Engineering Commons^™

Icarus Avionics Device, Robert A. Gread

All Undergraduate Projects

The Federal Aviation Administration recently released a statement that personal and homemade aircraft accidents could be reduced significantly with the addition of Angle of Attack information for the pilot. Installing most available devices on modern aircraft requires extensive fitting and modification at great expense. Furthermore, modification of older and vintage aircraft may not be desirable. The introduction of a simple, non-invasive device that provides the same information would increase safety and be marketable. Utilizing this opportunity and setting a range of requirements including cost, weight, ease of installation, and reliability, analysis was performed on different methods purposed to accomplish the …

Met 314 Torque Measurement, Jose Bejar

All Undergraduate Projects

As part of the Mechanical Engineering Technology program, students are required to take a Thermodynamics class. In this class one of the labs they do consists of an air motor running a water pump. The professor teaching that class wanted a device that would fit within the lab rig which would calculate the torque produced by the motor. Therefore this project consists of building a device that will allow the case (body) of the air motor to fully rotate opposite to the rotation of the shaft in order to measure the torque the motor produces at certain revolutions per minute. …

Paper Airplane Building Machine: Paper Folding Mechanism, Abdullah Y. Alshahrani

All Undergraduate Projects

The project was motivated by an ASME 2016 design challenge. The challenge was to design and manufacture a device that would turn a single sheet of paper into a paper airplane and launch it. The project is divided into three portions. The three portions are the frame and paper loading, folding mechanism, and launching. The circumference equation is used, to determine what the proper speed of the paper loading motor is. Notably, a slow rpm motor is needed for the loading mechanism to prevent the paper from being damaged. To avoid any deflection in the frame, the total weight of …

Asme Mini-Baja Rc Car (Steering And Suspension Systems), Michael E. Cox

All Undergraduate Projects

The issue that this project is concerned with is how to design and build a drivetrain, steering and suspension systems for an RC car. The systems must be simple and functional. Furthermore, these systems will be designed to fit on a small chassis and not interfere with each other. They also need to be strong and durable enough to propel the car forward and maneuver through various obstacles and be built in a way that is easy to take apart and repair quickly. These design problems were approached using basic mechanical design concepts such as gear kinematics, spur and bevel …

On Event-Triggered Adaptive Architectures For Decentralized And Distributed Control Of Large-Scale Modular Systems, Ali Albattat, Benjamin C. Gruenwald, Tansel Yucelen

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

The last decade has witnessed an increased interest in physical systems controlled over wireless networks (networked control systems). These systems allow the computation of control signals via processors that are not attached to the physical systems, and the feedback loops are closed over wireless networks. The contribution of this paper is to design and analyze event-triggered decentralized and distributed adaptive control architectures for uncertain networked large-scale modular systems; that is, systems consist of physically-interconnected modules controlled over wireless networks. Specifically, the proposed adaptive architectures guarantee overall system stability while reducing wireless network utilization and achieving a given system performance in …

Microfocusing At The Pg1 Beamline At Flash, S. Dziarzhytski, N. Gerasimova, Rene Goderich, T. Mey, M. Rübhausen, F. Siewert, H. Weigelt, G. Brenner

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

The Kirkpatrick-Baez (KB) refocusing mirror system installed at the PG1 branch of the plane-grating monochromator beamline at the soft X-ray/XUV free-electron laser in Hamburg (FLASH) is designed to provide tight aberration-free focusing down to 4 µm × 6 µm full width at half-maximum (FWHM) on the sample. Such a focal spot size is mandatory to achieve ultimate resolution and to guarantee best performance of the vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) off-axis parabolic double-monochromator Raman spectrometer permanently installed at the PG1 beamline as an experimental end-station. The vertical beam size on the sample of the Raman spectrometer, which operates without entrance slit, defines and …

Ingan Leds For General Lighting: Overcoming Efficiency Droop At High Current Injection, Nicolas Andrade

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

According to the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook report in 2011, the United States alone consumed 97.8 quadrillion Btus (quads) of primary energy in 2010. Roughly 41% of this energy was consumed for electricity use, with 18% of the electricity being dedicated to lighting. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated light consumption of this scale translates to CO2 production equivalent to 70% of the emissions from all of the world's light passenger vehicles. Pollution levels at this rate caused 18,200 premature deaths, 2,100,000 days of medication, and 29 million cases of lower respiratory symptoms.

Bytewise Approximate Matching: The Good, The Bad, And The Unknown, Vikram S. Harichandran, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Hash functions are established and well-known in digital forensics, where they are commonly used for proving integrity and file identification (i.e., hash all files on a seized device and compare the fingerprints against a reference database). However, with respect to the latter operation, an active adversary can easily overcome this approach because traditional hashes are designed to be sensitive to altering an input; output will significantly change if a single bit is flipped. Therefore, researchers developed approximate matching, which is a rather new, less prominent area but was conceived as a more robust counterpart to traditional hashing. Since the conception …

Analysis Of The Fm Radio Spectrum For Secondary Licensing Of Low-Power Short-Range Cognitive Internet Of Things Devices, Derek T. Otermat, Ivica Kostanic, Carlos E. Otero

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The analysis presented in this paper indicates that the FM radio spectrum is underutilized in the areas of the continental United States that have a population of 100000 or less. These locations have vacant FM radio spectrum of at least 13 MHz with sufficient spectrum spacing between adjacent FM radio channels. The spectrum spacing provides the required bandwidth for data transmission and provides enough bandwidth to minimize interference introduced by neighboring predicted and unpredicted FM radio stations and other low-power short-range Internet of Thing (IoT) devices. To ensure that low-power short-range IoT devices maintain reliable communications vacant radio spectrum, such …

Modeling Of Mzm-Based Photonic Link Power Budget, Kehan Zhu, Cheng Li, Nan Qi, Marco Fiorentino, Raymond Beausoleil, Vishal Saxena

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

An accurate methodology for analyzing the Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) based optical link power budget is presented. It optimizes the transceiver’s system-level performance to meet the specifications of the optical links with N-level (N=2,4,8) pulse amplitude modulation format for high-speed signaling.

Seeing In The Dark And Through Walls: Using Ir Cameras In Stem Outreach, Thad B. Welch Iii, Andres Valdepena Delgado, Morgan Brimstein, Drew Buckmiller, Ryan Schwartz, Donna R. Welch, Rhett James Edwards

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The recent introduction of affordable infrared (IR) cameras and IR imaging attachments for smartphones has provided a unique opportunity to enhance the education of K-12 students. We have acquired a number of different IR cameras and IR camera attachments and discuss the utilization of these devices in both a college course and in our STEM and STEAM outreach efforts. While our outreach efforts have placed us in a classroom for just an hour or two at a time, thanks to local IEEE Chapter support, we have placed IR cameras in these classrooms for several weeks at a time.

This paper …

A Teacher’S Journey Integrating Engineering In A Middle School Science Classroom And The Effects On Student Attitudes (Rtp), Christie Jilek, Noah Salzman

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

As teachers are encouraged to help students become problem solvers, incorporating engineering methods into the classroom has become an important theme of conversation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the change in student attitudes when integrating engineering instruction within a middle school science classroom. This study involves 8th grade students located within a single science teacher’s classroom exploring the integration of engineering activities and content for the first time. We assessed student attitudes using a survey constructed by the Friday Institute¹ aimed measuring perception toward STEM related fields and study. Surveys were administered before and after engineering …

Power Control And Beamforming Design For Swipt In Af Two-Way Relay Networks, Wei Wang, Rui Wang, Hani Mehrpouyan, Guoan Zhang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, we study the problem of joint power control and beamforming design for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) in an amplify-and-forward (AF) based two-way relaying (TWR) network. The considered system model consists of two source nodes and a relay node. Two single-antenna source nodes receive information and energy simultaneously via power splitting (PS) from the signals sent by a multi-antenna relay node. Our objective is to maximize the weighted sum power at the two source nodes subject to quality of service (QoS) constraints and the transmit power constraints. However, the joint optimization of the relay beamforming …

Energy Efficient Switched Parasitic Array Antenna For 5g Networks And Iot, Ahmed Kausar, Hani Mehrpouyan, Mathini Sellathurai, Rongrong Qian, Shafaq Kausar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper includes design and implementation result of an adaptive beam forming antenna for upcoming 5G and Internet of Things (IoT). Switched parasitic array antennas are low cost, small sized and compact circular array antennas that steer beam in a desired direction by variation in switching pattern of parasitic elements. The proposed antenna design has an active center element, which is surrounded by several symmetrically placed parasitic elements. The designed antenna has a gain of 8 dB and is capable of 360 degrees beam steering in steps of 60 degrees each. Simulations are validated with results of the fabricated antenna. …

Connecting Hardware And Software In A Middle School Engineering Outreach Effort-Rtp, Noah Salzman, Sin Ming Loo

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent years have seen tremendous growth in outreach programs aimed at bringing computer programming to children and young adults via in-class and extracurricular coding activities. Programs such as the Hour of Code and Girls who Code have introduced millions of young people to programming around the world. For this study, we explored how combining programming with interactive electronics hardware can create a more engaging and dynamic learning environment for some students than what programming alone can achieve.

In this paper, we describe an electrical engineering outreach effort in collaboration with the technology and engineering teacher at a local middle school. …

New Chemistry For The Growth Of First-Row Transition Metal Films By Atomic Layer Deposition, Joseph Peter Klesko

Wayne State University Dissertations

Thin films containing first-row transition metals are widely used in microelectronic, photovoltaic, catalytic, and surface-coating applications. In particular, metallic films are essential for interconnects and seed, barrier, and capping layers in integrated circuitry. Traditional vapor deposition methods for film growth include PVD, CVD, or the use of plasma. However, these techniques lack the requisite precision for film growth at the nanoscale, and thus, are increasingly inadequate for many current and future applications. By contrast, ALD is the favored approach for depositing films with absolute surface conformality and thickness control on 3D architectures and in high aspect ratio features. However, the …

On-Orbit Inter-Satellite Radiometric Calibration Of Cross-Track Scanning Microwave Radiometers, Hamideh Ebrahimi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation concerns the development of an improved algorithm for the inter-satellite radiometric calibration (XCAL) for cross track scanning microwave radiometers in support of NASA's Global Precipitation Mission (GPM). This research extends previous XCAL work to assess the robustness of the CFRSL "double difference" technique for sounder X-CAL. In this work, using a two-year of observations, we present a statistical analysis of radiometric biases performed over time and viewing geometry. In theory, it is possible to apply the same X-CAL procedure developed for conical-scanning radiometers to cross-track scanners; however the implementation is generally more tedious. For example, with the cross-track …

Study Of Role Of Meniscus And Viscous Forces During Liquid-Mediated Contacts Separation, Prabin Dhital

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Menisci may form between two solid surfaces with the presence of an ultra-thin liquid film. When the separation operation is needed, meniscus and viscous forces contribute to an adhesion leading stiction, high friction, possibly high wear and potential failure of the contact systems, for instance microdevices, magnetic head disks and diesel fuel injectors. The situation may become more pronounced when the contacting surfaces are ultra-smooth and the normal load is small. Various design parameters, such as contact angle, initial separation height, surface tension and liquid viscosity, have been investigated during liquid-mediated contact separation. However, how the involved forces will change …

Thermodynamics And Kinetics Of The Three-Way Junction Of Phi29 Motor Prna And Its Assembly Into Nanoparticles For Therapeutic Delivery To Prostate Cancer, Daniel W. Binzel

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

The emerging field of RNA nanotechnology necessitates creation of functional RNA nanoparticles, but has been limited by particle instability. Previously, it was found the three-way junction (3WJ) of the Phi29 DNA packaging motor pRNA was found to be ultra-stable and assemble in solution without the presence of metal ions. The three-way junction is composed of three short oligo RNA strands and proven to be thermodynamically stable. Here the assembly mechanism, thermodynamic and enzymatic stabilities, and kinetics are examined in order to understand the stability behind this unique motif. Thermodynamic and kinetics studies found that the pRNA 3WJ formed out of …

Openthinning: Fast 3d Thinning Based On Local Neighborhood Lookups, Tobias Post, Christina Gillmann, Thomas Wischgoll, Hans Hagen

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

3D Thinning is an often required image processing task in order to perform shape analysis in various applications. For researchers in these domains, a fast, flexible and easy to access implementation is required. Open source solutions, as the Insights Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK), are often used for image processing and visualization tasks, due to their wide range of provided algorithms. Unfortunately, ITK’s thinning implementation is computational expensive and allows solely one specific thinning approach. Therefore, this work presents OpenThinning, an open source thinning solution for 3D image data. The implemented algorithm evaluates a moving local neighborhood to find deletable …

Development Of Three-Dimensional Lung Multicellular Spheroids In Air- And Liquid-Interface Culture For The Evaluation Of Anticancer Therapeutics, Samantha A. Meenach, Alexandran N. Tsoras, Ronald C. Mcgarry, Heidi M. Mansour, J. Zach Hilt, Kimberly W. Anderson

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Three-dimensional (3D) lung multicellular spheroids (MCS) in liquid-covered culture (LCC) and air-interface culture (AIC) conditions have both been developed for the evaluation of aerosol anticancer therapeutics in solution and aerosols, respectively. The MCS were formed by seeding lung cancer cells on top of collagen where they formed spheroids due to the prevalence of cell-to-cell interactions. LCC MCS were exposed to paclitaxel (PTX) in media whereas AIC MCS were exposed to dry powder PEGylated phospholipid aerosol microparticles containing paclitaxel. The difference in viability for 2D versus 3D culture for both LCC and AIC was evaluated along with the effects of the …

On The Linear Approximation Of Mixture Internal Energies Of Departure, Robert B. Kelly, Angelo Lucia

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Direct Monte Carlo simulation of internal energies of departure for binary mixtures of geological interest are gathered and compared to those calculated using a linear mixing rule. Simulation results for gas–oil, oil–oil, and oil–water mixtures show that the linear mixing rule used in the Gibbs–Helmholtz Constrained (GHC) equation of state framework gives accurate approximations of binary mixture internal energies of departure. A flowchart for computing internal energies of departure using Monte Carlo simulation is included along with a sensitivity analysis for the GHC mixture energy parameter with respect to uncertainty in internal energies of departure.

Synthesis And Characterization Of Nanocomposite Microparticles (Ncmp) For The Treatment Of Cystic Fibrosis-Related Infections, Zimeng Wang, Samantha A. Meenach

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Purpose:

Pulmonary antibiotic delivery is recommended as maintenance therapy for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients who experience chronic infections. However, abnormally thick and sticky mucus present in the respiratory tract of CF patients impairs mucus penetration and limits the efficacy of inhaled antibiotics. To overcome the obstacles of pulmonary antibiotic delivery, we have developed nanocomposite microparticles (nCmP) for the inhalation application of antibiotics in the form of dry powder aerosols.

Methods:

Azithromycin-loaded and rapamycin-loaded polymeric nanoparticles (NP) were prepared via nanoprecipitation and nCmP were prepared by spray drying and the physicochemical characteristics were evaluated.

Results:

The nanoparticles were …

Tailoring Optical And Plasmon Resonances In Core-Shell And Core-Multishell Nanowires, Sarath Ramadurgam

Open Access Dissertations

Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) are sub-wavelength structures which exhibit strong optical (Mie) resonances in the visible range. In addition to such optical resonances, the localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR) in metal and semiconductor (or dielectric) based core-shell (CS) and core-multishell (CMS) NWs can be tailored to achieve novel negative-index metamaterials (NIM), extreme absorbers, invisibility cloaks and sensors. Particularly, in this dissertation, the versatility of CS and CMS NWs for the design of negative-index metamaterials in the visible range and, plasmonic light harvesting in ultrathin photocatalyst layers for water splitting are studied.

Utilizing the LSPR in the metal layer and the magnetic …

Bakken Crude Oil And The Changing Logistics Of The American Oil Industry, Austin Rau

Independent Research

The extraction of Bakken crude oil in the Williston Basin of North Dakota is transforming how petroleum is shipped. Before 2008, North American oil was carried primarily via pipeline from source regions to refineries along the Gulf Coast or to metropolitan areas close to consumers. The current pipeline system is ill-equipped to accommodate massive volumes of oil from this previously low producing region. Lack of infrastructure and high demand for “light tight oil” (LTO) led to the use of railroads as a means of moving the product to refineries across the nation. Transporting oil via rail over long distances was …

Distinct And Shared Determinants Of Cardiomyocyte Contractility In Multi-Lineage Competent Ethnically Diverse Human Ipscs, Martin L. Tomov, Zachary T. Olmsted, Haluk Dogan, Eda Gongorurler, Maria Tsompana, Hasan H. Otu, Michael Buck, Eun-Ah Chang, Jose Cibelli, Janet L. Paluh

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

The realization of personalized medicine through human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology can be advanced by transcriptomics, epigenomics, and bioinformatics that inform on genetic pathways directing tissue development and function. When possible, population diversity should be included in new studies as resources become available. Previously we derived replicate iPSC lines of African American, Hispanic-Latino and Asian self-designated ethnically diverse (ED) origins with normal karyotype, verified teratoma formation, pluripotency biomarkers, and tri-lineage in vitro commitment. Here we perform bioinformatics of RNA-Seq and ChIP-seq pluripotency data sets for two replicate Asian and Hispanic-Latino ED-iPSC lines that reveal differences in generation of …

A Wavelet Transform Module For A Speech Recognition Virtual Machine, Euisung Kim

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This work explores the trade-offs between time and frequency information during the feature extraction process of an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system using wavelet transform (WT) features instead of Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) and the benefits of combining the WTs and the MFCCs as inputs to an ASR system. A virtual machine from the Speech Recognition Virtual Kitchen resource (www.speechkitchen.org) is used as the context for implementing a wavelet signal processing module in a speech recognition system. Contributions include a comparison of MFCCs and WT features on small and large vocabulary tasks, application of combined MFCC and WT features on …

Robust Fuzzy-Sliding Mode Based Upfc Controller For Transient Stability Analysis In Autonomous Wind-Diesel-Pv Hybrid System, Asit Mohanty, Sandipan Patra, Prakash K. Ray

Articles

This study presents a comparative study of transient stability and reactive power compensation issues in an autonomous wind–diesel-photovoltaic based hybrid system (HS) using robust fuzzy-sliding mode based unified power flow controller (UPFC). A linearised small-signal model of the different elements of the HS is considered for the transient stability analysis in the HS under varying loading conditions. An IEEE type 1 excitation system is considered for the synchronous generator in the HS, with negligible saturation characteristic, for detailed voltage stability analysis. It is noted from the simulation results that the performance of UPFC is superior to static VAR compensator and …

A Need For Evidence-Based And Multidisciplinary Research To Study The Effects Of The Interaction Of School Environmental Conditions On Student Achievement, Josephine Lau, Lily M. Wang, Clarence E. Waters, James A. Bovaird

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

With funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Healthy Schools initiative, a research team from the University of Nebraska– Lincoln (UNL) is currently working on establishing how environmental conditions in K-12 school buildings impact student scholastic achievement. The objectives of the research project are: (1) to study comprehensively the impacts of a wide set of indoor environmental factors (including indoor air quality, thermal, lighting and acoustic conditions) on student achievement; (2) to investigate how these environmental conditions interact with each other to impact student achievement; (3) to rank order the environmental variables in terms of their relative impact on …

Cognitive Radio For Smart Grid With Security Considerations, Khaled Shuaib, Ezedin Barka, Nedaa Al Hussien, Mohammed Abdel-Hafez, Mahmoud Alahmad

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

In this paper, we investigate how Cognitive Radio as a means of communication can be utilized to serve a smart grid deployment end to end, from a home area network to power generation. We show how Cognitive Radio can be mapped to integrate the possible different communication networks within a smart grid large scale deployment. In addition, various applications in smart grid are defined and discussed showing how Cognitive Radio can be used to fulfill their communication requirements. Moreover, information security issues pertained to the use of Cognitive Radio in a smart grid environment at different levels and layers are …