO) has superior mechanical properties and can enhance mechanical properties of cement composites. However, Hummer produced conventional GOs have been limited to small-scale specimens (e.g., cement paste and mortar) and applications to concrete have not been implemented due to their high cost and large volume of concrete. Edge-oxidized graphene oxide (EOGO) is a low-cost, carbon-based nanomaterial produced by a mechanochemical process with ball milling and a non-toxic oxidizing agent. The low cost (less than $50/kg) of EOGO enables its use in bulk-scale concrete materials/structures, which is a prerequisite for the field implementation. In this …


Enhanced Concrete Bridge Assessment Using Artificial Intelligence And Mixed Reality, Enes Karaaslan Jan 2019

Enhanced Concrete Bridge Assessment Using Artificial Intelligence And Mixed Reality, Enes Karaaslan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conventional methods for visual assessment of civil infrastructures have certain limitations, such as subjectivity of the collected data, long inspection time, and high cost of labor. Although some new technologies (i.e. robotic techniques) that are currently in practice can collect objective, quantified data, the inspector's own expertise is still critical in many instances since these technologies are not designed to work interactively with human inspector. This study aims to create a smart, human-centered method that offers significant contributions to infrastructure inspection, maintenance, management practice, and safety for the bridge owners. By developing a smart Mixed Reality (MR) framework, which can …


Investigation Of Coastal Vegetation Dynamics And Persistence In Response To Hydrologic And Climatic Events Using Remote Sensing, Subrina Tahsin Jan 2019

Investigation Of Coastal Vegetation Dynamics And Persistence In Response To Hydrologic And Climatic Events Using Remote Sensing, Subrina Tahsin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal Wetlands (CW) provide numerous imperative functions and provide an economic base for human societies. Therefore, it is imperative to track and quantify both short and long-term changes in these systems. In this dissertation, CW dynamics related to hydro-meteorological signals were investigated using a series of LANDSAT-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data and hydro-meteorological time-series data in Apalachicola Bay, Florida, from 1984 to 2015. NDVI in forested wetlands exhibited more persistence compared to that for scrub and emergent wetlands. NDVI fluctuations generally lagged temperature by approximately three months, and water level by approximately two months. This analysis provided insight …


A Study Of Perceptions On Incident Response Exercises, Information Sharing, Situational Awareness, And Incident Response Planning In Power Grid Utilities, Joseph Garmon Jan 2019

A Study Of Perceptions On Incident Response Exercises, Information Sharing, Situational Awareness, And Incident Response Planning In Power Grid Utilities, Joseph Garmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The power grid is facing increasing risks from a cybersecurity attack. Attacks that shut off electricity in Ukraine have already occurred, and successful compromises of the power grid that did not shut off electricity to customers have been privately disclosed in North America. The objective of this study is to identify how perceptions of various factors emphasized in the electric sector affect incident response planning. Methods used include a survey of 229 power grid personnel and the use of partial least squares structural equation modeling to identify causal relationships. This study reveals the relationships between perceptions by personnel responsible for …


Compressible Turbulent Reactions For Hypersonic Propulsion Applications, Jonathan Sosa Jan 2019

Compressible Turbulent Reactions For Hypersonic Propulsion Applications, Jonathan Sosa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work presents the first measurement of turbulent burning velocities of a highly-turbulent compressible standing flame induced by shock-driven turbulence in a Turbulent Shock Tube. High-speed schlieren, chemiluminescence, PIV, and dynamic pressure measurements are made to quantify flame-turbulence interaction for high levels of turbulence at elevated temperatures and pressure. Distributions of turbulent velocities, vorticity and turbulent strain are provided for regions ahead and behind the standing flame. The turbulent flame speed is directly measured for the high-Mach standing turbulent flame. From measurements of the flame turbulent speed and turbulent Mach number, transition into a non-linear compressibility regime at turbulent Mach …


Shock Tube Investigations Of Novel Combustion Environments Towards A Carbon-Neutral Future, Samuel Barak Jan 2019

Shock Tube Investigations Of Novel Combustion Environments Towards A Carbon-Neutral Future, Samuel Barak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycles are being investigated for the future of power generation. These cycles will contribute to a carbon-neutral future to combat the effects of climate change. These direct-fired closed cycles will produce power without adding significant pollutants to the atmosphere. For these cycles to be efficient, they will need to operate at significantly higher pressures (e.g., 300 atm for Allam Cycle) than existing systems (typically less than 40 atm). There is limited knowledge on combustion at these pressures or at the high dilution of carbon dioxide. Nominal fuel choices for gas turbines include natural gas and syngas …


Probing The Influence Of Cx43 And Glucose On Endothelial Biomechanics, Md Mydul Islam Jan 2019

Probing The Influence Of Cx43 And Glucose On Endothelial Biomechanics, Md Mydul Islam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Endothelial cells (ECs) form the innermost layer of all vasculature and constantly receive both biochemical and biomechanical signals, yielding a plethora of biomechanical responses. In response to various biochemical or biomechanical cues, ECs have been documented to generate biomechanical responses such as tractions and intercellular stresses between the cell and substrate and between adjacent cells in a confluent monolayer, respectively. Thus far, the ability of endothelial tight junctions and adherens junctions to transmit intercellular stresses has been actively investigated, but the role of gap junctions is currently unknown. In addition, there is no report of the independent influence of hyperglycemia …


Linear Systems With Integral Constraints On Transient Step-Response, Bilal Salih Jan 2019

Linear Systems With Integral Constraints On Transient Step-Response, Bilal Salih

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The topic of shaping and controlling transient responses of dynamic systems has important applications. Achieving a desired transient response is an essential design requirement for many control system. In this research, we discuss the impact on the transient response of linear systems when it is subjected to a set of integral constraints. The investigation is generalized in a theoretical framework. Formulation of three types of integral constraints is first discussed. The underlying goal of the problem is to shape the step response to generate a specific type of transient response which in turn satisfies the desired integral constraints. The problem …


Integration Of Computational Fluid Dynamics And Machine Learning For Modeling Scaffold Pore Structure For Tissue Engineering, Amir Rouhollahi Jan 2019

Integration Of Computational Fluid Dynamics And Machine Learning For Modeling Scaffold Pore Structure For Tissue Engineering, Amir Rouhollahi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Freeze-casting is a popular method to produce biomaterial scaffolds with highly porous structures. Three approaches are developed to predict the scaffold pore structure as function of experimental conditions including mold geometry, material and thermal boundary conditions. First, a mathematical model integrating Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with Population Balance Model is developed to predict average pore size (APS) of 3D porous chitosan alginate scaffolds and to assess the influence of the geometrical parameters of mold on scaffold pore structure. The model predicted the crystallization pattern and APS for scaffolds cast in different diameter molds and filled to different heights. The predicted …


Color-Ratio Based Strawberry Plant Localization And Nutrition Deficiency Detection, Xiangling Kong Jan 2019

Color-Ratio Based Strawberry Plant Localization And Nutrition Deficiency Detection, Xiangling Kong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, precision agriculture has become popular anticipating to partially meet the needs of an ever-growing population with limited resources. Plant localization and nutrient deficiency detection are two important tasks in precision agriculture. In this dissertation, these two tasks are studied by using a new color-ratio(C-R) index technique. Firstly, a low cost and light scene invariant approach is proposed to detect green and yellow leaves based on the color-ratio (C-R) indices. A plant localization approach is then developed using the relative pixel relationships of adjacent plants. Secondly, the Sobel operator and morphology techniques are applied to segment the target …