Digital Circuits Commons^™

Exploring Smart Thermostat, Don P. Dang

2024 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This study examines the security, privacy, and compatibility challenges associated with smart thermostats in smart home systems. Smart thermostats, as part of the growing Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, face vulnerabilities such as unauthorized access, data breaches, and inconsistent security protocols. Using a mixed-methods approach, this research evaluates encryption techniques, communication protocols (Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi Fi), and user behaviors that impact system security and efficiency. Key findings indicate that 35% of users are concerned about hacking risks, while 25% express data privacy concerns. Many users lack awareness of security measures, such as firmware updates and password management, which increases vulnerabilities. …

Trisc: Low-Cost Design Of Trigonometric Functions With Quasi Stochastic Computing, Mehran Shoushtari Moghadam, M. Hassan Najafi

Faculty Scholarship

Low-cost and hardware-efficient design of trigonometric functions is challenging. Stochastic computing (SC), an emerging computing model processing random bit-streams, offers promising solutions for this problem. The existing implementations, however, often overlook the importance of the data converters necessary to generate the needed bit-streams. While recent advancements in SC bit-stream generators focus on basic arithmetic operations such as multiplication and addition, energy-efficient SC design of non-linear functions demands attention to both the computation circuit and the bit-stream generator. This work introduces TriSC, a novel approach for SC-based design of trigonometric functions enjoying state-of-the-art (SOTA) quasi-random bit-streams. Unlike SOTA SC designs of …

Prototyping Interactive Tactile Digital Logic Simulations: A Hybrid Approach, Logan Bateman

MS in Computer Science Project Reports

Tactile exhibits are common in museums and on the walls of university halls. However, few (if any) tools exist for creating tactile exhibits for teaching digital logic or computing concepts. This project implemented a framework for creating tactile digital logic simulation exhibits, with a focus on rapid prototyping and distributed architecture. Prototyping allows for fast iteration, with the ability to simulate unlimited hardware components such as buttons, light emitting diodes (LEDs), and other input or output devices. Through the abstraction of implementations and a distributed communication protocol, switching to real hardware is seamless and works in tandem with simulated hardware. …

All You Need Is Unary: End-To-End Bit-Stream Processing In Hyperdimensional Computing, Mehran Shoushtari Moghadam, M. Hassan Najafi

Faculty Scholarship

Hyperdimensional Computing (HDC) is a brain-inspired computing paradigm introduced to achieve energy efficiency with a lightweight and single-pass training model. Hypervectors (HVs) at the heart of the HDC systems play a fundamental role in elevating the accuracy and obtaining the desired performance. Image-based HV encoding requires two types of HVs: Position and Level HVs. State-of-the-art approaches utilize pseudo-random methods for generating these HVs, which might degrade system performance and cause higher power consumption due to poor randomness in HV generation. These conventional methods require iteratively calculating orthogonal Positional HVs for acceptable accuracy. This work proposes a fast, ultra-lightweight, and high-quality …

Control And Management Of The Balance Of Active And Reactive Power In A Power Supply System With A Solar Power Plant, Narzullo Nuriddinovich Mirzoyev, Siroj Sobirovich Nurov

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

This article discusses the development of a measurement and control system for monitoring and managing the balance of active and reactive power at power plants based on “Green” energy sources. Monitoring and management of the balance of active and reactive power based on a measurement and control system, calculated expressions are developed to solve the problem of reactive power compensation when transmitting electricity at power plants based on “green” energy sources. Reactive power is calculated based on measured active power, and combined reactive power sources generate the reactive power required by the network based on control signals. Schemes for connecting …

Uhd: Unary Processing For Lightweight And Dynamic Hyperdimensional Computing, Mehran Shoushtari Moghadam, M. Hassan Najafi

Faculty Scholarship

Hyperdimensional computing (HDC) is a novel computational paradigm that operates on long-dimensional vectors known as hypervectors. The hypervectors are constructed as long bit-streams and form the basic building blocks of HDC systems. In HDC, hypervectors are generated from scalar values without considering bit significance. HDC is efficient and robust for various data processing applications, especially computer vision tasks. To construct HDC models for vision applications, the current state-of-the-art practice utilizes two parameters for data encoding: pixel intensity and pixel position. However, the intensity and position information embedded in high-dimensional vectors are generally not generated dynamically in the HDC models. Consequently, …

Design And Test Of Asynchronous Systems Using The Link And Joint Model, Ebelechukwu Esimai

Dissertations and Theses

Asynchronous circuits offer numerous advantages, including low energy consumption and good composability and scalability. However, they remain meagerly adopted in the mainstream semiconductor industry. One reason is the limited number of design tools available to help designers navigate design complexity, particularly the myriad of asynchronous implementation styles.

This dissertation focuses on managing the myriad of asynchronous implementation styles by utilizing a circuit-neutral model, called Links and Joints, and embedding this Link-Joint approach into a design flow. Although years of past work have already laid the groundwork, the work in this dissertation identifies and addresses key missing pieces.

First, the …

Enhancing Cybersecurity In Wireless Sensor Networks: Machine Learning, Blockchain And Future Perspectives, Ilemona Solomon Atawodi

Dissertations

Security in the Industrial Internet of Things encounters various security issues but the main issues can be broken down into three core issues: Availability, Integrity, and Confidentiality. Security challenges generally tend to be caused by a failure of the system in one of these areas or cause a failure in one of these areas. Therefore researching scalable solutions to these security issues is prudent to explore methods that could be applied to large-scale industrial IIoT with tens to hundreds of devices as well as small-scale systems on a tiny factory floor comprising of just a few devices. In our research, …

Building A Wireless Electronic Control Unit For An Electric Vehicle, Hector S. Sosa

2024 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Modern vehicles have a variety of features such remote start systems, advance drive assist systems, smart suspension systems, and a feature rich infotainment system. With all this technology in the car, there exists a complex network of computers working together in conjunction to deliver the modern driving experience that many people have today. To be competitive in the market, auto manufacturers are tasked to add additional features to vehicles by adding additional or modifying electronic control units (ECUs). In this study, an ECU will be designed for a mock electric vehicle which contains an already established network of ECU’s. The …

Towards A Wearable Device For Measuring Impedance Plethysmography Of The Radial Artery, Pritom Chowdhury

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Recent advancements in bioimpedance technology have demonstrated significant promise in the application of cardiac health monitoring. This research explores the design and development of a forearm-based wearable bioimpedance device for non-invasive measurement of heart rate and respiratory rate at an accuracy level comparable to medical-grade monitors. It utilizes a tetrapolar electrode configuration to analyze bioimpedance changes in the radial artery due to blood flow.

An ongoing aspect of this work involves the preliminary development of an embedded framework intended to integrate signal generation, acquisition, and processing within the device to achieve compact and efficient system design, anticipated to contribute to …

A Novel Processor Architecture Implementing The Stacked Error Diffusion Algorithm And Its Zynq-Based Realization, Qishi Hu

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Digital halftoning reproduces continuous-tone images using patterns of black and white dots, while multitoning extends this concept by incorporating inks with intermediate intensities. These techniques are extensively utilized in the printing industry to accommodate the limited range of inks available in printers. Stacked error diffusion is a high-quality multitoning algorithm that adheres to the blue-noise dithering standard. This thesis research studies the potential parallelism inherent in the algorithm and introduces the design of a novel processor architecture optimized for efficient execution. The architecture is realized on an FPGA development board featuring a Zynq SoC. Additionally, the hardware prototype can also …