Computer Engineering Commons^™

3d Formation Control In Multi-Robot Teams Using Artificial Potential Fields, Sanjana Reddy Mohan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Multi-robot teams find applications in emergency response, search and rescue operations, convoy support and many more. Teams of autonomous aerial vehicles can also be used to protect a cargo of airplanes by surrounding them in some geometric shape. This research develops a control algorithm to attract UAVs to one or a set of bounded geometric shapes while avoiding collisions, re-configuring in the event of departure or addition of UAVs and maneuvering in mission space while retaining the configuration. Using potential field theory, weighted vector fields are described to attract UAVs to a desired formation. In order to achieve this, three …

Optimal Design And Planning Of Hybrid Ac/Dc Microgrid, Hossein Lotfi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The traditional approach for microgrid design and deployment has been mainly focused on AC systems. DC microgrids, however, are gaining attention due to numerous advantages they provide over AC microgrids, such as removing the need for synchronization and frequency adjustment as well as appropriateness in supporting DC loads and distributed energy resources (DERs). Moreover, considering that both AC and DC DERs are utilized in microgrids, hybrid microgrids would provide viable and economic solutions as they can potentially eliminate the need for AC-to-DC or DC-to-AC voltage conversions. This dissertation focuses on a hybrid microgrid planning model with the objective of minimizing …

Improvements Of And Extensions To Fsmweb: Testing Mobile Apps, Ahmed Fawzi Al Haddad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A mobile application is a software program that runs on mobile device. In 2017, 178.1 billion mobile apps downloaded and the number is expected to grow to 258.2 billion app downloads in 2022 [19]. The number of app downloads poses a challenge for mobile application testers to find the right approach to test apps. This dissertation extends the FSMWeb approach for testing web applications [50] to test mobile applications (FSMApp). During the process of analyzing FSMWeb how it could be extended to test Mobile Apps, a number of shortcomings were detected which we improved upon. We discuss these first. We …

Protection Of High-Voltage Transformer Bushings And Other Brittle Structures Against Impact, Christine Nichole Henderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contributes unique approaches to improve the fundamental understanding of the impact behavior of porcelain high-voltage (HV) transformer bushings under high-velocity impact, with a focus on their protection with feasible methods which could be quickly applied in service to prevent vandalism and other undesirable impact situations. The bushings are brittle and pressurized; prone to explosive damage when hit by a high-velocity projectile. Damaged bushings can destroy transformers and entire substations in complex fashions. This can put the power grid at risk for cascading failures and electrical blackouts, affecting consumers. Therefore, suggesting practical approaches which could be used to protect …

A Policy Mechanism For Federal Recommendation Of Security Standards For Mobile Devices That Conduct Transactions, Ariel Huckabay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The proliferation of mobile devices in the BRIC countries has prompted them to develop policies to manage the security of these devices. In China, mobile devices are a primary tool for payments. As a result, China instituted in 2017 a cyber security policy that applies to mobile devices giving China broad authority to manage cyber threats. The United States has a similar need for a cyber policy. Mobile devices are likely to become a primary payment tool in the United States soon. DHS has also identified a need for more effective security policy in mobile devices for government operations. This …

Application Of Microgrids In Supporting The Utility Grid, Alireza Majzoobi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Distributed renewable energy resources have attracted significant attention in recent years due to the falling cost of the renewable energy technology, extensive federal and state incentives, and the application in improving load-point reliability. This growing proliferation, however, is changing the traditional consumption load curves by adding considerable levels of variability and further challenging the electricity supply-demand balance. In this dissertation, the application of microgrids in effectively capturing the distribution network net load variability, caused primarily by the prosumers, is investigated. Microgrids provide a viable and localized solution to this challenge while removing the need for costly investments by the electric …

Detecting Malicious Behavior In Openwrt With Qemu Tracing, Jeremy Porter

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

In recent years embedded devices have become more ubiquitous than ever before and are expected to continue this trend. Embedded devices typically have a singular or more focused purpose, a smaller footprint, and often interact with the physical world. Some examples include routers, wearable heart rate monitors, and thermometers. These devices are excellent at providing real time data or completing a specific task quickly, but they lack many features that make security issues more obvious. Generally, Embedded devices are not easily secured. Malware or rootkits in the firmware of an embedded system are difficult to detect because embedded devices do …

[Accepted Article Manuscript Version (Postprint)] Distributed Data-Gathering And -Processing In Smart Cities: An Information-Centric Approach, Reza Tourani, Abderrahmen Mtibaa, Satyajayant Misra

Computer Science Faculty Works

The technological advancements along with the proliferation of smart and connected devices (things) motivated the exploration of the creation of smart cities aimed at improving the quality of life, economic growth, and efficient resource utilization. Some recent initiatives defined a smart city network as the interconnection of the existing independent and heterogeneous networks and the infrastructure. However, considering the heterogeneity of the devices, communication technologies, network protocols, and platforms the interoperability of these networks is a challenge requiring more attention. In this paper, we propose the design of a novel Information-Centric Smart City architecture (iSmart), focusing on the demand of …

Knowledge-Enabled Entity Extraction, Hussein S. Al-Olimat

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Information Extraction (IE) techniques are developed to extract entities, relationships, and other detailed information from unstructured text. The majority of the methods in the literature focus on designing supervised machine learning techniques, which are not very practical due to the high cost of obtaining annotations and the difficulty in creating high quality (in terms of reliability and coverage) gold standard. Therefore, semi-supervised and distantly-supervised techniques are getting more traction lately to overcome some of the challenges, such as bootstrapping the learning quickly. This dissertation focuses on information extraction, and in particular entities, i.e., Named Entity Recognition (NER), from multiple domains, …

Solid Spherical Energy (Sse) Cnns For Efficient 3d Medical Image Analysis, Vincent Andrearczyk, Valentin Oreiller, Julien Fageot, Xavier Montet, Adrien Depeursinge

Session 2: Deep Learning for Computer Vision

Invariance to local rotation, to differentiate from the global rotation of images and objects, is required in various texture analysis problems. It has led to several breakthrough methods such as local binary patterns, maximum response and steerable filterbanks. In particular, textures in medical images often exhibit local structures at arbitrary orientations. Locally Rotation Invariant (LRI) Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) were recently proposed using 3D steerable filters to combine LRI with Directional Sensitivity (DS). The steerability avoids the expensive cost of convolutions with rotated kernels and comes with a parametric representation that results in a drastic reduction of the number of …

Micro Expression Classification Accuracy Assessment, Pratikshya Sharma, Sonya Coleman, Pratheepan Yogarajah, Laurenc Taggart

Session 1: Active Vision, Tracking, Motion Analysis

The ability to identify and draw appropriate implications from non-verbal cues is a challenging task in facial expression recognition and has been investigated by various disciplines particularly social science, medical science, psychology and technological sciences beyond three decades. Non-verbal cues often last a few seconds and are obvious (macro) whereas others are very short and difficult to interpret (micro). This research is based on the area of micro expression recognition with the main focus laid on understanding and exploring the combined effect of various existing feature extraction techniques and one of the most renowned machine learning algorithms identified as Support …

Annual Report 2018-2019, Depaul University College Of Computing And Digital Media

CDM Annual Reports

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

I am pleased to share with you the 2018-19 College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM) annual report, highlighting the important work done by our faculty, students, and staff. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: it was a big year. In 2018-19, programs across all three of our schools (Computing, Cinematic Arts, and Design) were ranked nationally. Our faculty were published in dozens of scholarly journals, screened their films over 100 times, and had their work exhibited globally. Student and alumni accomplishments included an Emmy nomination, a first place win in a Department …

Automated Vehicle Electronic Control Unit (Ecu) Sensor Location Using Feature-Vector Based Comparisons, Gregory S. Buthker

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

In the growing world of cybersecurity, being able to map and analyze how software and hardware interact is key to understanding and protecting critical embedded systems like the Engine Control Unit (ECU). The aim of our research is to use our understanding of the ECU's control flow attained through manual analysis to automatically map and identify sensor functions found within the ECU. We seek to do this by generating unique sets of feature vectors for every function within the binary file of a car ECU, and then using those feature sets to locate functions within each binary similar to their …

Deep Learning: Edge-Cloud Data Analytics For Iot, Katarina Grolinger, Ananda M. Ghosh

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Sensors, wearables, mobile and other Internet of Thing (IoT) devices are becoming increasingly integrated in all aspects of our lives. They are capable of collecting massive quantities of data that are typically transmitted to the cloud for processing. However, this results in increased network traffic and latencies. Edge computing has a potential to remedy these challenges by moving computation physically closer to the network edge where data are generated. However, edge computing does not have sufficient resources for complex data analytics tasks. Consequently, this paper investigates merging cloud and edge computing for IoT data analytics and presents a deep learning-based …

Disinformation And Misinformation Triangle: A Conceptual Model For ‘Fake News’ Epidemic, Causal Factors And Interventions, Victoria Rubin

Data and Test Instruments

Purpose (mandatory) This position paper treats disinformation and misinformation (intentionally deceptive and unintentionally inaccurate misleading information, respectively) as a socio-cultural technology-enabled epidemic in digital news, propagated via social media.Design/methodology/approach (mandatory) The proposed Disinformation and Misinformation Triangle is a conceptual model that identifies the three minimal causal factors occurring simultaneously to facilitate the spread of the epidemic at the societal level.Findings (mandatory) Following the epidemiological Disease Triangle model, the three interacting causal factors are translated into the digital news context: (1) the virulent pathogens are falsifications, clickbait, satirical ‘fakes’ and other deceptive or misleading news content; (2) the susceptible hosts are …

Software Defined Networks Based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey, Mubashir Husain Rehmani, Alan Davy, Brendan Jennings, Chadi Assi

Publications

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is …

Smart Control Of Buck Converters Using A Switching-Based Clustering Algorithm, Brook Abegaz, M. Cmiel

Engineering Science Faculty Publications

This paper proposes a new approach to the control of switching voltage regulators (buck converters). The method is performed using a switching-based clustering algorithm. The implementations of competing approaches such as a fuzzy-logic controller, proportional integral derivative controller and a neural network based controller are presented in order to compare and evaluate the performance of the switching-based clustering algorithm. The results of the approach show that the proposed method could improve the stability and the performance of the buck converter system by 2.7% in terms of settling time and by 0.6% in terms of the overshoot value as compared to …

Jitana: A Modern Hybrid Program Analysis Framework For Android Platforms, Yutaka Tsutano, Shakthi Bachala, Witawas Srisa-An, Gregg Rothermel, Jackson Dinh

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Security vetting of Android apps is often performed under tight time constraints (e.g., a few minutes). As such, vetting activities must be performed “at speed”, when an app is submitted for distribution or a device is analyzed for malware. Existing static and dynamic program analysis approaches are not feasible for use in security analysis tools because they require a much longer time to operate than security analysts can afford. There are two factors that limit the performance and efficiency of current analysis approaches. First, existing approaches analyze only one app at a time. Finding security vulnerabilities in collaborative environments such …

Femtosecond Photon-Mediated Plasma Enhances Photosynthesis Of Plasmonic Nanostructures And Their Sers Applications, Peng Ran, Lan Jiang, Xin Li, Bo Li, Pei Zuo, Yongfeng Lu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Laser ablation in liquid has proven to be a universal and green method to synthesize nanocrystals and fabricate functional nanostructures. This study demonstrates the superiority of femtosecond laser-mediated plasma in enhancing photoredox of metal cations for controllable fabrication of plasmonic nanostructures in liquid. Through employing upstream high energetic plasma during laser-induced microexplosions, single/three-electron photoreduction of metallic cations can readily occur without chemical reductants or capping agents. Experimental evidences demonstrate that this process exhibits higher photon utilization efficiency in yield of colloidal metal nanoparticles than direct irradiation of metallic precursors. Photogenerated hydrated electrons derived from strong ionization of silicon and water …

Manipulation Of Lipss Orientation On Silicon Surfaces Using Orthogonally Polarized Femtosecond Laser Double-Pulse Trains, Wei Liu, Lan Jiang, Weina Han, Jie Hu, Xiaowei Li, Ji Huang, Shenghua Zhan, Yongfeng Lu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) provide an easy and costeffective means of fabricating gratings and have been widely studied in recent decades. To overcome the challenge of orientation controllability, we developed a feasible and efficient method for manipulating the orientation of LIPSS in real time. Specifically, we used orthogonally polarized and equal-energy femtosecond laser (50 fs, 800 nm) double-pulse trains with time delay about 1ps, total peak laser fluence about 1.0 J/cm², laser repetition frequency at 100 Hz and scanning speed at 150 μm/s to manipulate the LIPSS orientation on silicon surfaces perpendicular to the scanning direction, regardless …

Growth Of Nitride Films, Yongfeng Lu, Hossein Rabiee Golgir, Yunshen Zhou

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

A gallium nitride thin film can be formed on a substrate at a low temperature (e.g., not higher than 600°C .) by applying a laser to resonantly excite molecules of a first precursor that contains nitrogen, in which the laser has a wavelength that is selected to match a vibration mode and/or a vibrational rotational mode of the molecules of the first precursor. A second precursor is provided in which the excited first precursor and the second precursor react to form a nitride that is deposited on the substrate. For example, the second precursor may include gallium, and the nitride …

Fabrication Of Highly Homogeneous And Controllable Nanogratings On Silicon Via Chemical Etching-Assisted Femtosecond Laser Modification, Ji Huang, Lan Jiang, Xiaowei Li, Andong Wang, Zhi Wang, Qingsong Wang, Jie Hu, Liangti Qu, Tianhong Cui, Yongfeng Lu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Femtosecond laser direct writing is widely exploited in surface periodic structures processing. However, this technique still faces challenges in obtaining high surface homogeneity and flexible morphology controllability. In this study, a flexible and efficient approach has been proposed to fabricate highly homogeneous and controllable nanogratings on silicon via chemical etching-assisted femtosecond laser modification. By precisely manipulating the laser-material interaction process, alternating amorphous-crystalline nanofringes are generated when employing femtosecond laser scanning over a Si sample, with almost no material removal. Following auxiliary chemical etching, highly homogeneous nanograting structures are obtained, and the morphology of the nanogratings can be flexibly managed through …

Overview Of Extreme Manufacturing, Dongming Guo, Yongfeng Lu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Today we live in a new era of economic globalization and rapid technological growth. The advancement of both our society and standard of living require us to delve into this new world and unleash the possibilities our future. We need to broaden the horizons of our universe to discover a new realm where the future of humanity can flourish. We need to be unafraid to unveil the mysteries hidden within the depths of our oceans to unearth treasures that will benefit not only us, but the generations to come.

Effect Of Titanium And Zirconium Carbide Interphases On The Thermal Conductivity And Interfacial Heat Transfers In Copper/ Diamond Composite Materials, Clio Azina, Inaki Cornu, Jean-Francois Silvain, Yongfeng Lu, Jean-Luc Battaglia

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Thermal properties of metal matrix composite materials are becoming ever more relevant with the increasing demand for thermally efficient materials. In this work, the thermal conductivity and heat transfers at the interfaces of copper matrix composite materials reinforced with diamond particles (Cu/D) are discussed. The composite materials contain either ZrC or TiC interphases and exhibit, respectively, higher and lower thermal conductivities with respect to their pure Cu/D counterparts. These thermal conductivities are accounted to the presence of strong covalent bonds and increased relative densities. The role of these interphases is also discussed regarding the phonon transmission at the interfaces.

A Novel Method Of Near-Miss Event Detection With Software Defined Radar In Improving Railyard Safety, Subharthi Banerjee, Jose Santos, Michael Hempel, Pejman Ghasemzadeh, Hamid Sharif

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Railyards are one of the most challenging and complex workplace environments in any industry. Railyard workers are constantly surrounded by dangerous moving objects, in a noisy environment where distractions can easily result in accidents or casualties. Throughout the years, yards have been contributing 20–30% of the total accidents that happen in railroads. Monitoring the railyard workspace to keep personnel safe from falls, slips, being struck by large object, etc. and preventing fatal accidents can be particularly challenging due to the sheer number of factors involved, such as the need to protect a large geographical space, the inherent dynamicity of the …

Self-Organized Twist-Heterostructures Via Aligned Van Der Waals Epitaxy And Solid-State Transformations, Peter Sutter, Rina Ibragimova, Hannu-Pekka Kosma, Bruce A. Parkinson, Eli A. Sutter

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Vertical van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures of 2D crystals with defined interlayer twist are of interest for band-structure engineering via twist moiré superlattice potentials. To date, twist-heterostructures have been realized by micromechanical stacking. Direct synthesis is hindered by the tendency toward equilibrium stacking without interlayer twist. Here, we demonstrate that growing a 2D crystal with fixed azimuthal alignment to the substrate followed by transformation of this intermediate enables a potentially scalable synthesis of twisted heterostructures. Microscopy during growth of ultrathin orthorhombic SnS on trigonal SnS2 shows that vdW epitaxy yields azimuthal order even for non-isotypic 2D crystals. Excess sulfur drives …

Robotic Automation Of A Cnc Machine, Jace Hovey

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Robotic automation of CNC machines is becoming more popular as robot technology advances and becomes more readily available. While some CNC machines can run autonomously with part catchers, vertical milling centers require an external entity to keep the machine running. Collaborative and Industrial robots are the two main selections for automating a vertical CNC milling machine. We investigate specifically which robot type is most effective for machine tending a Haas VF2 vertical milling center. To do this a cell floor plan, risk assessment, overall equipment effectiveness evaluation, and a total cost analysis are performed to compare robots. With this results …

Routing Algorithm For The Ground Team In Transmission Line Inspection Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Yu Li

Masters Theses

"With the rapid development of robotics technology, robots are increasingly used to conduct various tasks by utility companies. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an efficient robot that can be used to inspect high-voltage transmission lines. UAVs need to stay within a data transmission range from the ground station and periodically land to replace the battery in order to ensure that the power system can support its operation. A routing algorithm must be used in order to guide the motion and deployment of the ground station while using UAV in transmission line inspection. Most existing routing algorithms are dedicated to …

Automated Synthesis Of Unconventional Computing Systems, Amad Ul Hassen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite decades of advancements, modern computing systems which are based on the von Neumann architecture still carry its shortcomings. Moore's law, which had substantially masked the effects of the inherent memory-processor bottleneck of the von Neumann architecture, has slowed down due to transistor dimensions nearing atomic sizes. On the other hand, modern computational requirements, driven by machine learning, pattern recognition, artificial intelligence, data mining, and IoT, are growing at the fastest pace ever. By their inherent nature, these applications are particularly affected by communication-bottlenecks, because processing them requires a large number of simple operations involving data retrieval and storage. The …

Soft-Error Resilience Framework For Reliable And Energy-Efficient Cmos Logic And Spintronic Memory Architectures, Faris Alghareb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The revolution in chip manufacturing processes spanning five decades has proliferated high performance and energy-efficient nano-electronic devices across all aspects of daily life. In recent years, CMOS technology scaling has realized billions of transistors within large-scale VLSI chips to elevate performance. However, these advancements have also continually augmented the impact of Single-Event Transient (SET) and Single-Event Upset (SEU) occurrences which precipitate a range of Soft-Error (SE) dependability issues. Consequently, soft-error mitigation techniques have become essential to improve systems' reliability. Herein, first, we proposed optimized soft-error resilience designs to improve robustness of sub-micron computing systems. The proposed approaches were developed to …