Engineering Commons^™

Toward Reliable, Secure, And Energy-Efficient Multi-Core System Design, Prabal Basu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Computer hardware researchers have perennially focussed on improving the performance of computers while stipulating the energy consumption under a strict budget. While several innovations over the years have led to high performance and energy efficient computers, more challenges have also emerged as a fallout. For example, smaller transistor devices in modern multi-core systems are afflicted with several reliability and security concerns, which were inconceivable even a decade ago. Tackling these bottlenecks happens to negatively impact the power and performance of the computers. This dissertation explores novel techniques to gracefully solve some of the pressing challenges of the modern computer design. …

Control And Stability Of Upper Stage Launch Vehicle With Hybrid Arc-Ignition Attitude Control System, Steven Russell Bennett

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Utah State University Propulsion Research Laboratory (USUPRL) has recently made significant developments in the area of hybrid rocket systems. This type of propulsion system incorporates a solid fuel and a gas or liquid oxidizer. Hybrid rocket systems are known for their inherent safety, reliability, and restart capability. Over the last several years, the USUPRL has successfully built and tested a hybrid rocket system comprising acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic and gaseous oxygen (GOX). The system was demonstrated to be fully functional during ground, vacuum, and sub-orbital flight testing. Continuing forward, the USUPRL endeavors to extend the capabilities of this …

Calibration Of Hot-Film X-Probes For High Accuracy Angle Alignment In Wind Tunnels, Dallin L. Jackson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis investigates the use of hot-film thermal anemometers to align a plate on a wind tunnel at Hill Air Force Base that is used to calibrate Angle of Attack Transmitters on F-16s. A reoccurring problem with this wind tunnel is that no two instruments can verify an angle reading of the the mounting plate for the Angle of Attack Transmitters to the air stream in the wind tunnel. Multiple thermal anemometer calibration methods, such as Jorgensen’s equation and a look-up table are implemented to attempt to achieve consistent measurements between multiple probes. The results show that it is necessary …

Characterization Of Biofilms In A Synthetic Rhizosphere Using Hollow Fiber Root-Mimetic Systems, Michelle Bonebrake

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The area around a plant’s roots hosts a complex and diverse microbial community. This environment can include a large number of bacteria that live on the surface of the root and benefit from the nutrients that the roots exude into the soil. These microbes can in turn be beneficial to the plant by protecting the roots from harmful fungi or stressful environmental conditions such as drought. In this thesis, several root-mimetic systems (RMSs) were developed for the study and growth of plant-beneficial bacteria in the laboratory environment. The RMS uses a porous hollow fiber used in hemodialysis as a surface …

Predicting Critical Warps In Near-Threshold Gpgpu Applications Using A Dynamic Choke Point Analysis, Sourav Sanyal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

General purpose graphics processing units (GP-GPU), owing to their enormous thread-level parallelism, can significantly improve the power consumption at the near-threshold (NTC) operating region, while offering close to a super-threshold performance. However, process variation (PV) can drastically reduce the GPU performance at NTC. In this work, choke points—a unique device-level characteristic of PV at NTC—that can exacerbate the warp criticality problem in GPUs have been explored. It is shown that the modern warp schedulers cannot tackle the choke point induced critical warps in an NTC GPU. Additionally, Choke Point Aware Warp Speculator, a circuit-architectural solution is proposed to dynamically …

Spectral, Energy And Computation Efficiency In Future 5g Wireless Networks, Haijian Sun

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Wireless technology has revolutionized the way people communicate. From first generation, or 1G, in the 1980s to current, largely deployed 4G in the 2010s, we have witnessed not only a technological leap, but also the reformation of associated applications. It is expected that 5G will become commercially available in 2020. 5G is driven by ever-increasing demands for high mobile traffic, low transmission delay, and massive numbers of connected devices. Today, with the popularity of smart phones, intelligent appliances, autonomous cars, and tablets, communication demands are higher than ever, especially when it comes to low-cost and easy-access solutions.

Existing communication architecture …

Investigation Of Graphene Interconnections For Multifunctional Reconfigurable Antenna Beam Steering, Joshua R. Perkins

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In high frequency, high-performance wireless communications, direct line of sight antennas are common. The issue with the line of sight antennas is the need to redirect the physical antenna to achieve the best possible reception. Classical redirections are done by mechanical movements: hand tuning and motors. Our multi-functional re-configurable antenna (MRA) concept allows for electrical and non-mechanical antenna reorientation. This work investigates two important concepts in the development and enhancement of future MRA devices: special, non-interfering, control signal circuitry and nano-sized switching devices that are controlled by the special circuitry. The investigation was conducted with the use of commercially available …

Robust Resource Allocation To Secure Physical Layer Using Uav-Assisted Mobile Relay Communications In 5g Technology, Shakil Ahmed

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are also known as drones. Recently, UAVs have attracted the next generation researchers due to their flexible, dynamic, and cost-effective deployment, etc. Moreover, the UAVs have a wide range of application domains, such as rescue operation in the remote area, military surveillance, emergency application, etc. Given the UAVs are appropriately deployed, the UAVs provide continuous and reliable connectivity, on-demand, and cost-effective features to the desired destination in the wireless communication system. Thus, the UAVs can be a great choice to deploy as a mobile relay in co-existence with the base stations (BSs) on the ground …

Agent-Based Model To Manage Household Water Use Through Social-Environmental Strategies Of Encouragement And Peer Pressure, Ryan James

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Inelastic price responses, demand hardening, and poor public awareness reduce the effectiveness of demand side strategies on water savings. This project quantified phycological household’s factors of attitudes, peer support, opportunities on water conservation with two social-environmental management strategies of encouragement and peer pressure. An agent-based model was populated with data for Logan, Utah using surveys, municipal billing, aerial imagery, weather monitoring stations, and flow, frequency, and durations of appliance use data. Results indicated those households with higher attitudes, peer support and opportunities saved the most water while peer pressure saved more than encouragement when using small and diverse social networks …

Edge Caching For Small Cell Networks, Md Ferdous Pervej

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

An idea of storing contents, such as media files, music files, movie clips, etc. is simple yet challenging in terms of required effort to make it count. Some of the benefits of pre-storing the contents are reduced delay of accessing/downloading a content, reduced load to the centralized servers and of course, a higher data rate. However, several challenges need to be addressed to achieve these benefits. Among many, some of the fundamentals are limited storage capacity, storing the right content and minimizing the costs. This thesis aims to address these challenges. First, a framework for predicting the proper contents that …

Statistical Analysis Of A Channel Emulator For Noisy Gradient Descent Low Density Parity Check Decoder, Rakin Muhammad Shadab

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of a channel emulator is to emulate a communication channel in real-life use case scenario. These emulators are often used in the domains of research in digital and wireless communication. One such area is error correction coding, where transmitted data bits over a channel are decoded and corrected to prevent data loss. A channel emulator that does not follow the properties of the channel it is intended to replicate can lead to mistakes while analyzing the performance of an error-correcting decoder. Hence, it is crucial to validate an emulator for a particular communication channel. This work delves into …

Generalization Of Signal Point Target Code, Md Munibun Billah

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Detecting and correcting errors occurring in the transmitted data through a channel is a task of great importance in digital communication. In Error Correction Coding (ECC), some redundant data is added with the original data while transmitting. By exploiting the properties of the redundant data, the errors occurring in the data from the transmission can be detected and corrected. In this thesis, a new coding algorithm named Signal Point Target Code has been studied and various properties of the proposed code have been extended.

Signal Point Target Code (SPTC) uses a predefined shape within a given signal constellation to generate …

Spiderworms: Using Silkworms As Hosts To Produce A Hybrid Silkworm-Spider Silk Fiber, Ana Laura Licon

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Spider silk has received significant attention due to its fascinating mechanical properties. Given the solitary and cannibalistic behavior of spiders, spider silk farming is impractical. Unlike spiders, silkworms are capable of producing large quantities of a fibrous product in a manner mimetic to spiders, and there already exists an industry to process cocoons into threads and textiles for many applications. The combination of silk farming (sericulture), a millennia old practice, and modern advancements in genetic engineering has given rise to an innovative biomaterial inspired by nature; transgenic silkworm silk.

This project focuses on the creation of chimeric silkworm-spider silk fibers …

Angles-Only Ekf Navigation For Hyperbolic Flybys, Iggy Matheson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Space travelers in science fiction can drop out of hyperspace and make a pinpoint landing on any strange new world without stopping to get their bearings, but real-life space navigation is an art characterized by limited information and complex mathematics that yield no easy answers. This study investigates, for the first time ever, what position and velocity estimation errors can be expected by a starship arriving at a distant star - specifically, a miniature probe like those proposed by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative arriving at Proxima Centauri. Such a probe consists of nothing but a small optical camera and a …

Multiple Imu Sensor Fusion For Suas Navigation And Photogrammetry, Matthew Givens

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Inertial measurement units (IMUs) are devices that sense accelerations and angular rates in 3D so that vehicles and other devices can estimate their orientations, positions, and velocities. While traditionally large, heavy, and costly, using mechanical gyroscopes and stabilized platforms, the recent development of micro-electromechanical sensor (MEMS) IMUs that are small, light, and inexpensive has led to their adoption in many everyday systems such as cell phones, video game controllers, and commercial drones. MEMS IMUs, despite their advantages, have major drawbacks when it comes to accuracy and reliability. The idea of using more than one of these sensors in an array, …

Drafting In Self-Timed Circuits, Christopher Lee Cowan

Dissertations and Theses

Intervals between data items propagating in self-timed circuits are controlled by handshake signals rather than by a clock. In many self-timed designs, a trailing data item will catch up with a leading item or token, even when it trails by thousands of gate delays. This effect, called "drafting," can be seen in many of the self-timed designs, e.g., GasP, Mousetrap, Click, and Micropipeline. The purpose of this dissertation is to reveal the circuit mechanism of drafting in self-timed circuits typically used in FIFO stages. Drafting is usually considered to be incidental to the operation of self-timed circuits since interval timing …

An Atomistic Approach For The Survey Of Dislocation-Grain Boundary Interactions In Fcc Nickel, Devin William Adams

Theses and Dissertations

It is well known that grain boundaries (GBs) have a strong influence on mechanical properties of polycrystalline materials. Not as well-known is how different GBs interact with dislocations to influence dislocation movement. This work presents a molecular dynamics study of 33 different FCC Ni bicrystals subjected to mechanical loading to induce incident dislocation-GB interactions. The resulting simulations are analyzed to determine properties of the interaction that affect the likelihood of transmission of the dislocation through the GB in an effort to better inform mesoscale models of dislocation movement within polycrystals. It is found that the ability to predict the slip …

Robust Coil Combination For Bssfp Mri And The Ordering Problem For Compressed Sensing, Nicholas Brian Mckibben

Theses and Dissertations

Balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) is a fast, SNR-efficient magnetic resonance (MR) imaging sequence suffering from dark banding artifacts due to its off-resonance dependence. These banding artifacts are difficult to mitigate at high field strengths and in the presence of metallic implants. Recent developments in parametric modelling of bSSFP have led to advances in banding removal and parameter estimation using multiple phase-cycled bSSFP. With increasing number of coils in receivers, more storage and processing is required. Coil combination is used to reduce dimensionality of these datasets which otherwise might be prohibitively large or computationally intractable for clinical applications. However, our …

Techniques For Using Internal Strain-Energy Storage And Release Inorigami-Based Mechanical Systems, Mary Elizabeth Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to develop and demonstrate techniques for self-deployment of origami-based mechanical systems achieved through internal strain-energy storage and release, with special application to medical implant devices. The potential of compliant mechanisms and related origami-based mechanical systems to store strain-energy make them ideal candidates forapplications requiring an actuation or deployment process, such as space system arrays and minimally invasive surgical devices. The objective of this thesis is achieved by first categorizing differentdeployment methods in origami-based, deployable mechanisms and then further exploring the use of strain energy to facilitate actuation in deployable mechanisms. With this understanding inplace, …

More Buildings Make More Generalizable Models—Benchmarking Prediction Methods On Open Electrical Meter Data, Clayton Miller

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Prediction is a common machine learning (ML) technique used on building energy consumption data. This process is valuable for anomaly detection, load profile-based building control and measurement and verification procedures. Hundreds of building energy prediction techniques have been developed over the last three decades, yet there is still no consensus on which techniques are the most effective for various building types. In addition, many of the techniques developed are not publicly available to the general research community. This paper outlines a library of open-source regression techniques from the Scikit-Learn Python library and describes the process of applying them to open …

Binder Jetting: A Review Of Process, Materials, And Methods, Mohsen Ziaee, Nathan B. Crane

Faculty Publications

Binder Jet printing is an additive manufacturing technique that dispenses liquid binding agent on powder. Layers are formed repeatedly to build up a physical article. Binder jetting (BJ) can be adapted to almost any powder with high production rates. The BJ process utilizes a broad range of technologies including printing methods, powder deposition, dynamic binder/powder interaction, and post-processing methods. A wide variety of materials have been demonstrated including polymers, metals, and ceramics, but a common challenge is developing printing and post-processing methods that maximize part performance. This article presents a broad review of technologies and approaches that have been applied …

Simulated Tremor Propagation In The Upper Limb: From Muscle Activity To Joint Displacement, Thomas Corie, Steven Knight Charles

Faculty Publications

Although tremor is the most common movement disorder, there are few non-invasive treatment options. Creating effective tremor suppression devices requires a knowledge of where tremor originates mechanically (which muscles) and how it propagates through the limb (to which degrees of freedom, DOF).

To simulate tremor propagation, we created a simple model of the upper limb, with tremorogenic activity in the 15 major superficial muscles as inputs and tremulous joint displacement in the 7 major DOF as outputs. The model approximated the muscle excitation-contraction dynamics, musculoskeletal geometry, and mechanical impedance of the limb.

From our simulations, we determined fundamental principles for …

Evaluation Of Data Collection Operations For Real-Time Influenza Surveillance During An Emergency, Yuwen Gu

Dissertations

It is unclear how data collection operations for surveillance alter the disease portrayal that influenza reported trends attempt to provide during an emergency. This study developed a model that simulates the collection and testing of influenza specimens after an outbreak is declared in Michigan. It performed simulation based optimization to understand which operational factors affect the biases between the growth rates of original and observed influenza incidence trends, and to quantify the predictive power of the influenza incidence trends at different points of data collection. The results show that emergency driven high risk perception increases the reporting, which leads to …

Takeoff And Performance Tradeoffs Of Retrofit Distributed Electric Propulsion For Urban Transport, Kevin Moore, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

While vertical takeoff and landing aircraft have shown promise for urban air transport, distributed electric propulsion on existing aircraft may offer immediately implementable alternatives. Distributed electric propulsion could potentially decrease takeoff distances enough to enable thousands of potential inter-city runways. This conceptual study explores the effects of a retrofit of open-bladed electric propulsion units. To model and explore the design space we use blade element momentum method, vortex lattice method, linear-beam finite element analysis, classical laminate theory, composite failure, empirically-based blade noise modeling, motor and motor-controller mass models, and gradient-based optimization. With liftoff time of seconds and the safe total …

Growth Of Indium Nitride Quantum Dots By Molecular Beam Epitaxy, Steven P. Minor

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the last decade, the evolution of the global consciousness in response to decreasing environmental conditions from global warming and pollution has led to an outcry for finding new alternative/clean methods for harvesting energy and determining ways to minimize energy consumption. III-nitride materials are of interest for optoelectronic and electronic device applications such as high efficiency solar cells, solid state lighting (LEDs), and blue laser (Blu-ray Technology) applications. The wide range of direct band gaps covered by its alloys (0.7eV-6.2eV) best illustrates the versatility of III-nitride materials. This wide range has enabled applications extending from the ultraviolet to the near …

A Simulation Tool For Evaluating The Environmental Impacts Of Management Scenarios For Modern Broiler Production Systems, Martin Andrew Christie

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this work is to provide a simulation tool that allows broiler production practitioners and researchers to simulate the effects of farm design and management practices on resource consumption and environmental impacts. This tool allows the user to design unique farms and simulates on farm processes required to raise broiler chicks to a marketable age. The use can input data such as farm location, broiler breed, flock size, ration type, barn dimensions, and climate control equipment specifications. The algorithms used to simulate broiler breed specific feed intake, broiler weight gain, and other on farm processes such as heating, …

A Study Of Protein And Peptide-Directed Nanoparticle Synthesis For Catalytic Materials, Abdollah Mosleh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanoparticles have received much attentions due to their unique properties that makes them suitable candidates for a broad range of applications. As the size of particles decreases, their surface area-to-volume ratio would increase which is the main cause of much attention. In addition to the size, their morphologies and compositions may also play important roles for defining unique properties. Nanoparticle synthesis include both bottom-up and top-down strategies. To control the process of inorganic nanoparticles synthesis one could follow the bottom-up approach to have atom-level control over their compositions, morphologies, phases, and sizes which is the subject of this work. Due …

Five-Level Flying Capacitor Converter Used As A Static Compensator For Current Unbalances In Three-Phase Distribution Systems, Rafael Franceschi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents and evaluates a solution for unbalanced current loading in three-phase distribution systems. The proposed solution uses the flying capacitor multilevel converter as its main topology for an application known as Unbalanced Current Static Compensator. The fundamental theory, controller design and prototype construction will be presented along with the experimental results. The Unbalanced Current Static Compensator main objective is the balancing of the up-stream currents from the installation point to eliminate the negative- and zero-sequence currents originated by unbalanced single-phase loads.

Three separate single-phase flying capacitor converters are controlled independently using a d-q rotating reference frame algorithm to …

Modification And Optimization Of Conducting Polymer-Modified, Redox-Magnetohydrodynamics (R-Mhd) Pumping For Enhanced And Sustained Microfluidics Applications, Md Foysal Zahid Khan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this work, a novel microfluidic pumping approach, redox-magnetohydrodynamics (R-MHD) has improved by materials and device optimization to use in lab-on-a-chip applications. In R-MHD, magnetic flux (B) and ionic current density (j) interacts to generate body force (FB) in between active electrodes, according to the equation FB = j×B. This unique fluid pumping approach is scalable, tunable, generates flat flow profile, and does not require any channels or valves. Pumping performance, such as speed scales with the ionic current density (j) and duration depends on the total charge (Q). The ionic current density (j) results from the conversion of electronic …

Investigation Of The Effect Of Age On Regenerative Outcomes Following Treatment Of Volumetric Muscle Loss Injuries, John Taehwan Kim

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Volumetric muscle loss (VML) is a traumatic injury in skeletal muscle resulting in the bulk loss of more than 20% of the muscle’s volume. Included in the bulk loss of muscle is the skeletal muscle niche comprised of nerve bundles, vasculature, local progenitor cells, basal lamina, and muscle fibers, overwhelming innate repair mechanisms. The hallmark of VML injury is the excessive accumulation of non-contractile, fibrotic tissue and permanent functional deficits. Though predominant in the younger demographic, the elderly population is also captured within VML injuries. There are many factors that change with aging in skeletal muscle that may further hinder …