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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Analysis And Simulation Tools For Solar Array Power Systems, Nattorn Pongratananukul Jan 2005

Analysis And Simulation Tools For Solar Array Power Systems, Nattorn Pongratananukul

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents simulation tools developed specifically for the design of solar array power systems. Contributions are made in several aspects of the system design phases, including solar source modeling, system simulation, and controller verification. A tool to automate the study of solar array configurations using general purpose circuit simulators has been developed based on the modeling of individual solar cells. Hierarchical structure of solar cell elements, including semiconductor properties, allows simulation of electrical properties as well as the evaluation of the impact of environmental conditions. A second developed tool provides a co-simulation platform with the capability to verify the …


Solar-Based Single-Stage High-Efficiency Grid-Connected Inverter, Feng Tian Jan 2005

Solar-Based Single-Stage High-Efficiency Grid-Connected Inverter, Feng Tian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Renewable energy source plays an important role in the energy cogeneration and distribution. Traditional solar-based inverter system is two stages in cascaded, which has a simpler controller but low efficiency. A new solar-based single-stage grid-connected inverter system can achieve higher efficiency by reducing the power semiconductor switching loss and output stable and synchronized sinusoid current into the utility grid. Controlled by the digital signal processor, the inverter can also draw maximum power from the solar array, thereby maximizing the utilization of the solar array. In Chapter 1, a comparison between the traditional two-stage inverter and the single-stage inverter is made. …


Investigation Of High-K Gate Dielectrics And Metals For Mosfet Devices., Sriram Mannargudi Seshadri Jan 2005

Investigation Of High-K Gate Dielectrics And Metals For Mosfet Devices., Sriram Mannargudi Seshadri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Progress in advanced microlithography and deposition techniques have made feasible high- k dielectric materials for MOS transistors. The continued scaling of CMOS devices is pushing the Si-SiO2 to its limit to consider high-k gate dielectrics. The demand for faster, low power, smaller, less expensive devices with good functionality and higher performance increases the demand for high-k dielectric based MOS devices. This thesis gives an in-depth study of threshold voltages of PMOS and NMOS transistors using various high-k dielectric materials like Tantalum pent oxide (Ta2O5), Hafnium oxide (HfO2), Zirconium oxide (ZrO2) and Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) gate oxides. Higher dielectric constant may …


Unified Large And Small Signal Discrete-Space Modeling For Pwm Converters In Ccm, Ehab Hamed Shoubaki Jan 2005

Unified Large And Small Signal Discrete-Space Modeling For Pwm Converters In Ccm, Ehab Hamed Shoubaki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this Thesis a Unified Discrete State-Space Model for power converters in CCM is presented. Two main approaches to arriving at the discrete model are used. The first approach involves an impulse function approximation of the duty cycle modulations of the converter switches , and this approach results in a small signal discrete model. The Second approach is direct and does not involve any approximation of the modulations , this approach yields both a large signal nonlinear discrete model and a linear small signal model. Harmonic analysis of the converter states at steady-state is done for steady-state waveform acquisition , …


Oceanic Rain Identification Using Multifractal Analysis Of Quikscat Sigma-0, Vasud Ganesh Torsekar Jan 2005

Oceanic Rain Identification Using Multifractal Analysis Of Quikscat Sigma-0, Vasud Ganesh Torsekar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The presence of rain over oceans interferes with the measurement of sea surface wind speed and direction from the Sea Winds scatterometer and as a result wind measurements contain biases in rain regions. In past research at the Central Florida Remote Sensing Lab, it has been observed that rain has multi-fractal behavior. In this report we present an algorithm to detect the presence of rain so that rain regions are flagged. The forward and aft views of the horizontal polarization σ0 are used for the extraction of textural information with the help of multi-fractals. A single negated multi-fractal exponent is …


Solution Of Electromagnetic Scattering Parameters And Radiation Patterns Of Arbitrary Body Of Revolution Radiators, Wendell Brokaw Jan 2005

Solution Of Electromagnetic Scattering Parameters And Radiation Patterns Of Arbitrary Body Of Revolution Radiators, Wendell Brokaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A novel full wave analysis method to determine the scattering parameters and the radiation field intensities of arbitrary Body of Revolution (BOR) radiators consisting of impenetrable media is explored through derived components of modal analysis and the method of moments (MoM). Modal excitation is utilized to excite the structural feed; allowing for a more accurate measure of the scattering parameters of the total structure as opposed to the use of external excitation sources. The derivation of the mode matching method introduces a novel approach to achieving a frequency independent coupling matrix that will reduce the computational requirements for iterations utilized …


Optical Wave Propagation In Discrete Waveguide Arrays, Jared Hudock Jan 2005

Optical Wave Propagation In Discrete Waveguide Arrays, Jared Hudock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The propagation dynamics of light in optical waveguide arrays is characteristic of that encountered in discrete systems. As a result, it is possible to engineer the diffraction properties of such structures, which leads to the ability to control the flow of light in ways that are impossible in continuous media. In this work, a detailed theoretical investigation of both linear and nonlinear optical wave propagation in one- and two-dimensional waveguide lattices is presented. The ability to completely overcome the effects of discrete diffraction through the mutual trapping of two orthogonally polarized coherent beams interacting in Kerr nonlinear arrays of birefringent …


Liquid Crystal Optics For Communications, Signal Processing And 3-D Microscopic Imaging, Sajjad Khan Jan 2005

Liquid Crystal Optics For Communications, Signal Processing And 3-D Microscopic Imaging, Sajjad Khan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes, studies and experimentally demonstrates novel liquid crystal (LC) optics to solve challenging problems in RF and photonic signal processing, freespace and fiber optic communications and microscopic imaging. These include free-space optical scanners for military and optical wireless applications, variable fiber-optic attenuators for optical communications, photonic control techniques for phased array antennas and radar, and 3-D microscopic imaging. At the heart of the applications demonstrated in this thesis are LC devices that are non-pixelated and can be controlled either electrically or optically. Instead of the typical pixel-by-pixel control as is custom in LC devices, the phase profile across …


Predictive Control For Dynamic Systems To Track Unknown Input In The Presence Of Time Delay, Yulan Li Jan 2005

Predictive Control For Dynamic Systems To Track Unknown Input In The Presence Of Time Delay, Yulan Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated a tracking system to trace unknown signal in the presence oftime delay. A predictive control method is proposed in order to compensate the time delay. Root locus method is applied when designing the controller, parameter setting is carried out through error and trail technique in w-plane. State space equation is derived for the system, with special state chose of tracking error. To analyze the asymptotic stability of the proposed predictive control system, the Lyapunov function is constructed. It is shown that the designed system is asymptotically stable when input signal is rather low frequency signal. In order …


Frequency Domain Independent Component Analysis Applied To Wireless Communications Over Frequency-Selective Channels, Yuan Liu Jan 2005

Frequency Domain Independent Component Analysis Applied To Wireless Communications Over Frequency-Selective Channels, Yuan Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In wireless communications, frequency-selective fading is a major source of impairment for wireless communications. In this research, a novel Frequency-Domain Independent Component Analysis (ICA-F) approach is proposed to blindly separate and deconvolve signals traveling through frequency-selective, slow fading channels. Compared with existing time-domain approaches, the ICA-F is computationally efficient and possesses fast convergence properties. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed ICA-F. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems are widely used in wireless communications nowadays. However, OFDM systems are very sensitive to Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO). Thus, an accurate CFO compensation technique is required in order to achieve acceptable …


Studies Of Liquid Crystal Response Time, Haiying Wang Jan 2005

Studies Of Liquid Crystal Response Time, Haiying Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, the response time issue of the liquid crystal (LC) devices is investigated in meeting the challenges for display and photonic applications. The correlation between the LC director response time and the optical response time is derived theoretically and confirmed experimentally. A major contribution of this thesis is that, based on the small angle approximation, we derive rigorous analytical solutions for correlating the LC director response time to its consequent optical response times (both rise and decay) of a vertical-aligned nematic LC cell. This work successfully fills the gap in the literature of LCD switching dynamics. An important …


Super High-Speed Miniaturized Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor, Liping Zheng Jan 2005

Super High-Speed Miniaturized Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor, Liping Zheng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is concerned with the design of permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) to operate at super-high speed with high efficiency. The designed and fabricated PMSM was successfully tested to run upto 210,000 rpm The designed PMSM has 2000 W shaft output power at 200,000 rpm and at the cryogenic temperature of 77 K. The test results showed the motor to have an efficiency reaching above 92%. This achieved efficiency indicated a significant improvement compared to commercial motors with similar ratings. This dissertation first discusses the basic concept of electrical machines. After that, the modeling of PMSM for dynamic simulation …


Refractive Indices Of Liquid Crystals And Their Applications In Display And Photonic Devices, Jun Li Jan 2005

Refractive Indices Of Liquid Crystals And Their Applications In Display And Photonic Devices, Jun Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Liquid crystals (LCs) are important materials for flat panel display and photonic devices. Most LC devices use electrical field-, magnetic field-, or temperature-induced refractive index change to modulate the incident light. Molecular constituents, wavelength, and temperature are the three primary factors determining the liquid crystal refractive indices: ne and no for the extraordinary and ordinary rays, respectively. In this dissertation, we derive several physical models for describing the wavelength and temperature effects on liquid crystal refractive indices, average refractive index, and birefringence. Based on these models, we develop some high temperature gradient refractive index LC mixtures for photonic applications, such …


Debris Tracking In A Semistable Background, Karthikkalathi Vanumamalai Jan 2005

Debris Tracking In A Semistable Background, Karthikkalathi Vanumamalai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Object Tracking plays a very pivotal role in many computer vision applications such as video surveillance, human gesture recognition and object based video compressions such as MPEG-4. Automatic detection of any moving object and tracking its motion is always an important topic of computer vision and robotic fields. This thesis deals with the problem of detecting the presence of debris or any other unexpected objects in footage obtained during spacecraft launches, and this poses a challenge because of the non-stationary background. When the background is stationary, moving objects can be detected by frame differencing. Therefore there is a need for …


Interconnection, Interface And Instrumentation For Micromachined Chemical Sensors, Naveenkumar Srinivasaiah Palsandram Jan 2005

Interconnection, Interface And Instrumentation For Micromachined Chemical Sensors, Naveenkumar Srinivasaiah Palsandram

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In realizing a portable chemical analysis system, adequate partitioning of a reusable component and a disposable is required. For successful implementation of micromachined sensors in an instrument, reliable methods for interconnection and interface are in great demand between these two major parts. This thesis work investigates interconnection methods of micromachined chip devices, a hybrid fluidic interface system, and measurement circuitry for completing instrumentation. The interconnection method based on micromachining and injection molding techniques was developed and an interconnecting microfluidic package was designed, fabricated and tested. Alternatively, a plug-in type design for a large amount of sample flow was designed and …


Design And Assessment Of Compact Optical Systems Towards Special Effects Imaging, Vesselin Chaoulov Jan 2005

Design And Assessment Of Compact Optical Systems Towards Special Effects Imaging, Vesselin Chaoulov

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A main challenge in the field of special effects is to create special effects in real time in a way that the user can preview the effect before taking the actual picture or movie sequence. There are many techniques currently used to create computer-simulated special effects, however current techniques in computer graphics do not provide the option for the creation of real-time texture synthesis. Thus, while computer graphics is a powerful tool in the field of special effects, it is neither portable nor does it provide work in real-time capabilities. Real-time special effects may, however, be created optically. Such approach …


Effect Of Annealing On Copper Thin Films:The Classical Size Effect And Agglomeration, Parag Gadkari Jan 2005

Effect Of Annealing On Copper Thin Films:The Classical Size Effect And Agglomeration, Parag Gadkari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With continued shrinking of CMOS technology to reduce the gate delay times, an increase in the resistivity of the metal corresponding to the wire dimension is a concern. This phenomenon of increase in resistivity with decreasing dimension of the thin metallic film or interconnect is known as the "classical size effect". Various theories have been postulated to explain the phenomenon of classical size effect; these theories can be broadly classified as resistivity due to scattering arising from surface and grain boundaries. The total resistivity of metals depends on the electron scattering due to impurities, phonons, surfaces, grain boundaries, and other …


Coverage Path Planning And Control For Autonomous Mobile Robots, Mohanakrishnan Balakrishnan Jan 2005

Coverage Path Planning And Control For Autonomous Mobile Robots, Mohanakrishnan Balakrishnan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coverage control has many applications such as security patrolling, land mine detectors, and automatic vacuum cleaners. This Thesis presents an analytical approach for generation of control inputs for a non-holonomic mobile robot in coverage control. Neural Network approach is used for complete coverage of a given area in the presence of stationary and dynamic obstacles. A complete coverage algorithm is used to determine the sequence of points. Once the sequences of points are determined a smooth trajectory characterized by fifth order polynomial having second order continuity is generated. And the slope of the curve at each point is calculated from …


Interferometry-Based Free Space Communication And Information Processing, Muzamil Arshad Arain Jan 2005

Interferometry-Based Free Space Communication And Information Processing, Muzamil Arshad Arain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studies, analyzes, and experimentally demonstrates the innovative use of interference phenomenon in the field of opto-electronic information processing and optical communications. A number of optical systems using interferometric techniques both in the optical and the electronic domains has been demonstrated in the filed of signal transmission and processing, optical metrology, defense, and physical sensors. Specifically it has been shown that the interference of waves in the form of holography can be exploited to realize a novel optical scanner called Code Multiplexed Optical Scanner (C-MOS). The C-MOS features large aperture, wide scan angles, 3-D beam control, no moving parts, …


Spectral Signature Modification By Application Of Infrared Frequency-Selective Surfaces, Brian Monacelli Jan 2005

Spectral Signature Modification By Application Of Infrared Frequency-Selective Surfaces, Brian Monacelli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is desirable to modify the spectral signature of a surface, particularly in the infrared (IR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. To alter the surface signature in the IR, two methods are investigated: thin film application and antenna array application. The former approach is a common and straightforward incorporation of optically-thin film coatings on the surface designated for signature modification. The latter technique requires the complex design of a periodic array of passive microantenna elements to cover the surface in order to modify its signature. This technology is known as frequency selective surface (FSS) technology and is established in the …


Analysis And Design Of A Modular Solar-Fed Fault-Tolerant Power System With Maximum Power Point Tracking, Hussam Al-Atrash Jan 2005

Analysis And Design Of A Modular Solar-Fed Fault-Tolerant Power System With Maximum Power Point Tracking, Hussam Al-Atrash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Solar power is becoming ever more popular in a variety of applications. It is particularly attractive because of its abundance, renewability, and environment friendliness. Solar powered spacecraft systems have ever-expanding loads with stringent power regulation specifications. Moreover, they require a light and compact design of their power system. These constraints make the optimization of power harvest from solar arrays a critical task. Florida Power Electronics Center (FPEC) at UCF set to develop a modular fault-tolerant power system architecture for space applications. This architecture provides a number of very attractive features including Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) and uniform power stress …


Coherence Properties Of Optical Near-Fields, Adela Apostol Jan 2005

Coherence Properties Of Optical Near-Fields, Adela Apostol

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Next generation photonics-based technologies will ultimately rely on novel materials and devices. For this purpose, phenomena at subwavelength scales are being studied to advance both fundamental knowledge and experimental capabilities. In this dissertation, concepts specific to near-field optics and experimental capabilities specific to near-field microscopy are used to investigate various aspects of the statistical properties of random electromagnetic fields in the vicinity of optically inhomogeneous media which emit or scatter radiation. The properties of such fields are being characterized within the frame of the coherence theory. While successful in describing the far-field properties of optical fields, the fundamental results of …


Optimizing The Performance Of As-Manufactured Grazing Incidence X-Ray Telescopes Using Mosaic Detector Arrays, Martina Atanassova Jan 2005

Optimizing The Performance Of As-Manufactured Grazing Incidence X-Ray Telescopes Using Mosaic Detector Arrays, Martina Atanassova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The field of X-ray astronomy is only forty (43) years old, and grazing incidence X-ray telescopes have only been conceived and designed for a little over fifty (50) years. The Wolter Type I design is particularly well suited for stellar astronomical telescopes (very small field-of-view). The first orbiting X-ray observatory, HEAO-1 was launched in 1977, a mere twenty-eight (28) years ago. Since that time large nested Wolter Type I X-ray telescopes have been designed, build, and launched by the European Space Agency (ROSAT) and NASA (the Chandra Observatory). Several smaller grazing incidence telescopes have been launched for making solar observations …


The Effects Of Electrode Geometry On Current Pulse Caused By Electrical Discharge Over An Ultra-Fast Laser Filament, Matthew Bubelnik Jan 2005

The Effects Of Electrode Geometry On Current Pulse Caused By Electrical Discharge Over An Ultra-Fast Laser Filament, Matthew Bubelnik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The time-resolved electrical conductivity of a short-pulse generated plasma filament in air was studied. Close-coupled metal electrodes were used to discharge the stored energy of a high-voltage capacitor and the resulting microsecond-scale electrical discharge was measured using fast current sensors. Significant differences in the time dependence of the current were seen with the two electrode geometries used. Using sharp-tipped electrodes additional peaks in the time-resolved conductivity were seen, relative to the single peak seen with spherical electrodes. We attribute these additional features to secondary electron collisional ionization brought about by field enhancement at the tips. Additional discrepancies in the currents …


Giant Magneto-Impedance Effect In Thin Film Layered Structures, Amruta Borge Jan 2005

Giant Magneto-Impedance Effect In Thin Film Layered Structures, Amruta Borge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, the giant magneto impedance (GMI) effect has been studied extensively because of its potential applications in sensor elements. The focus of this thesis work is to explore different compositions and processing conditions for CoSiB and NiFe thin films to obtain the soft magnetic properties and to evaluate their potential use in GMI sensor applications. Prior to this study, an MH Looper was constructed, which was extremely important and provided the basic magnetic characterization of the many ferromagnetic thin films deposited during this work. The CoSiB films were co-sputter deposited in an ultra high vacuum chamber. Films with different relative …


Optimization Of Network Parameters And Semi-Supervision In Gaussian Art Architectures, Roopa Chalasani Jan 2005

Optimization Of Network Parameters And Semi-Supervision In Gaussian Art Architectures, Roopa Chalasani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis we extensively experiment with two ART (adaptive resonance theory) architectures called Gaussian ARTMAP (GAM) and Distributed Gaussian ARTMAP (dGAM). Both of these classifiers have been successfully used in the past on a variety of applications. One of our contributions in this thesis is extensively experiments with the GAM and dGAM network parameters and appropriately identifying ranges for these parameters for which these architectures attain good performance (good classification performance and small network size). Furthermore, we have implemented novel modifications of these architectures, called semi-supervised GAM and dGAM architectures. Semi-supervision is a concept that has been used effectively …


Modeling And Simulation Of Long Term Degradation And Lifetime Of Deep-Submicron Mos Device And Circuit, Zhi Cui Jan 2005

Modeling And Simulation Of Long Term Degradation And Lifetime Of Deep-Submicron Mos Device And Circuit, Zhi Cui

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Long-term hot-carrier induced degradation of MOS devices has become more severe as the device size continues to scale down to submicron range. In our work, a simple yet effective method has been developed to provide the degradation laws with a better predictability. The method can be easily augmented into any of the existing degradation laws without requiring additional algorithm. With more accurate extrapolation method, we present a direct and accurate approach to modeling empirically the 0.18-ìm MOS reliability, which can predict the MOS lifetime as a function of drain voltage and channel length. With the further study on physical mechanism …


Liquid Crystal Materials And Tunable Devices For Optical Communications, Fang Du Jan 2005

Liquid Crystal Materials And Tunable Devices For Optical Communications, Fang Du

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, liquid crystal materials and devices are investigated in meeting the challenges for photonics and communications applications. The first part deals with polymer-stabilized liquid crystal (PSLC) materials and devices. Three polymer-stabilized liquid crystal systems are developed for optical communications. The second part reports the experimental investigation of a novel liquid-crystal-infiltrated photonic crystal fiber (PCF) and explores its applications in fiber-optic communications. The curing temperature is found to have significant effects on the PSLC performance. The electro-optic properties of nematic polymer network liquid crystal (PNLC) at different curing temperatures are investigated experimentally. At high curing temperature, a high contrast, …


Tunable Liquid Crystal Photonic Devices, Yun-Hsing Fan Jan 2005

Tunable Liquid Crystal Photonic Devices, Yun-Hsing Fan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Liquid crystal (LC)-based adaptive optics are important for information processing, optical interconnections, photonics, integrated optics, and optical communications due to their tunable optical properties. In this dissertation, we describe novel liquid crystal photonic devices and their fabrication methods. The devices presented include inhomogeneous polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC), polymer network liquid crystals (PNLC) and phase-separated composite film (PSCOF). Liquid crystal/polymer composites could exist in different forms depending on the fabrication conditions. In Chap. 3, we demonstrate a novel nanoscale PDLC device that has inhomogeneous droplet size distribution. In such a PDLC, the inhomogeneous droplet size distribution is obtained by exposing the …


Discrete Wave Propagation In Quadratically Nonlinear Media, Robert Iwanow Jan 2005

Discrete Wave Propagation In Quadratically Nonlinear Media, Robert Iwanow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Discrete models are used in describing various microscopic phenomena in many branches of science, ranging from biology through chemistry to physics. Arrays of evanescently coupled, equally spaced, identical waveguides are prime examples of optical structures in which discrete dynamics can be easily observed and investigated. As a result of discretization, these structures exhibit unique diffraction properties with no analogy in continuous systems. Recently nonlinear discrete optics has attracted a growing interest, triggered by the observation of discrete solitons in AlGaAs waveguide arrays reported by Eisenberg et al. in 1998. So far, the following experiments involved systems with third order nonlinearities. …