Engineering Commons^™

Relations Between Interval Computing And Soft Computing, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

This paper starts with a brief reminder of why data processing and knowledge processing are needed in the first place, why interval and fuzzy methods are needed for data and knowledge processing, and which of the possible data and knowledge processing techniques we should use. Then, we explain how these reasonable soft computing techniques are naturally related with interval computing. Finally, we explain the need for interval-valued fuzzy techniques -- techniques which will be used a lot in our future applications -- and how the transition to such techniques is also related to interval computing.

Towards Fast Algorithms For Processing Type-2 Fuzzy Data: Extending Mendel's Algorithms From Interval-Valued To A More General Case, Vladik Kreinovich, Gang Xiang

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

It is known that processing of data under general type-1 fuzzy uncertainty can be reduced to the simplest case -- of interval uncertainty: namely, Zadeh's extension principle is equivalent to level-by-level interval computations applied to alpha-cuts of the corresponding fuzzy numbers.

However, type-1 fuzzy numbers may not be the most adequate way of describing uncertainty, because they require that an expert can describe his or her degree of confidence in a statement by an exact value. In practice, it is more reasonable to expect that the expert estimates his or her degree by using imprecise words from natural language -- …

Cahsi Year 2 Evaluation Report: Recruiting, Retaining, And Advancing Hispanics In Computing, Heather Thiry, Sarah Hug, Lecia Barker

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

No abstract provided.

Applications Of 1-D Versions Of Image Referencing Techniques To Hydrology And To Patient Rehabilitation, Roberto Araiza, Martine Ceberio, Naga Suman Kanagala, Vladik Kreinovich, Gang Xiang

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we consider two seemingly unrelated problems: the hydrology problem of relation between groundwater and surface water, and a problem of identification of human gait in neuro-rehabilitation. It turns out that in both problems, we can efficiently use soft computing-motivated algorithms originally developed for image referencing.

Beyond Intervals: Phase Transitions Lead To More General Ranges, Karen Villaverde, Gilbert Ornelas

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

One of the main tasks of science and engineering is to use the current values of the physical quantities for predicting the future values of the desired quantities. Due to the (inevitable) measurement inaccuracy, we usually know the current values of the physical quantities with interval uncertainty. Traditionally, it is assumed that all the processes are continuous; as a result, the range of possible values of the future quantities is also known with interval uncertainty. However, in many practical situations (such as phase transitions), the dependence of the future values on the current ones becomes discontinuous. We show that in …

Selecting The Most Representative Sample Is Np-Hard: Need For Expert (Fuzzy) Knowledge, J. Esteban Gamez, Francois Modave, Olga Kosheleva

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

One of the main applications of fuzzy techniques is to formalize the notions of "typical", "representative", etc.

The main idea behind fuzzy techniques is that they formalize expert knowledge expressed by words from natural language.

In this paper, we show that if we do not use this knowledge, i.e., if we only use the data, then selecting the most representative sample becomes a computationally difficult (NP-hard) problem. Thus, the need to find such samples in reasonable time justifies the use of fuzzy techniques.

Analysis And Optimization Of A Crashworthy Helicopter Seat, Nauman A. L Mhaskar

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

The objective of a crashworthy seat is to improve the survivability of occupants (cockpit and cabin) in helicopter crashes. All modern helicopter seats are equipped with an energy absorber to reduce lumbar spine load during crash landing. The main objective of this research is to carry out the structural analysis and optimization of a helicopter crashworthy troop seat assembly using finite element methods. The transient dynamic nonlinear finite element analysis helps in identifying whether the seat structure will survive in a crash landing situation, and optimization helps in reducing the weight of the crashworthy seat. The seat is analyzed using …

Improving The Bit Error Rate Performance Of Gsm System Using A Independent Component Analysis Based Non-Linear Filter, Kumarabhijeet Singh

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

Presently, call drop out is considered a major problem in wireless communication. A large percentage of call drops take place due to network congestion, handover failure and high bit error rate.Our main objective is to reduce call drops due to high bit error rate using a newly proposed signal processing block (SPB) at the receiver section of a mobile handset. The SPB helps improve the performance of the wireless system, particularly Global Systems for Mobile (GSM) by providing a coding gain over the existing system. In this work, we carried out a simulation of the physical layer of a GSM …

Performance Evaluation Of Greedy Heuristic For Sip Analyzer In H.264/Svc, Jaydeep Vijay Inamdar

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

The latest scalable video coding standard, H.264/SVC uses many components of H.264/AVC standard to maintain backward compatibility and also has proposed many tools to support scalable video coding with increased coding efficiency. SIP Analyzer is one such tool incorporated in JSVM (Joint Scalable Video Model) software which is the reference software for the SVC project. SIP Analyzer implements Selective Interlayer Prediction strategy to encode the bitstream so as to improve coding performance in scenarios where multiple adaptation is not needed without losing much if the same bitstream is used in scenario where multiple adaptation is needed. Core of this algorithm …

Fast Algorithms For Mdct And Low Delay Filterbanks Used In Audio Coding, Ravi Kiran Chivukula

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

Modern audio and speech coding systems use filterbank and transform coding techniques to decorrelate the input signal. Cosine-modulated, perfect reconstruction, pseudo-QMF filterbanks are most commonly used for this purpose. In this thesis, we present three propositions. First, a fast algorithm for modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) for transform lengths of the form 5× 2m and 15× 2m is presented. This algorithm is based on mapping the MDCT to DCT-II via DCT-IV and using the involutory property of the DCT-IV matrix. This leads to a reduction in the number of multiplications and constant memory requirement. The algorithm also uses very efficient …

On Reducing Call Drop Outs By Improving Bit Error Rate Performance In A Gsm Mobile Communications System, Sudeep Sharma

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

Call Drop Out is one of the most annoying problems in Mobile Communications. It is one of the most important Quality of Service (QoS) indicators for a mobile carrier. Over the years, many strategies have been proposed to solve the problem of call drop out. But the problem is still prevalent. One of the important reasons for call drop outs is high Bit Error Rate (BER). In general, many existing wireless systems set a threshold BER before a call is dropped. In this work, our intent is to reduce the call drop out due to high BER. Towards that end, …

Simulation Of Doubly-Selective Compound K Fading Channels For Mobile-To-Mobile Communications, Yuan Liu, Jian Zhang, Y. Rosa Zheng

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A computer simulation model is proposed for discrete-time doubly-selective compound-K fading channel. It first generates multiple independent mobile-to-mobile Rayleigh fading Channel Impulse Response (CIR) using the non-isotropic scattering model, then generates the cross- and auto-correlated gamma shadowing matrix using the combination of the memoryless nonlinear transformation (MNLT) method and the decomposition methods. It then combines the complex Rayleigh CIR with the gamma shadowing matrix to yield the doubly-selective fading channel CIR whose envelop follows the compound K distribution. Simulation examples demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively produce compound K fading channel responses with satisfactory statistical properties.

A Fast Adaptive Wavelet Scheme In Rbf Collocation For Nearly Singular Potential Pdes, Nicolas Ali Libre, Arezoo Emdadi, Edward J. Kansa, Mohammad Shekarchi, Mohammad Rahimian

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present a wavelet based adaptive scheme and investigate the efficiency of this scheme for solving nearly singular potential PDEs. Multiresolution wavelet analysis (MRWA) provides a firm mathematical foundation by projecting the solution of PDE onto a nested sequence of approximation spaces. The wavelet coefficients then were used as an estimation of the sensible regions for node adaptation. The proposed adaptation scheme requires negligible calculation time due to the existence of the fast DiscreteWavelet Transform (DWT). Certain aspects of the proposed adaptive scheme are discussed through numerical examples. It has been shown that the proposed adaptive scheme can detect the …

Effects Of Ionic Strength, Temperature, And Ph On Degradation Of Selected Antibiotics, Keith A. Loftin, Craig D. Adams, Michael T. Meyer, Rao Surampalli

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Aqueous degradation rates, which include hydrolysis and epimerization, for chlorretracycline (CTC), oxytetracycline (OTC), tetracycline (TET), lincomycin (LNC), sulfachlorpyridazine (SCP), sulfadimethoxine (SDM), sulfathiazole (STZ), trimethoprim (TRM), and tylosin a (TYL) were studied as a function of ionic strength (0.0015, 0.050, or 0.084 mg/L as Na2HPO4), temperature (7, 22, and 35°C), and pH (2, 5, 7, 9, and 11). Multiple linear regression revealed that ionic strength did not significantly affect (α = 0.05) degradation rates for all compounds, but temperature and pH affected rates for CTC, OTC, and TET significand (α = 0.05). Degradation also was observed for TYL at pH 2 …

Computing Lightweight Spanning Subgraphs Locally, Iyad A. Kanj, Ljubomir Perkovic, Ge Xia

Technical Reports

We consider the problem of computing bounded-degree lightweight plane spanning subgraphs of unit disk graphs in the local distributed model of computation. We are motivated by the hypothesis that such subgraphs can provide the underlying network topology for efficient unicasting and/or multicasting in wireless distributed systems. We start by showing that, for any integer $k \geq 2$, there exists a $k$-local distributed algorithm that, given a unit disk graph $U$ embedded in the plane, constructs a plane subgraph of $U$ containing a Euclidean Minimum Spanning Tree (EMST) of $V(U)$, whose degree is at most 6, and whose total weight is …

Output Feedback Controller For Operation Of Spark Ignition Engines At Lean Conditions Using Neural Networks, Jonathan B. Vance, Brian C. Kaul, Jagannathan Sarangapani, J. A. Drallmeier

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Spark ignition (SI) engines operating at very lean conditions demonstrate significant nonlinear behavior by exhibiting cycle-to-cycle bifurcation of heat release. Past literature suggests that operating an engine under such lean conditions can significantly reduce NO emissions by as much as 30% and improve fuel efficiency by as much as 5%-10%. At lean conditions, the heat release per engine cycle is not close to constant, as it is when these engines operate under stoichiometric conditions where the equivalence ratio is 1.0. A neural network controller employing output feedback has shown ability in simulation to reduce the nonlinear cyclic dispersion observed under …

Monotonic Convergence Of Iterative Learning Control For Uncertain Systems Using A Time-Varying Filter, Douglas A. Bristow, Andrew G. Alleyne

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Iterative learning control (ILC) is a learning technique used to improve the performance of systems that execute the same task multiple times. Learning transient behavior has emerged as an important topic in the design and analysis of ILC systems. In practice, the learning control is often low-pass filtered with a ldquoQ-filterrdquo to prevent transient growth, at the cost of performance. In this note, we consider linear time-invariant, discrete-time, single-input single-output systems, and convert frequency-domain uncertainty models to a time-domain representation for analysis. We then develop robust monotonic convergence conditions, which depend directly on the choice of the Q-filter and are …

Application Of Frustrated Total Internal Reflection Of Millimeter Waves For Detection And Evaluation Of Disbonds In Dielectric Joints, Sergey Kharkovsky, Emilio Alessandro Nanni, R. Zoughi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Millimeter waves penetrate inside of low loss dielectric materials and they are sensitive to the presence of internal interfaces and nonuniformities. This allows millimeter wave nondestructive inspection techniques to be utilized for inspecting dielectric composite structures. A disbond (a thin and extended airgap) in structures possessing adhesively bonded joints with complex geometries is commonly difficult to inspect. In this letter, we demonstrate the operational principle and the useful features of a millimeter wave technique, employing a frustrated total internal reflection of signals transmitted and received by dielectric waveguide probes for detecting and evaluating disbonds in such joints.

Laser Diagnostic System Validation And Ultra-Compact Combustor Characterization, Terry B. Hankins

Theses and Dissertations

The AFIT combustion optimization and analysis laser (COAL) lab is now completely operational and is state-of-the-art in combustion diagnostics. The objective of this research is to perform a validation of a laser diagnostic system and to begin the characterization of a small-scale model of an ultra-compact combustor (UCC). Validation of the laser system was accomplished by using planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) on a laminar premixed hydrogen-air flame produced by a Hencken burner. OH species concentrations are measured. Flame temperatures are determined with a two line fluorescence technique using different transitions in the (1,0) band of the OH (A-X) electronic …

Digital Signal Processing Leveraged For Intrusion Detection, Theodore J. Erickson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the development and evaluation of a novel system called the Network Attack Characterization Tool (NACT). The NACT employs digital signal processing to detect network intrusions, by exploiting the Lomb-Scargle periodogram method to obtain a spectrum for sampled network traffic. The Lomb-Scargle method for generating a periodogram allows for the processing of unevenly sampled network data. This method for determining a periodogram has not yet been used for intrusion detection. The spectrum is examined to determine if features exist above a significance level chosen by the user. These features are considered an attack, triggering an alarm. Two traffic …

Priority Based Buffering Over Multiple Lossy Links Using Tcp Aware Layer Buffering, Kevin J. Savidge

Theses and Dissertations

Wireless military information systems require high reliability, which is difficult to achieve in adverse conditions. To provide high reliability, one must overcome packet loss across multiple wireless hops. Buffering packets in a lossy environment is well explored; however, the ability to selectively buffer TCP traffic across multiple lossy links is a new area of research. This document seeks to explore the delivery of high priority traffic in a lossy environment and conclude that prioritized buffing can increase the probability that a high priority download will finish, where others will fail. It is shown that buffering provides six times the throughput …

Mission Impact Analysis Visualization For Enhanced Situational Awareness, Sean C. M. Carroll

Theses and Dissertations

This research effort examines the creation of mission impact analysis visualizations to enhance situational awareness. It focuses on using prefuse to create a visualization that allows the user to quickly understand the impact of the failure of any element needed directly or indirectly for a mission. The visualization correctly identifies the direct or indirect impact on physical requirements such as network links and servers as well as non-physical elements such as the generation of a report, or ability to perform a task. The visualization provides an overview of the situation, as well as including enhancements to allow for greater detail …

Evaluating Security And Quality Of Service Considerations In Critical Infrastructure Communication Networks, Gregory R. Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis demonstrates the benefits of utility communication based on Internet technology, some dangers in using Internet technology in establishing a utility intranet connecting protection and control systems, and compares three different approaches to making reservations for routing traffic in the utility intranet based on different levels of background traffic. A model of expected background traffic on a national utility intranet is presented. The Utility Communication Architecture 2.0 and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61850 began laying the groundwork in 2002 in establishing an infrastructure allowing power substations, program logic controllers, remote terminal units, intelligent electronic devices, and other devices …

Hot Swapping Protocol Implementations In The Opnet Modeler Development Environment, Mark E. Coyne

Theses and Dissertations

This research effort demonstrates hot swapping protocol implementations in OPNET via the building of a dependency injection testing framework. The thesis demonstrates the externalization (compiling as stand-alone code) of OPNET process models, and their inclusion into custom DLL's (Dynamically Linked Libraries). A framework then utilizes these process model DLL's, to specify, or “inject,” process implementations post-compile time into an OPNET simulation. Two separate applications demonstrate this mechanism. The first application is a toolkit that allows for the testing of multiple routing related protocols in various combinations without code re-compilation or scenario re-generation. The toolkit produced similar results as the same …

Multi-Reference Frame Image Registration For Rotation, Translation, And Scale, Christopher S. Costello

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates applications of multi-reference frame image registration for image sets with various translation, rotation, and scale combinations. It focuses on registration accuracy improvement over traditional pairwise registration, and also compares the quality of scene estimation from frame averaging. Three experiments are developed which use cross-correlation to estimate translation, the Radon transform to estimate translation and rotation, and the Fourier-Mellin transform to estimate translation, rotation, and scale. Results from applying multi-reference frame registration in these experiments show distinct improvements in both registration accuracy and quality of frame averaging compared to single-reference frame registration. Furthermore, it is shown that the …

Characterization And Implementation Of A Real-World Target Tracking Algorithm On Field Programmable Gate Arrays With Kalman Filter Test Case, Benjamin D. Hancey

Theses and Dissertations

A one dimensional Kalman Filter algorithm provided in Matlab is used as the basis for a Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) model. The JAVA programming language is used to create the VHDL code that describes the Kalman filter in hardware which allows for maximum flexibility. A one-dimensional behavioral model of the Kalman Filter is described, as well as a one-dimensional and synthesizable register transfer level (RTL) model with optimizations for speed, area, and power. These optimizations are achieved by a focus on parallelization as well as careful Kalman filter sub-module algorithm selection. Newton-Raphson reciprocal is the …

Effects Of Multipath And Oversampling On Navigation Using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed Signals Of Opportunity, Christopher M. Schexnayder

Theses and Dissertations

The Global Positioning System (GPS) has become the primary system for navigation and precise positioning. GPS has limitations, though, and is not suitable in environments where a line-of-site (LOS) path to multiple satellites is not available. Reliable alternatives need to be developed to provide GPS-like positioning when GPS is unavailable. One such alternative is to use signals of opportunity (SoOP). This concept refers to navigation using signals which inherently exist in the environment and were developed for non-navigation applications. This research focuses on exploiting the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) signal for the purpose of navigation. An algorithm was developed …

Hardware Algorithm Implementation For Mission Specific Processing, Jason W. Shirley

Theses and Dissertations

There is a need to expedite the process of designing military hardware to stay ahead of the adversary. The core of this project was to build reusable, synthesizeable libraries to make this a possibility. In order to build these libraries, Matlab® commands and functions, such as Conv2, Round, Floor, Pinv, etc., had to be converted into reusable VHDL modules. These modules make up reusable libraries for the Mission Specific Process (MSP) which will support AFRL/RY. The MSP allows the VLSI design process to be completed in a mere matter of days or months using an FPGA or ASIC design, as …

Determining The Surface-To-Air Missile Requirement For Western And Southern Part Of The Turkish Air Defense System, Omer Alkanat

Theses and Dissertations

An air defense system is vital for countries to protect their homelands. Today, air defense systems consist of integrated systems such as early warning radars, fighter aircraft, airborne early warning aircraft and surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. The Turkish air defense system does not have long range SAM systems. Turkey plans to procure SAM systems to protect her borders. This research develops two location optimization models to optimally locate SAM sites to defend specified areas of the nation. One of the models finds the minimum number of SAM sites to cover the specified area; the other finds the maximum coverage for …

Robust Aircraft Squadron Scheduling In The Face Of Absenteeism, Osman Bahadir Gokcen

Theses and Dissertations

Air Force fighter aircraft squadrons the world over share a unique problem. Each requires complex training schedules coupling aircraft to pilots, the duo to missions and airspaces, and then the entire combination to a feasible time slot. Creating daily and weekly flight schedules that include shifts around the clock every day of the year with a set number of pilots is a time consuming job for manual schedulers within a squadron. Complicating matters is absenteeism. If one or more pilots are unable to perform their previously assigned tasks, due to sickness, aircraft failure, or reassignment, those tasks must be performed …