Engineering Commons^™

Novel Approach For Non-Invasive Prediction Of Body Shape And Habitus, Emma Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While marker-based motion capture remains the gold standard in measuring human movement, accuracy is influenced by soft-tissue artifacts, particularly for subjects with high body mass index (BMI) where markers are not placed close to the underlying bone. Obesity influences joint loads and motion patterns, and BMI may not be sufficient to capture the distribution of a subject’s weight or to differentiate differences between subjects. Subjects in need of a joint replacement are more likely to have mobility issues or pain, which prevents exercise. Obesity also increases the likelihood of needing a total joint replacement. Accurate movement data for subjects with …

Efficient Scopeformer: Towards Scalable And Rich Feature Extraction For Intracranial Hemorrhage Detection Using Hybrid Convolution And Vision Transformer Networks, Yassine Barhoumi

Theses and Dissertations

The field of medical imaging has seen significant advancements through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. The success of deep learning models in this area has led to the need for further research. This study aims to explore the use of various deep learning algorithms and emerging modeling techniques to improve training paradigms in medical imaging. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are the go-to architecture for computer vision problems, but they have limitations in mapping long-term dependencies within images. To address these limitations, the study explores the use of techniques such as global average pooling and self-attention mechanisms. Additionally, the …

Detection, Tracking, And Classification Of Aircraft And Birds From Multirotor Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Chester Valentine Dolph

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The ability for small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) to safely operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) is of great interest to governments, businesses, and scientific research. One critical element for sUAS to operate BVLOS is the capability to avoid other air traffic. While many aircraft will be cooperative and broadcast their locations using Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), it is expected that many aircraft will remain non-cooperative – meaning they do not communicate position or flight plan to other aircraft. Avoiding mid-air collisions with non-cooperative aircraft is a critical limitation to widespread sUAS flying BVLOS. Examples of non-cooperative traffic …

Computer Aided Diagnosis System For Breast Cancer Using Deep Learning., Asma Baccouche

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The recent rise of big data technology surrounding the electronic systems and developed toolkits gave birth to new promises for Artificial Intelligence (AI). With the continuous use of data-centric systems and machines in our lives, such as social media, surveys, emails, reports, etc., there is no doubt that data has gained the center of attention by scientists and motivated them to provide more decision-making and operational support systems across multiple domains. With the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, the use of machine learning and deep learning models have achieved remarkable advances in computer vision, ecommerce, cybersecurity, and healthcare. Particularly, numerous …

Applied Deep Learning: Case Studies In Computer Vision And Natural Language Processing, Md Reshad Ul Hoque

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Deep learning has proved to be successful for many computer vision and natural language processing applications. In this dissertation, three studies have been conducted to show the efficacy of deep learning models for computer vision and natural language processing. In the first study, an efficient deep learning model was proposed for seagrass scar detection in multispectral images which produced robust, accurate scars mappings. In the second study, an arithmetic deep learning model was developed to fuse multi-spectral images collected at different times with different resolutions to generate high-resolution images for downstream tasks including change detection, object detection, and land cover …

Automatic Testing Of Organic Strain Gauge Tactile Sensors., Brian P. Goulet

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human-Robot Interaction is a developing field of science, that is posed to augment everything we do in life. Skin sensors that can detect touch, temperature, distance, and other physical interaction parameters at the human-robot interface are very important to enhancing the collaboration between humans and machines. As such, these sensors must be efficiently tested and characterized to give accurate feedback from the sensor to the robot. The objective of this work is to create a diversified software testing suite that removes as much human intervention as possible. The tests and methodology discussed here provide multiple realistic scenarios that the sensors …

Intra-Hour Solar Forecasting Using Cloud Dynamics Features Extracted From Ground-Based Infrared Sky Images, Guillermo Terrén-Serrano

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Due to the increasing use of photovoltaic systems, power grids are vulnerable to the projection of shadows from moving clouds. An intra-hour solar forecast provides power grids with the capability of automatically controlling the dispatch of energy, reducing the additional cost for a guaranteed, reliable supply of energy (i.e., energy storage). This dissertation introduces a novel sky imager consisting of a long-wave radiometric infrared camera and a visible light camera with a fisheye lens. The imager is mounted on a solar tracker to maintain the Sun in the center of the images throughout the day, reducing the scattering effect produced …

Heterogeneous Collaborative Mapping For Autonomous Mobile Systems, Sooraj Sunil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An accurate map of the environment is essential for autonomous robot navigation. During collaborative simultaneous localization and mapping, the individual robots usually represent the environment as probabilistic occupancy grid maps. These maps can be exchanged among robots and fused to reduce the overall exploration time, which is the main advantage of the collaborative systems. Such fusion is challenging due to the unknown initial correspondence problem. This thesis presents a novel feature-based map fusion approach through detecting, describing, and matching geometrically consistent features present in the overlapping region between the maps. The main drawback of usual feature-based approaches is the incapability …

Ai-Driven Automated Medical Imaging Analysis, Jingya Liu

Dissertations and Theses

Medical imaging has been applied widely in many clinical diagnoses to detect and differentiate abnormalities by revealing the internal structure of the human body at normal anatomical and physiological levels. Manual analyzing medical images demands attention and is time-consuming, requiring well-trained expertise. The speed, fatigue, and experience may limit the diagnostic performance, leading to delays and even false diagnoses that significantly impact patient treatment. Therefore, accurate systematic systems based on medical image analysis are crucial for timely clinical diagnosis.

This dissertation focuses on advancing automatic computer-aided diagnosis systems to detect cancer, assisting radiologists with early intervention to improve survival rates. …

Lapnitor: A Web Service That Protects Your Laptop From Theft., Michael Ameteku

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Laptop theft is an issue worldwide. According to an article from 2018, Security Boulevard stated that a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds. Using a laptop's camera, we can monitor the surroundings of the laptop and reduce a laptop's probability of being stolen. According to the University of Pittsburgh, a laptop has a 1-in- 10 chance of being stolen and nearly half of these thefts occur in offices or classrooms. These thefts mostly occur when a laptop owner leaves their device unattended for a certain period of time to maybe go visit the restroom or attend to a call when …

Magic: The Gathering Card Virtualizer, Vincent Garbonick, Jacen C. Conlan, Jaret A. Varn

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Any well-versed Magic: The Gathering (MTG) player or collector knows how difficult it can be to keep track of all cards in their collection. Some spend hours searching for that one specific card, and others are constantly scouring the internet for how much their collection costs. However, this issue does not only affect casual fans. Resale companies spend hours a day determining the costs of cards, and tournament judges painstakingly check players’ decks to ensure they are not cheating. To assist with these struggles, the design team proposed to create the MTG Card Virtualizer. This device scans MTG playing cards …

Learning To Detect Pedestrian Flow In Traffic Intersections From Synthetic Data, Abhijit Baul

Theses and Dissertations

Detecting pedestrian flow in different directions at at traffic-intersection has always been a challenging task. Challenges include different weather conditions, different crowd densities, occlusions, lack of available data, and so on. The emergence of deep learning and computer vision algorithms has shown promises to deal with these problems. Most of the recent works only focus on either detecting combined pedestrian flow or counting the total number of pedestrians. In this work, we have tried to detect not only combined pedestrian flow but also pedestrian flow indifferent directions. Our contributions are, 1) we are introducing a synthetic pedestrian dataset that we …

Using Motion Capture And Augmented Reality To Test Aar With Boom Occlusion, Vincent J. Bownes

Theses and Dissertations

The operational capability of drones is limited by their inability to perform aerial refueling. This can be overcome by automating the process with a computer vision solution. Previous work has demonstrated the feasibility of automated aerial refueling (AAR) in simulation. To progress this technique to the real world, this thesis conducts experiments using real images of a physical aircraft replica and a motion capture system for truth data. It also compares the error between the real and virtual experiments to validate the fidelity of the simulation. Results indicate that the current technique is effective on real images and that the …

Methods For Object Tracking With Machine Vision, Zachary Simon Stamler

Dissertations and Theses

As machine learning and deep learning systems continue to find applications in science and engineering, the problem of providing these systems with high-quality data continues to increase in importance. Many of these systems utilize machine vision as their primary source of information, and in order to maximally leverage their abilities it is important to be able to provide them with high quality, accurate data. Unfortunately, many sets of tracking data extracted from video suffer from the problem of missing frames, which can arise from a multitude of causes depending on the system. These missing frames can result in confusion between …

Camera-Based Remote Photoplethysmography For Estimation Of Heart Rate Using Single Board Computers, Benjamin Sweely

Masters Theses

The objective of this project was to develop a wireless, noncontact monitoring system that measures multiple physiological parameters in human faces from a distance using a camera. Compared to traditional sensors, this monitoring system does not use wires or adhesives, providing a safer, more user-friendly application. The goal of the monitoring systems was to estimate heart rate (HR). The current practices of measuring HR involve collecting electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from adhesive electrodes placed on various parts of the body and using a pulse oximeter (PO) typically placed on the ear lobe or finger. We were able to successfully create 2 …

Atmospheric Turbulence Distortion In Video: Restoration Utilizing Sparse Analysis, Benjamin J. Sanda

Dissertations

The removal of atmospheric turbulence (AT) distortion in long range imaging is one of the most challenging areas of research in imaging processing with an immediate need for solutions in several applications such as in military and transportation systems. AT exacerbates distortion due to non-linear geometric blur and scintillations in long-distance images and videos, severely reducing image quality and information interpretation. AT negatively impacts both human and computer vision systems, compromising visibility essential for accurate object identification and tracking.

In this dissertation, a novel sparse analysis framework is developed to address efficient AT blur and scintillation removal in video. Operating …

Inventory Management Of The Refrigerator's Produce Bins Using Classification Algorithms And Hand Analysis., Sarah Virginia Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tracking the inventory of one’s refrigerator has been a mission for consumers since the advent of the refrigerator. With the improvement of computer vision capabilities, automatic inventory systems are within reach. One inventory area with many potential benefits is the fresh food produce bins. The bins are a unique storage area due to their deep size. A user cannot easily see what is in the bins without opening the drawer. Produce items are also some of the quickest foods in the refrigerator to spoil, despite being temperature and humidity controlled to have the fruits and vegetables last longer. Allowing the …

Object Detection With Deep Learning To Accelerate Pose Estimation For Automated Aerial Refueling, Andrew T. Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs) cannot currently refuel during flight because the latency between the pilot and the aircraft is too great to safely perform aerial refueling maneuvers. However, an AAR system removes this limitation by allowing the tanker to directly control the RP A. The tanker quickly finding the relative position and orientation (pose) of the approaching aircraft is the first step to create an AAR system. Previous work at AFIT demonstrates that stereo camera systems provide robust pose estimation capability. This thesis first extends that work by examining the effects of the cameras' resolution on the quality of pose …

Maximizing Accuracy Through Stereo Vision Camera Positioning For Automated Aerial Refueling, Kirill A. Sarantsev

Theses and Dissertations

Aerial refueling is a key component of the U.S. Air Force strategic arsenal. When two aircraft interact in an aerial refueling operation, the accuracy of relative navigation estimates are critical for the safety, accuracy and success of the mission. Automated Aerial Refueling (AAR) looks to improve the refueling process by creating a more effective system and allowing for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(s) (UAV) support. This paper considers a cooperative aerial refueling scenario where stereo cameras are used on the tanker to direct a \boom" (a large, long structure through which the fuel will ow) into a port on the receiver aircraft. …

Use Of Lidar In Automated Aerial Refueling To Improve Stereo Vision Systems, Michael R. Crowl

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force (USAF) executes five Core Missions, four of which depend on increased aircraft range. To better achieve global strike and reconnaissance, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) require aerial refueling for extended missions. However, current aerial refueling capabilities are limited to manned aircraft due to technical difficulties to refuel UAVs mid-flight. The latency between a UAV operator and the UAV is too large to adequately respond for such an operation. To overcome this limitation, the USAF wants to create a capability to guide the refueling boom into the refueling receptacle. This research explores the use of light detection …

Past To Present (P2p): Road Thermal Image Colorization, Yuseong Park

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Thermal image colorization into realistic RGB image is a challenging task. Thermal cameras are easily to detect objects in particular situation (e.g. darkness and fog) that the human eyes cannot detect. However, it is difficult to interpret the thermal image with human eyes. Enhancing thermal image colorization is an important task to improve these areas. The results of the existing colorization method still have color ambiguities, distortion, and blurriness problems. This paper focused on thermal image colorization using pix2pix network architecture based on Generative Adversarial Net (GAN). Pix2pix is a model that transforms thermal image into RGB image, but our …

On Action Quality Assessment, Paritosh Parmar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this dissertation, we tackle the task of quantifying the quality of actions, i.e., how well an

action was performed using computer vision. Existing methods used human body pose-based features to express the quality contained in an action sample. Human body pose estimation in actions such as sports actions, like diving and gymnastic vault, is particularly challenging, since the athletes undergo convoluted transformations while performing their routines. Moreover, pose-based features do not take into account visual cues such as water splash in diving. Visual cues are taken into account by human judges. In our first work, we show that using …

An Application Of Deep Learning Models To Automate Food Waste Classification, Alejandro Zachary Espinoza

Dissertations and Theses

Food wastage is a problem that affects all demographics and regions of the world. Each year, approximately one-third of food produced for human consumption is thrown away. In an effort to track and reduce food waste in the commercial sector, some companies utilize third party devices which collect data to analyze individual contributions to the global problem. These devices track the type of food wasted (such as vegetables, fruit, boneless chicken, pasta) along with the weight. Some devices also allow the user to leave the food in a kitchen container while it is weighed, so the container weight must also …

Height Measurement Of Basil Crops For Smart Irrigation Applications In Greenhouses Using Commercial Sensors, Leila Bahman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Plant height is a key phenotypic attribute that directly represents how well a plant grows. It can also be a useful parameter in computing other important features such as yield and biomass. As the number of greenhouses increase, the traditional method of measuring plant height requires more time and labor, which increases demand for developing a reliable and affordable method to perform automated height measurements of plants. This research is aimed to develop a solution to automatically measure plant height in greenhouses using low cost sensors and computer vision techniques. For this purpose, the performance of various depth sensing technologies …

Emotion Recognition Using Facial Feature Extraction, Demiyan Smirnov

Theses and Dissertations

Computerized emotion recognition systems can be powerful tools to help solve problems in a wide range of fields including education, healthcare, and marketing. Existing systems use digital images or live video to track facial expressions on a person's face and deduce that person's emotional state. The research presented in this thesis explores combinations of several facial feature extraction techniques with different classifier algorithms. Namely, the feature extraction techniques used in this research were Discrete Cosine/Sine Transforms, Fast Walsh-Hadamard Transform, Principle Component Analysis, and a novel method called XPoint. Features were extracted from both global (using the entire facial image) and …

Weld Penetration Identification Based On Convolutional Neural Network, Chao Li

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Weld joint penetration determination is the key factor in welding process control area. Not only has it directly affected the weld joint mechanical properties, like fatigue for example. It also requires much of human intelligence, which either complex modeling or rich of welding experience. Therefore, weld penetration status identification has become the obstacle for intelligent welding system. In this dissertation, an innovative method has been proposed to detect the weld joint penetration status using machine-learning algorithms.

A GTAW welding system is firstly built. Project a dot-structured laser pattern onto the weld pool surface during welding process, the reflected laser pattern …

Vision-Based Framework For Monitoring Of Eating Behavior Of Persons With Alzheimer’S Disease, Haitham Al-Anssari

Dissertations

Dementia is a syndrome used to describe an array of significant declines in cognitive abilities due to progressive and irreversible loss of neurons and brain functioning. This neurodegeneration seriously affects daily life activities like driving, shopping, working and speaking. Among these, Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, with individuals experiencing loss of memory and thinking and reasoning skills. Due to cognitive decline, individuals with Alzheimer’s often suffer from malnutrition, since they do not eat, even when food is presented, and must be fed with assistance. This assistance presents a significant burden of time to caregivers, and consequently …

Leveraging Eye Structure And Motion To Build A Low-Power Wearable Gaze Tracking System, Addison Mayberry

Doctoral Dissertations

Clinical studies have shown that features of a person's eyes can function as an effective proxy for cognitive state and neurological function. Technological advances in recent decades have allowed us to deepen this understanding and discover that the actions of the eyes are in fact very tightly coupled to the operation of the brain. Researchers have used camera-based eye monitoring technology to exploit this connection and analyze mental state across across many different metrics of interest. These range from simple things like attention and scene processing, to impairments such as a fatigue or substance use, and even significant mental disorders …

Collision Avoidance Smartphone, Matt Columbres, Aaron Parisi, Joey Schnecker, Luis Wong

Electrical Engineering

There are many instances in day-to-day life where people cannot or would rather not pay full attention to their surroundings. Walking while preoccupied with a smartphone or walking while blind are excellent examples where technology could be used to make the task of avoiding 2collisions reactive, instead of proactive. A device which monitors a user’s surroundings and notifies the user when a potential collision is detected (and, additionally, notifying them as to where the obstacle is with respect to them) could be used to make walking distracted less of a hazard for the user and those around the user and …

Towards A Strawberry Harvest Prediction System Using Computer Vision And Pattern Recognition, Andreas M. Apitz

Master's Theses

Farmers require advance notice when a harvest is approaching, so they can allocate resources and hire workers as efficiently as possible. Existing methods are subjective and labor intensive, and require the expertise of a professional forecaster. Cal Poly’s EE department has been collaborating with the Cal Poly Strawberry Center to investigate the potential in using digital imaging processing to predict harvests more reliably. This paper shows the progress of that ongoing project, as well as what aspects could still be improved. Three main blocks comprise this system: data acquisition, which obtains and catalogues images of the strawberry plants; computer vision, …