Engineering Commons^™

Integration Of Inboard Propulsion In Shock Mitigating Membrane Hull Technology, Korrey Rotkiske

Theses and Dissertations

Membrane Hull Technology is a strength based marine vessel design concept that seeks to utilize the in-plane properties of fiber reinforced composites to generate a lighter weight vessel with inherent shock mitigation benefits. MHT has been applied on several Naval crafts yet the design features of inboard propulsion systems have not been addressed. Inboard propulsion systems are a very common form of propulsion used in many types of marine vessels especially larger vessels. This thesis seeks to overcome the inboard engine mounting challenges of MHT which limits use of this technology in the marine industry. The fundamental design elements of …

Deep Learning Models For Visibility Forecasting, Luz Carolina Ortega Gomez

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the task of visibility forecasting via deep learning models using data from weather stations. Visibility is one of the most critical weather impacts on transportation systems. Low visibility conditions can seriously impact safety and traffic operations, leading to adverse scenarios, causing accidents, and jeopardizing transportation systems. Accurate visibility forecasting plays a key role in decision-making and management of transportation systems. However, due to the complexity and variability of weather variables, visibility forecasting remains a highly challenging task and a matter of significant interest for transportation agencies nationwide. This dissertation explores the use of deep learning models for …

Air Quality Monitoring Wireless Sensor Network With Electrochemical Sensing Elements, Saeed Faisal Malky

Theses and Dissertations

Harmful atmospheric pollutants have been attributed to causing adverse weather conditions and health problems, which are particularly prevalent in more populated global regions, such as megacities. Nongovernmental and international agencies throughout the world have likewise called for increased awareness and action to effectively counter the increased rates of air pollution, as the consequences seem ominous. Meanwhile, in several major urban landscapes such as Saudi Arabia, no modern apparatus or efficient systematic mechanisms exist for the qualitative detection of dangerous pollutants and gases. The current counterparts for hazardous gas measurements are expensive, bulky and cumbersome to set up. Thus, sensor devices …

Semantic And Qualitative Physics-Based Formal Reasoning For Functional Decomposition In Mechanical Design, Xiaoyang Mao

Theses and Dissertations

Function modeling plays an essential role in academy design studies, yet a lack of acceptance in industry. A possible reason is that the designer must have well understand of the controlled vocabularies and grammars to utilize this method. The research presented in this dissertation is to fill this gap so that designers can use function-based design method without relevant knowledge. In graph-based function models, the function verbs and flow nouns are usually chosen from predefined vocabularies. The vocabulary class definitions, combined with function modeling grammars defined at various levels of formalism, enable function-based reasoning. However, the text written in plain …

Numerical Modeling Of Phase Transition In Shock Tube Problem, Man Minh Le

Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we developed a numerical model for phase transition in shock-tube problem. This work focused on simulating shock-tube problem and the numerical framework is based on a two-phase flow model. Our simulation tool is an in-house FORTRAN multiphase compressible flow solver, RocSDT [31]. Specifically, this involves the Euler equations along with the Stiffened Gas Equation of State (EOS), an interface of liquid-gas type, and the effects of heat and mass transfer due to phase transition. This thesis described the implementation and incorporation of a phase transition model into a system of five partial differential equation model and the …

Development Of A Gpu-Based Real-Time Interference Mitigating Beamformer For Radio Astronomy, Jeffrey M. Nybo

Theses and Dissertations

Radio frequency interference (RFI) mitigation enables radio astronomical observation in frequency bands that are shared with many modern satellite and ground based devices by filtering out the interference in corrupted bands. The present work documents the development of a beamformer (spatial filter) equipped with RFI mitigation capabilities. The beamformer is intended for systems with antenna arrays designed for large bandwidths. Because array data post processing on large bandwidths would require massive memory space beyond feasible limits, there is a need for a RFI mitigation system capable of doing processing on the data as it arrives in real-time; storing only a …

Exploring The Efficiency Of Software-Defined Radios In 3d Heat Mapping, Andrew Scott Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

A common method of connecting to the internet is a wireless network. These networks can be monitored to discover the area of their coverage, but commercial receivers don't always provide the most accurate results. A software-defined radio was programmed to sniff wireless signals and tested against a commercial receiver and the results were compared. The results suggest that the software-defined radio performs at least as well as the commercial receiver in distance measurements and significantly better in samples taken per minute. It was determined that the software-defined radio is a viable replacement for a commercial receiver in 3D heat mapping.

Advanced Techniques For Carbon Nanotube Templated Microfabrication, Jason Matthew Lund

Theses and Dissertations

Carbon nanotube templated microfabrication (CNT-M) is a term describing a grouping of processes where carbon nanotubes (CNTs) serve a structural role in the fabrication of a material or device. In its basic form, CNT-M is comprised of two steps: produce a template made from carbon nanotubes and infiltrate the porous template with an additional material. Vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) templates can be grown to heights ranging from microns to millimeters and lithographically patterned to a desired form. Deposition of an existing thin film material onto a CNT template will coat all template surfaces and can produce a near solid …

A Soft-Error Reliability Testing Platform For Fpga-Based Network Systems, Hayden Cole Rowberry

Theses and Dissertations

FPGAs are frequently used in network systems to provide the performance and flexibility that is required of modern computer networks while allowing network vendors to bring products to market quickly. Like all electronic devices, FPGAs are vulnerable to ionizing radiation which can cause applications operating on an FPGA to fail. These low-level failures can have a wide range of negative effects on the performance of a network system. As computer networks play a larger role in modern society, it becomes increasingly important that these soft errors are addressed in the design of network systems.This work presents a framework for testing …

Maverick: A Stand-Alone Cad Flow For Partially Reconfigurable Fpga Modules, Dallon Godfrey Glick

Theses and Dissertations

Circuit designs for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are typically compiled by FPGA vendor tools, such as Xilinx's Vivado Design Suite. In recent years, partial reconfiguration (PR) has emerged as a popular technique that allows portions of an FPGA to be dynamically reconfigured after the complete device has been configured with an initial bitstream. However, the nature of current FPGA vendor tools limits further innovation and possible usage models of PR.This thesis presents Maverick, an open-source proof-of-concept computer-aided design (CAD) flow for generating reconfigurable modules (RMs) which target PR regions in FPGA designs. Maverick builds upon existing open source tools (Yosys, …

A New Qpcr Assay To Detect Geosmin-Producing Cyanobacteria, Shane Brian Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Taste-and-odor (T&O) compounds are frequently produced by cyanobacterial blooms in bodies of water. Geosmin, perhaps the most common T&O compound produced by these blooms, is not effectively removed by conventional water treatment processes and frequently causes the tap water to have an off flavor. Although geosmin is not harmful when ingested, it damages the consumers' confidence in the cleanliness of their water. There are treatment options for geosmin removal, but the most common methods are often not implemented until complaints are made by consumers.There has been an increasing amount of research on the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods …

Durability Of Hybrid Large Area Additive Tooling For Vacuum Infusion Of Composites, Nathan Joseph Northrup

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to scientifically validate potential cost-saving measures for production of large area additively manufactured tooling for vacuum infusion of composites. These cost saving measures included using a hybrid additive/subtractive manufacturing system to fabricate the mold, requiring lower capital cost and creating shorter lead times. Fiberglass reinforcement was used instead of carbon in the mold material. The validation was done by designing and fabricating a mold for a custom test artifact and analyzing the surface geometry over the course of multiple infusions until tool failure.After printing and machining, the mold required a sealer in order to …

Design Optimization For A Compliant,Continuum-Joint, Quadruped Robot, Vallan Gray Sherrod

Theses and Dissertations

Legged robots have the potential to cover terrain not accessible to wheel-based robots and vehicles. This makes them better suited to perform tasks, such as search and rescue, in real-world unstructured environments. Pneumatically-actuated, compliant robots are also more suited than their rigid counterparts to work in real-world unstructured environments with humans where unintentional contact may occur. This thesis seeks to combine the benefits of these two type of robots by implementing design methods to aid in the design choice of a 16 degree of freedom (DoF) compliant, continuum-joint quadruped. This work focuses on the design optimization, especially the definition of …

Investigating The Effects Of Altitude And Flap Setting On The Specific Excess Power Of A Pa-28-161 Piper Warrior, Tjimon Meric Louisy

Theses and Dissertations

The high number of General Aviation (GA) accidents attributed to Loss of Control suggests that GA pilots are lacking low speed awareness and are unable to appropriately recognize when the aircraft is in a low energy state. There is, therefore, an urgent need for the development of an energy management system which is applicable to GA aircraft that can alert the pilot in situations of low energy conditions and recommends to the pilot the appropriate corrective action to restore conditions to a safe energy state. This will require the development of an algorithm that governs this energy management system that …

Home Automation System By Voice Commands, Noor Kamil Abdalhameed

Theses and Dissertations

The Home Automation System is one of the most important technologies that are used by humans for controlling electrical devices to reduce manual efforts in their daily tasks. The home automation system by voice has the ability to understand thousands of voice commands and perform the required action to control various electrical devices. The voice recognition is a bit complex and challenging task since each person has his accent. Therefore, Bitvoicer Server used in the home automation system in this thesis since it supports 17 languages from 26 countries and regions, and has the ability to recognize an unlimited number …

Mitigating Pilot Contamination Through Optimizing Pilot Allocation In Massive Mimo Systems, Rand Abdul Hussain

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation has proposed several algorithms to optimize the allocation of pilots to the users’ equipment (UEs) to mitigate the effect of the pilot contamination problem in the massive MIMO systems. Pilot contamination reduces the performance of massive MIMO systems due to the reduction in the quality of the estimated channel between a UE and the serving base station (BS). The limitation of the number of samples in a coherence block limits the number of unique mutually orthogonal pilots, and hence, reusing the set of pilots across the cells causes inter-cell interference during pilot transmission, which is called pilot contamination. …

Socialization Of Veterans Using Virtual Reality, Joan M. Savage

Theses and Dissertations

Virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and video games are growing in popularity and fulfilling genuine human needs that the real world is currently unable to satisfy. Games are providing rewards that reality is not. They are teaching and inspiring and engaging us in ways that reality is not (McGonigal, 2011). The purpose of this study was to capture the essence of socialization in virtual reality as a Ph.D. dissertation topic at Florida Institute of Technology - Human-Centered Design. This study used a phenomenology methodology to capture the experiences of beneficial features of players who use virtual reality. The study …

Effects Of Resampled Data On Time Series Forecasting Accuracy, Jennifer Garland

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will look at time series forecasting of the air pollutants in Beijing, China and the power consumption of an individual household located in Sceaux, France. The forecast will be taken from two classical methods, the Holt-Winters’ methods and the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) method. The Holt-Winters’ method will be looked at from the additive, multiplicative and damped methods. The SARIMA model will be looked at as a uni-variate model. In this thesis, it will be shown that less complex algorithms, such as the Holt-Winters’ methods can process larger data sets without the need of resampling, and …

Mdt Geolocation Through Machine Learning: Evaluation Of Supervised Regression Ml Algorithms, Aria Canadell Solana

Theses and Dissertations

Minimizing Drive Test is a statistical protocol used to evaluate the network performance. It provides several benefits with respect to traditional drive test analysis; however, multiple inconveniences exist that prevent cell companies from precisely retrieving most of the locations of these reports. . MATLAB and Jupyter Notebook were used to prepare the data and create the models. Multiple supervised regression algorithms were tested and evaluated. The best predictions were obtained from the K-Nearest Neighbor algorithm with one ‘k’ and distance-weighted predictions. The UE geolocation was predicted with a median accuracy of 5.42 meters, a mean error of 61.62 meters, and …

Improving Grapheme-To-Phoneme Translation With The Use Of Nalu Attention Mechanisms, Brian Sheldon Smith

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, Natural Language Processing in the field of machine learning has seen some major improvements. Data scientists have shown that neural networks are capable of breaking down semantics of sentences, translating languages, and answering complex questions with fast recall. While impressive, these feats all hinge on having access to a massive amount of clean text, or data sets with almost perfect grammar and spelling. Without this, neural networks will usually fail to converge on a meaningful result. To partially this dependency, Grapheme-to-Phoneme conversion can be employed. This is the conversion of words from their spellings to a form …

Performance Evaluation Of Speech Recognition System Using Conventional And Hybrid Features And Hidden Markov Model Classifier, Hussien Elharati

Theses and Dissertations

Extracting the auditory information from speech signal is considered a computationally demanding task. However, past researches in mathematics, acoustics, and speech technology have provided many methods for signal processing and modeling. Although, all methods have their strengths and weaknesses, but they remain a serious attempt towards speech recognition system. Using multivariate statistical machine learning (Hidden Markov Model), this work investigates the performance of selected conventional and new hybrid feature extraction algorithms in both clean and noisy environments. The resultant conventional features include MFCC, LPCC, PLP, and RASTA-PLP, while the new hybrid features include LPR, MLP, MLR, and MPR. The whole …

Dual-Task Multimodal Web Browsing In Semi-Autonomous Vehicles, Jarrett William Clark

Theses and Dissertations

Drivers should remain alert when operating semi-autonomous vehicles as human intervention is required when the automated systems fail, or an unusual situation is encountered. However, drivers do not always focus solely on the road and sometimes divert their attention to look at cell phones, laptops, tablet computers, or in-dash infotainment systems. In this research, software was created to enable operators of a simulated self-driving car to browse the Human-Centered Design Institute (HCDI) website using multimodal interaction. The software used synthesized speech to read the website aloud and visually highlighted the content on the screen as it was read. Web analytics …

Multi-Facet Retrofit Approach To Improve Energy Efficiency Of Existing Class Of Single-Family Residential Buildings In Florida, Kwame Baffour Ohene Amoah

Theses and Dissertations

There are many approaches to incorporate energy efficiency measures (EEMs) into building through retrofit projects. Single-family buildings are an essential target for energy improvements because of their energy-saving potential and considerable market share. This study evaluates energy savings and cost-effectiveness of individual retrofit options. It proposes energy efficiency measures for an existing class of single-family homes constructed between the years of 1950 and 1970. The study uses a baseline building located in Melbourne, FL, as a case study. A survey via clustering data mining was conducted on Florida Single-Family Residential (SFR) buildings (1950 – 1970) to establish patterns of construction, …

Monitoring And Correlating Toxic Gases Emitted By Cars In Public Indoor Garage In Real-Time Using Internet Of Things (Iot), Khalid Altheiab

Theses and Dissertations

The study was developed to adequately depict the behavior of indoor pollutant matter in public garages, the underlying factors influencing this behavior and gauge the pollutant exhaust emission patterns. In depicting the behavior of indoor pollutant matter, the research aimed at studying the emission-pollutant relationship and any variations in concentrations found at different locations within the study site. In terms of measuring the factors influencing the pollutant behavior, the research quantified the concentrations of four gaseous contaminants. The pollutant behavior was studied to better understand the different variables influencing the indoor air-quality. Finally, based on these parameters overall patterns in …

Ultra-Low-Supply-Voltage Analog-To-Digital Converters, Alexander Craig Petrie

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents techniques to implement analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) under an ultra-low-supply-voltage of 0.2 V to reduce the power consumption. The thesis proposes a dynamic bulk biasing circuit to adjust the PMOS bulk voltage to balance the NMOS and PMOS drain currents to guarantee functionality in the presence of process, voltage, and temperature variations. The dynamic bulk bias circuit is analyzed rigorously to show its functionality. This thesis also describes a new comparator suitable for a 0.2-V supply using ac-coupling, stacked input pairs, and voltage-boosted load capacitor. A 10-bit 5-kS/s successive-approximation-register (SAR) ADC in a 180-nm CMOS process with a …

Enabling Autonomous Operation Of Micro Aerial Vehicles Through Gps To Gps-Denied Transitions, James Scott Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Micro aerial vehicles and other autonomous systems have the potential to truly transform life as we know it, however much of the potential of autonomous systems remains unrealized because reliable navigation is still an unsolved problem with significant challenges. This dissertation presents solutions to many aspects of autonomous navigation. First, it presents ROSflight, a software and hardware architure that allows for rapid prototyping and experimentation of autonomy algorithms on MAVs with lightweight, efficient flight control. Next, this dissertation presents improvments to the state-of-the-art in optimal control of quadrotors by utilizing the error-state formulation frequently utilized in state estimation. It is …

Three Dimensional Object Detection Approaches For Indoor Navigation Aid, Junxiu Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to develop object detection approaches for an indoor navigation aid called smart cane. The goal of the object detection approaches is to provide object-level information of the environment to assist the visually impaired people to walk freely in the indoor environment. Although many object detection approaches have been proposed, object detection is still a challenging problem due to a large number of object categories, viewpoint changes, occlusions, cluttered backgrounds, etc. To address these challenges, first, an indoor 3D dataset is collected by using the smart cane navigation aid. Second, indoor objects are broadly divided into two types: …

Cooperative Navigation Of Fixed-Wing Micro Air Vehicles In Gps-Denied Environments, Gary James Ellingson

Theses and Dissertations

Micro air vehicles have recently gained popularity due to their potential as autonomous systems. Their future impact, however, will depend in part on how well they can navigate in GPS-denied and GPS-degraded environments. In response to this need, this dissertation investigates a potential solution for GPS-denied operations called relative navigation. The method utilizes keyframe-to-keyframe odometry estimates and their covariances in a global back end that represents the global state as a pose graph. The back end is able to effectively represent nonlinear uncertainties and incorporate opportunistic global constraints. The GPS-denied research community has, for the most part, neglected to consider …

Përdorimi I Mbetjeve Të Newco Ferronikeli Në Prodhimin E Betonit, Armend Shabani

Theses and Dissertations

Industritë si ajo e përfitimit të metaleve dhe ato të produkteve të ndërtimit gjatë këtij shekulli kanë avancuar shumë me skemat dhe tekonologjitë e tyre prodhuese, duke vënë për objektiv kyç; shfrytëzimin efiçient të resurseve, përmirësimin e vetive të materialeve, rentabilitetin prodhues dhe sjellje të përgjegjshme ndaj mjedisit. Megjithatë, në vendin tonë ekzistojnë industri si ajo e ,,Ferronikelit’’ në Drenas të cilat ende vazhdojnë me skema prodhuese të cilat pamundësojnë shfrytëzimin e mes-produketeve, duke i shëndrruar ato në mbetje të cilat tani më janë një problem mjedisor. Në këtë temë të diplomës, kemi dashur të theksojmë se duke shtuar një …

Sma (Stone Mastic Asphalt) Dhe Aplikimi Ne Kosovë, Ylli Loshaj

Theses and Dissertations

SMA (Stone Mastic asphalt) ka gjetur përdorim të gjerë në tërë botën si një shtresë e epërme e asfaltit mjaft e mirë. Si trend në rritje në të gjithë botën ashtu edhe në Kosovë vitet e fundit ka gjetur aplikim të madh, sidomos në auto-udhët dhe autostradat qe po ndërtohen vitet e fundit.

Por si çdo material tjetër edhe SMA (Stone Mastic Asphalt) duhet të modifikohet dhe përshtatet me kushtet e lokacionit ku do të vendoset.

Në këtë punim diplome do të paraqiten të gjitha karakteristikat e SMA(Stone Mastic Asphalt) dhe të analizohen përparsitë dhe mangësitë e tij ndaj asfaltit …