Computer Engineering Commons^™

Streamsurface Smoke Effect For Visualizing Dragon Fly Cfd Data In Modern Opengl With An Emphasis On High Performance, Jordan Sipes

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Visualizing 3D, time dependent velocity vector fields is a difficult topic. Streamlines can be used to visualize 3D vector fields. A smoke effect where the streamline is faded out as time progresses can provide a better visualization of a time dependent flow. This work uses modern OpenGL to create a smoke trail effect with streamsurfaces in the dragon fly data set. Many aspects affecting performance are tested to determine the best options or approach.

Natural Language Document And Event Association Using Stochastic Petri Net Modeling, Michael Thomas Mills

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The purpose of this research is to design and implement a new methodology that captures the natural language understanding of events from English natural language text and model it using Stochastic Petri Nets. To establish a baseline of recent natural language processing (NLP) and understanding (NLU) research, two surveys are presented. One is a general survey in NLP and NLU methodologies for processing multi-documents. It summarizes and presents methodologies in terms of their features, capabilities, and maturity. The second survey focuses on graph-based methods for NL text processing and understanding and analyzes them in terms of their functional descriptions, capabilities …

Adaptive Semantic Annotation Of Entity And Concept Mentions In Text, Pablo N. Mendes

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The recent years have seen an increase in interest for knowledge repositories that are useful across applications, in contrast to the creation of ad hoc or application-specific databases.

These knowledge repositories figure as a central provider of unambiguous identifiers and semantic relationships between entities. As such, these shared entity descriptions serve as a common vocabulary to exchange and organize information in different formats and for different purposes. Therefore, there has been remarkable interest in systems that are able to automatically tag textual documents with identifiers from shared knowledge repositories so that the content in those documents is described in a …

Solar-Powered Wireless Sensor Nodes With Dynamic Power Management For Indoor Use, Ethan Charles Humphrey

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Indoor environment monitoring, such as medical monitoring and home automation, is achieved through wireless sensor networks that collect data through wireless sensor nodes. These nodes are typically powered by exhaustible power sources that could be difficult or impossible to maintain regularly. A solution to the need for frequent maintenance is to collect the solar power in the environment. This project shows how collecting the solar energy in the environment can extend the lifetime of a sensor node and limit the maintenance required. Along with charging the battery with a solar panel, a dynamic power management scheme can also be implemented. …

Low Cost Open Source Modal Virtual Environment Interfaces Using Full Body Motion Tracking And Hand Gesture Recognition, Matthew J. Marangoni

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Virtual environments provide insightful and meaningful ways to explore data sets through immersive experiences. One of the ways immersion is achieved is through natural interaction methods instead of only a keyboard and mouse. Intuitive tracking systems for natural interfaces suitable for such environments are often expensive. Recently however, devices such as gesture tracking gloves and skeletal tracking systems have emerged in the consumer market. This project integrates gestural interfaces into an open source virtual reality toolkit using consumer grade input devices and generates a set of tools to enable multimodal gestural interface creation. The AnthroTronix AcceleGlove is used to augment …

Mining Diversified Decision Trees Across Multiple Datasets To Capture Similarities And Alignable Differences, Qian Han

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This dissertation studies the problem of mining shared and alignable difference knowledge structures across multiple datasets/applications. Shared and alignable difference knowledge structures are important for identifying analogies between application domains and for forming new hypothesis in challenging research applications, and for assessing the degree and types of knowledge-level similarities and differences between application domains for use in learning transfer. Generally speaking, shared knowledge structures characterize underlying datasets and highlight conceptual-level structural similarities among the datasets. This dissertation studies the mining of shared decision trees, which are a special type of shared knowledge structures. We first consider building one shared decision …

On A Joint Physical Layer And Medium Access Control Sublayer Design For Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks And Applications, Mahir Lumumba Meghji

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are distributed networks comprising small sensing devices equipped with a processor, memory, power source, and often with the capability for short range wireless communication. These networks are used in various applications, and have created interest in WSN research and commercial uses, including industrial, scientific, household, military, medical and environmental domains. These initiatives have also been stimulated by the finalisation of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which defines the medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) for low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPAN).

Future applications may require large WSNs consisting of huge numbers of inexpensive wireless sensor …

Fpga-Based Implementation Of Dual-Frequency Pattern Scheme For 3-D Shape Measurement, Brent Bondehagen

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Structured Light Illumination (SLI) is the process where spatially varied patterns are projected onto a 3-D surface and based on the distortion by the surface topology, phase information can be calculated and a 3D model constructed. Phase Measuring Profilometry (PMP) is a particular type of SLI that requires three or more patterns temporarily multiplexed. High speed PMP attempts to scan moving objects whose motion is small so as to have little impact on the 3-D model. Given that practically all machine vision cameras and high speed cameras employ a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) interface directly to the image sensors, …

A Comprehensive Hdl Model Of A Line Associative Register Based Architecture, Matthew A. Sparks

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Modern processor architectures suffer from an ever increasing gap between processor and memory performance. The current memory-register model attempts to hide this gap by a system of cache memory. Line Associative Registers(LARs) are proposed as a new system to avoid the memory gap by pre-fetching and associative updating of both instructions and data. This thesis presents a fully LAR-based architecture, targeting a previously developed instruction set architecture. This architecture features an execution pipeline supporting SWAR operations, and a memory system supporting the associative behavior of LARs and lazy writeback to memory.

Power-Efficient And Low-Latency Memory Access For Cmp Systems With Heterogeneous Scratchpad On-Chip Memory, Zhi Chen

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

The gradually widening speed disparity of between CPU and memory has become an overwhelming bottleneck for the development of Chip Multiprocessor (CMP) systems. In addition, increasing penalties caused by frequent on-chip memory accesses have raised critical challenges in delivering high memory access performance with tight power and latency budgets. To overcome the daunting memory wall and energy wall issues, this thesis focuses on proposing a new heterogeneous scratchpad memory architecture which is configured from SRAM, MRAM, and Z-RAM. Based on this architecture, we propose two algorithms, a dynamic programming and a genetic algorithm, to perform data allocation to different memory …

Human Performance Regression Testing, Amanda Swearngin, Myra B. Cohen, Bonnie E. John, Rachel K. E. Bellamy

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

As software systems evolve, new interface features such as keyboard shortcuts and toolbars are introduced. While it is common to regression test the new features for functional correctness, there has been less focus on systematic regression testing for usability, due to the effort and time involved in human studies. Cognitive modeling tools such as CogTool provide some help by computing predictions of user performance, but they still require manual effort to describe the user interface and tasks, limiting regression testing efforts. In recent work, we developed CogTool-Helper to reduce the effort required to generate human performance models of existing systems. …

Trading Wind Power In A Competitive Electricity Market Using Stochastic Programing And Game Theory, Ting Dai, Wei Qiao

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Wind power is one of the most rapidly growing clean and renewable energy sources. However, due to the uncertainty and intermittency of wind power, the increasing penetration of wind power into the electric power system will pose challenges to power system operators. Moreover, as a participant in a competitive electricity market, a wind power producer’s behavior and profit will be influenced by other participants’ behaviors. This paper proposes a model of using stochastic programming to generate optimal bidding strategies to maximize the total profits of wind and conventional power producers in both the energy market and a bilateral reserve market, …

Application-Aware Routing For Multi-Hop Cognitive Radio Networks With Channel Bonding, Feng Ye, Jiazhen Zhou, Rose Qingyang Hu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Due to the unequal spectrum resources in different areas, multi-hop wireless cognitive radio network (MWCRN) faces the challenge of a relatively poor performance. In this paper, we propose an application-aware routing scheme with channel bonding technique to help improve the efficiency and performance of a MWCRN network. More specifically, we formulate an optimization problem aiming to meet the application request, as well as operating at low transmission cost. To solve this problem, we first study the greatest lower bound of transmission cost named as Utopian cost, as well as an upper bound of transmission cost. Moreover, we propose two distributed …

Imbalance Fault Detection Of Direct-Drive Wind Turbines Using Generator Current Signals, Xiang Gong, Wei Qiao

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Short-Term Wind Power Prediction Using A Wavelet Support Vector Machine, Jianwu Zeng, Wei Qiao

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reliability-Driven Optimum Standby Electric Storage Allocation For Power Distribution Systems, Salman Kahrobaee, Sohrab Asgarpoor

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Integration of distributed energy resources (DER) has become an indispensable aspect of the future smart grid. The significant and valuable impact of these resources is expected to lead toward a more reliable and efficient power system. As the number of distributed generation and storage systems increases, the availability of sensitive and critical loads may be improved by allocating a portion of electricity storage capacity as a reserve. The goal of this paper is to determine the optimum standby storage capacity in a smart grid based on reliability indices such as the Expected Interruption Cost (EIC) of the system using particle …

The Effect Of Demand Side Management On Reliability Of Automated Distribution Systems, Salman Kahrobaee, Sohrab Asgarpoor

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Demand side management (DSM) provides power systems with the opportunity to supply electricity to the customers more efficiently and reliably. In a smart grid incorporating automated control and distributed energy systems, an effective DSM can alleviate the peak load and shift part of the demand to off-peak hours. This paper evaluates the impact of DSM on reliability of automated power distribution systems. Unlike the previous research studies, we perform load flow analysis and state enumeration to include actual restrictions of distribution systems such as voltage limits of buses and power flow limits of branches. The effects of demand curve and …

Real-Time Temporal Stereo Matching Using Iterative Adaptive Support Weights, Jedrzej Kowalczuk, Eric T. Psota, Lance C. Pérez

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Stereo matching algorithms are nearly always designed to find matches between a single pair of images. A method is presented that was specifically designed to operate on sequences of images. This method considers the cost of matching image points in both the spatial and temporal domain. To maintain real-time operation, a temporal cost aggregation method is used to evaluate the likelihood of matches that is invariant with respect to the number of prior images being considered. This method has been implemented on massively parallel GPU hardware, and the implementation ranks as one of the fastest and most accurate real-time stereo …

A Survey Of Energy-Efficient Compression And Communication Techniques For Multimedia In Resource Constrained Systems, Tao Ma, Michael Hempel, Dongming Peng, Hamid Sharif

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Advances in wireless multimedia communication technologies enable new types of pervasive and ubiquitous applications such as mobile health care, environmental monitoring, facility monitoring and traffic surveillance. Among different factors concerned, energy efficiency is one of the most challenging issues in multimedia communication due to the resource constraints, and the requirements for high bandwidth and low transmission delay. In this survey, we provide a broad picture of the state of- the-art energy efficient techniques that have been proposed in wireless multimedia communication for resource-constrained systems such as wireless sensor networks and mobile devices.

Following the essential stages required for multimedia communication, …

Design Considerations Of Switched Reluctance Motors With Bipolar Excitation For Low Torque Ripple Applications, Cong Ma, Liyan Qu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Switched reluctance motors (SRMs) have been applied to many applications over the past decades due to their simple structure, low cost, and robustness. The primary disadvantage of SRMs is the relatively high torque ripple. In this paper, the machine design is considered under a two-mode bipolar excitation to achieve the optimum performance of a mutually coupled switched reluctance motor (MCSRM) for low torque ripple applications. Geometrical design equations and practical challenges are investigated. In addition, a six-slot, tenpole (6/10) SRM with a six-phase winding configuration under the two-mode bipolar excitation is optimized by solving a multiobjective optimization problem using a …

Improved Microcontroller-Based Electronic Respiratory Training, Steven A. Parkison, Jay D. Carlson, Lance C. Pérez

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Respiratory training is a critical component of many rehabilitation plans, including those of stroke patients. Many current respiratory training techniques lack efficient methods for quantifying progress and updating testing parameters. A previously-developed microcontroller-based device, designed in conjunction with clinicians at the Institute for Rehabilitation Science and Engineering at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, has demonstrated promising results. Here, a prototype of a revised device that is network connected and remoatly sends trial information is presented.\ The proposed device demonstrates enhanced functionality, while being smaller and using less power than the original prototype.

Effective Capacity Of Two-Hop Wireless Communication Systems, Deli Qiao, Mustafa Cenk Gursoy, Senem Velipasalar

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

A two-hop wireless communication link in which a source sends data to a destination with the aid of an intermediate relay node is studied. It is assumed that there is no direct link between the source and the destination, and the relay forwards the information to the destination by employing the decode-and-forward scheme. Both the source and intermediate relay nodes are assumed to operate under statistical quality of service (QoS) constraints imposed as limitations on the buffer overflow probabilities. The maximum constant arrival rates that can be supported by this two-hop link in the presence of QoS constraints are characterized …

Online Soc And Soh Estimation For Multicell Lithium-Ion Batteries Based On An Adaptive Hybrid Battery Model And Sliding-Mode Observer, Taesic Kim, Wei Qiao, Liyan Qu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper proposes an adaptive hybrid battery model-based high-fidelity state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH) estimation method for rechargeable multicell batteries. The hybrid battery model consists of an enhanced Coulomb counting algorithm for SOC estimation and an electrical circuit battery model. A variable-length sliding window least squares (VSWLS)-based online parameter identification algorithm is designed to estimate the electrical parameters of the electrical battery model, which are then used as the parameters of an adaptive discrete-time sliding-mode observer (ADSMO) for terminal and open-circuit voltage estimation of a battery cell. The error of the SOC estimated from the enhanced …

A Survey On Smart Grid Communication Infrastructures: Motivations, Requirements And Challenges, Ye Yan, Yi Qian, Hamid Sharif, David Tipper

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

A communication infrastructure is an essential part to the success of the emerging smart grid. A scalable and pervasive communication infrastructure is crucial in both construction and operation of a smart grid. In this paper, we present the background and motivation of communication infrastructures in smart grid systems. We also summarize major requirements that smart grid communications must meet. From the experience of several industrial trials on smart grid with communication infrastructures, we expect that the traditional carbon fuel based power plants can cooperate with emerging distributed renewable energy such as wind, solar, etc, to reduce the carbon fuel consumption …

Fea Estimation And Experimental Validation Of Solid Rotor And Magnet Eddy Current Loss In Single-Sided Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Machines, Xu Yang, Dean Patterson, Jerry Hudgins, Jessica Colton

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

The rotor and magnet loss in single-sided axial flux permanent magnet machines with non-overlapped windings is studied in this paper. FEA estimations of the loss are carried out using both 2-D and 3-D modeling. The rotor and magnet losses are determined separately for stator slot passing and MMF space harmonics from currents in the stator. The segregation of loss between the solid rotor plate and the magnet is addressed. The eddy current loss reduction by magnet segments is discussed as well. The prototype 24 slot/22 pole single-sided AFPMs, fabricated with both single layer and double layer windings are assembled. Methods …

Multi-Objective Design Optimization Of A Single-Sided Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Machine, Xu Yang, Dean Patterson, Jerry L. Hudgins

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper presents an optimal design approach for a single-sided axial flux permanent magnet(AFPM) machine. A multi-objective differential evolution based optimization algorithm is implemented, which is to maximize the output torque density (Nm/kg) and efficiency. Design constraints including geometrical and operating limits are considered. Total of seven independent variables are employed in the design. Optimization results are compared with a prototype design.

Binocular Video Object Tracking With Fast Disparity Estimation, Yun Ye, Song Ci, Yanwei Liu, Haohong Wang, Aggelos K. Katsaggelos

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper presents a binocular PTU (pan-tilt unit) camera video object tracking scheme using the MeanShift algorithm and the runtime disparity estimation. The proposed method is to accommodate the requirement of 3D content generation and accurate tracking in more advanced video surveillance applications. The disparity estimation process for each stereoscopic pair is formulated as an energy minimization problem. The iterative solution procedure is implemented in a course-to-fine manner. The estimated disparity is used to scale the tracking window by the MeanShift algorithm, i.e. the size of the tracking area is adjustable according to its inner disparity, and thus the moving …

A Multi-Camera Motion Capture System For Remote Health Care Monitoring, Yun Ye, Song Ci, Aggelos K. Katsaggelos, Yanwei Liu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper presents a multi-camera motion capture system aiming to provide caregivers with timely access to the patient's health status through mobile communication devices. The major components include video capture, object detection, video coding and transmission, error concealment, and video analysis. Our contribution is twofold. First, several novel ideas are developed, including fast object detection, and content-aware and adaptive video coding and transmission. Second, all components are seamlessly integrated in a unified optimization framework dedicated for online data transmission. In the scenario, the subject walked on a treadmill with four tripod cameras capturing the video from different viewpoints. After video …

A Single-Switch Lcl-Resonant Isolated Dc-Dc Converter, Jianwu Zeng, Wei Qiao, Liyan Qu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Isolated converters are desirable in the DC-DC power conversion applications where isolation and/or a large voltage step-up gain is needed. Traditional isolated DC-DC converters either utilize many switches to achieve high efficiency or use few switches which result in low efficiency. This paper proposes a new single-switch isolated DC-DC converter with a LCL-resonant circuit. The proposed isolated DC-DC converter has the advantages of not only using the least number of (i.e., one) switch, but also achieving zero-current switching (ZCS) and zero-voltage switching (ZVS) when the switch is turned on and off, respectively. Experimental results are provided to validate the theoretical …

An Isolated Three-Port Bidirectional Dc-Dc Converter For Photovoltaic Systems With Energy Storage, Jianwu Zeng, Wei Qiao, Liyan Qu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper proposes a new isolated, three-port, bidirectional, DC-DC converter for simultaneous power management of multiple energy sources. The proposed converter has the advantage of using the least number of switches and soft switching of the main switch, which is realized by using a LCL-resonant circuit. The converter is capable of interfacing sources of different voltage-current characteristics with an isolated load. In this paper, one photovoltaic (PV) panel, one rechargeable battery, and an isolated load are interfaced by the proposed converter. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed converter is capable of maximum power point tracking control for the …