Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Drones Detection Using Smart Sensors, Aishah Moafa

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Drones are modern and sophisticated technology that have been used in numerous fields. Nowadays, many countries use them in exploration, reconnaissance operations, and espionage in military operations. Drones also have many uses that are not limited to only daily life. For example, drones are used for home delivery, safety monitoring, and others. However, the use of drones is a double-edged sword. Drones can be used for positive purposes to improve the quality of human lives, but they can also be used for criminal purposes and other detrimental purposes. In fact, many countries have been attacked by terrorists using smart drones. …

Energy Harvesting From Airports, Deepon Roy

National Training Aircraft Symposium (NTAS)

Airports around the world are primarily powered using the country’s electricity grids, which comes from a large number of powerplants (coal, natural gas, etc.). Due to a high power supply demand by the airports, the sources from which they get their electricity has become non-economical and non-environment friendly.

As a result, many airports around the world have opted for using solar energy grids for their energy generation, in a bid to reduce the airport’s electricity consumption costs. But it has been a slow progress as only a few airports have been able to implement this feature, as their initial setup …

Residential Thermal Storage And Cooling, Joao Marcelo Rocha Belmonte, Jacob Anderson, Andrew Clarke, Daphne Forester, Bianca Hardtke, Josh Hartman, Marc D. Compere

Sustainability Conference

No abstract provided.

Close Formation Flight Missions Using Vision-Based Position Detection System, Ashok Sarath Chandra Reddy Irigireddy

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

In this thesis, a formation flight architecture is described along with the implementation and evaluation of a state-of-the-art vision-based algorithm for solving the problem of estimating and tracking a leader vehicle within a close-formation configuration. A vision-based algorithm that uses Darknet architecture and a formation flight control law to track and follow a leader with desired clearance in forward, lateral directions are developed and implemented. The architecture is run on a flight computer that handles the process in real-time while integrating navigation sensors and a stereo camera. Numerical simulations along with indoor and outdoor actual flight tests demonstrate the capabilities …

Coverage Guided Differential Adversarial Testing Of Deep Learning Systems, Jianmin Guo, Houbing Song, Yue Zhao, Yu Jiang

Publications

Deep learning is increasingly applied to safety-critical application domains such as autonomous cars and medical devices. It is of significant importance to ensure their reliability and robustness. In this paper, we propose DLFuzz, the coverage guided differential adversarial testing framework to guide deep learing systems exposing incorrect behaviors. DLFuzz keeps minutely mutating the input to maximize the neuron coverage and the prediction difference between the original input and the mutated input, without manual labeling effort or cross-referencing oracles from other systems with the same functionality. We also design multiple novel strategies for neuron selection to improve the neuron coverage. The …

Real-Time Urban Weather Observations For Urban Air Mobility, Kevin A. Adkins, Mustafa Akbas, Marc Compere

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Cities of the future will have to overcome congestion, air pollution and increasing infrastructure cost while moving more people and goods smoothly, efficiently and in an eco-friendly manner. Urban air mobility (UAM) is expected to be an integral component of achieving this new type of city. This is a new environment for sustained aviation operations. The heterogeneity of the urban fabric and the roughness elements within it create a unique environment where flight conditions can change frequently across very short distances. UAM vehicles with their lower mass, more limited thrust and slower speeds are especially sensitive to these conditions. Since …

Security Of The Internet Of Things: Vulnerabilities, Attacks And Countermeasures, Ismail Butun, Houbing Song, Patrik Osterberg

Publications

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) constitute one of the most promising third-millennium technologies and have wide range of applications in our surrounding environment. The reason behind the vast adoption of WSNs in various applications is that they have tremendously appealing features, e.g., low production cost, low installation cost, unattended network operation, autonomous and longtime operation. WSNs have started to merge with the Internet of Things (IoT) through the introduction of Internet access capability in sensor nodes and sensing ability in Internet-connected devices. Thereby, the IoT is providing access to huge amount of data, collected by the WSNs, over the Internet. Hence, …

Design And Performance Of A Communications System For A Low-Cost High Altitude Balloon Platform For Troposphere And Stratosphere Research, Noemí Miguélez Gómez

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

AFOSR Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI), "Integrated Measurement and Modeling Characterization of Stratospheric Turbulence", is a 5-year effort to resolve significant operational issues concerning hypersonic vehicle aerothermodynamics, boundary layer stability, and aero-optical propagation. In situ turbulence measurements along with modeling will quantify spatiotemporal statistics and the dependence of stratospheric turbulence on underlying meteorology to a degree not previously possible. Data from high altitude balloons sampling up to kHz is required to characterize turbulence to the inner-scale, or smaller, over paltitudes from 20 km to 35+ km.

This thesis presents the development of a standard balloon bus, based on reliable COTS …

Efficient Privacy-Aware Imagery Data Analysis, Yifan Tian

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The widespread use of smartphones and camera-coupled Internet of Thing (IoT) devices triggers an explosive growth of imagery data. To extract and process the rich contents contained in imagery data, various image analysis techniques have been investigated and applied to a spectrum of application scenarios. In recent years, breakthroughs in deep learning have powered a new revolution for image analysis in terms of effectiveness with high resource consumption. Given the fact that most smartphones and IoT devices have limited computational capability and battery life, they are not ready for the processing of computational intensive analytics over imagery data collected by …

Guest Editorial Special Issue On Toward Securing Internet Of Connected Vehicles (Iov) From Virtual Vehicle Hijacking, Yue Cao, Houbing Song, Omprakash Kaiwartya, Sinem Coleri Ergen, Jaime Lloret, Naveed Ahmad

Publications

Today’s vehicles are no longer stand-alone transportation means, due to the advancements on vehicle-tovehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications enabled to access the Internet via recent technologies in mobile communications, including WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G, and even 5G networks. The Internet of vehicles was aimed toward sustainable developments in transportation by enhancing safety and efficiency. The sensor-enabled intelligent automation of vehicles’ mechanical operations enhances safety in on-road traveling, and cooperative traffic information sharing in vehicular networks improves traveling efficiency.

Artificial Intelligence In The Aviation Manufacturing Process For Complex Assemblies And Components, Elena Vishnevskaya, Ian Mcandrew, Michael Johnson

Publications

Aviation manufacturing is at the leading edge of technology with materials, designs and processes where automation is not only integral; but complex systems require more advanced systems to produce and verify processes. Critical Infrastructure theory is now used to protect systems and equipment from external software infections and cybersecurity techniques add an extra layer of protection. In this research, it is argued that Artificial Intelligence can reduce these risks and allow complex processes to be less exposed to the threat of external problems, internal errors or mistakes in operation.

Dual Graphene Patch Antenna For Ka Band Satellite Applications, Mohammed Amin Rabah, Mohammed Bekhti

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Currently; grapheme offers a new opportunity to use in space technology and this is due to its amazing properties like conductivity, strength, flexibility and transparency which allows us to exploit new generation of ultra-fast nanoscale components; Since future wireless communication techniques are geared towards the use of the high frequency spectrum and many recent research prove this trend. This letter presents a proposal for design of a dual graphene-based antenna to use in new communication techniques in Ka band, where the proposed antenna can work for uplink and dowlink frequencies at same time since it has return loss less then …

A Remote Observatory For Geocoronal Hydrogen Emissions, Margaret A. Gallant

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The Investigating Near Space Interaction Regions (INSpIRe) observatory is an adaptable research facility that is designed to use Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) to study the faint Balmer series emissions of the terrestrial upper thermosphere and exosphere, collectively known as the geocorona. This instrumentation is designed to be deployable to a clear-air site, necessitating remote operations of the entire observatory, including control and monitoring. The facility currently employs a siderostat to allow for pointing at sky targets, a pressure-tuned dual-etalon FPI to allow for high spectral resolution (R_80,000) measurements, and several charge-coupled device (CCD) imagers for guiding and collecting data. The environment …

Vortex Structures Inside Spherical Mesoscopic Superconductor Plus Magnetic Dipole, A. Ludu

Publications

We investigate the existence of multivortex states in a superconducting mesoscopic sphere with a magnetic dipole placed at the center. We obtain analytic solutions for the order parameter inside the sphere through the linearized Ginzburg-Landau (GL) model, coupled with mixed boundary conditions, and under regularity conditions and decoupling coordinates approximation. The solutions of the linear GL equation are obtained in terms of Heun double confluent functions, in dipole coordinates symmetry. The analyticity of the solutions and the associated eigenproblem are discussed thoroughly. We minimize the free energy for the fully nonlinear GL system by using linear combinations of linear analytic …

Quadrotor Swarm Arena (Quasar) Development Of A Swarm Control Testbed, Shane T. Stebler, William Mackunis

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Swarm control systems are increasingly popular in the robotics industry and academia due to their many potential applications. The goal of the Quadrotor Swarm Arena (QuaSAr) project is to construct a quadrotor swarm control testbed to provide researchers with the tools needed to experimentally investigate this emerging science. This testbed is equipped with a motion capture system, test control station, and numerous quadrotor UAVs. MATLAB-Simulink is utilized for control law development, data processing, and test control. This configuration allows researchers to test developing control law in a 'plug and play' manner as control development and test control are all completed …

Mechanical And Electrical Characterization Of Carbon Fiber/Bucky Paper/Zinc Oxide Hybrid Composites, Suma Ayyagari, Marwan Al-Haik, Virginie Rollin

Publications

The quest for multifunctional carbon fiber reinforced composites (CFRPs) expedited the use of several nano reinforcements such as zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Zinc oxide is a semi-conductor with good piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties. These properties could be transmitted to CFRPs when a nanophase of ZnO is embedded within CFRPs. In lieu of ZnO nanorods, Bucky paper comprising mat of CNTs could be sandwiched in-between composite laminae to construct a functionally graded composite with enhanced electrical conductivities. In this study, different configurations of hybrid composites based on carbon fibers with different combinations of ZnO nanorods and Bucky …

Research Of Sustainable Jet Fuel Production Using Microbes, Rajee Olaganathan

Publications

Global climate change, coupled with rapidly increasing oil prices and energy demand around the world, has paved a way for intense research in the biofuel sector. Stakeholders in the aviation industry have started to focus on bio-jet fuel. Bio-jet fuel is regarded as a sustainable solution to greenhouse gas emissions and energy demand. This paper provides a brief review of the biofuel production technologies, the role of bacteria in producing hydrocarbons and the recent advancements in microbial engineering to enhance the biofuel production. Finally, this paper concludes by highlighting the challenges and future research implications in bio-jet fuel production.

Ses And Ecore For Ontology-Based Scenario Modeling In Aviation Scenario Definition Language (Asdl), Shafagh Jafer, Bharvi Chhaya, Bernard P. Zeigler, Umut Durak

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The Aviation Scenario Definition Language (ASDL) is a domain-specific language proposal which aims to provide a standard aviation scenario specification mechanism and enable the reuse of scenario generation methods among different simulators. This paper presents a model-based scenario development approach that exploits Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) core (Ecore) and System Entity Structure (SES) for metamodeling and modeling these elements. The construction of the ASDL metamodel using both platforms is described to illustrate the processes. As a result of comparing two approaches, it is concluded that they follow a similar structure in the hierarchical definition of modeled elements despite there being …

Multiple Content Adaptive Intelligent Watermarking Schemes For The Protection Of Blocks Of A Document Image, Chetan Kr Mr., S Nirmala Dr.

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Most of the documents contain different types of information such as white space, static information and dynamic information or mix of static and dynamic information. In this paper, multiple watermarking schemes are proposed for protection of the information content. The proposed approach comprises of three phases. In Phase-1, the edges of the source document image are extracted and the edge image is decomposed into blocks of uniform size. In Phase-2, GLCM features like energy, homogeneity, contrast and correlation are extracted from each block and the blocks are classified as no-information, static, dynamic and mix of static and dynamic information content …

Time-Modulated Array Testbed Prototype For Multibeam Spectrometry, Addison J. Ford

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The radio spectrum is becoming increasingly crowded. Researchers are putting efforts into finding ways to increase spectrum utilization. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding research to study various methods to improve utilization of the spectrum and reduce the influence of interference. In the Radar & Microwaves Laboratory at Embry-Riddle, research is being conducted for the applications of passive radar and radio astronomy. As interference is a major threat to both of these applications, interference mitigation is a requirement. More commonly, antenna arrays are used for research in both applications as they can improve performance and reduce cost.

The focus …

A Gps Signal Generator Using A Roach Fpga Board, Kurt L. Pedrosa

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

A Global Positioning System (GPS) signal simulator is a valuable testing tool. It allows for testing of GPS receivers, systems, and anti-spoofing algorithms. With the increased popularity of software defined radios (SDRs) merging GPS signal simulators and SDRs is a natural choice. A detailed review of the construction of a GPS signal generator using the ROACH processing board is presented herein. The ROACH, developed by the Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research (CASPER) team, is a processing board that can be configure to function as a SDR. In this research, the ROACH was transformed to function as a …

Empirical Study On The Accessibility Of Wi-Fi, Computers And Cell Phones In Cuba, Katalina Montalvo

Student Works

This paper reviews the accessibility of technology in Havana, Cuba as it begins to open its borders to the modern world. The technology researched includes cell phones, Wi-Fi, computers, and personal computers. As the embargo on Cuba begins to fade, tourists and new businesses are flocking to this once heavily restricted island. The focus of this paper is to explain the availability of modern technology to the citizens of Cuba. Currently, technology is very limited in Cuba because Wi-Fi is an expensive luxury for the average Cuban. Modern computers are also an expensive purchase, which forces Cubans to put together …

Source Anonymization Of Digital Images: A Counter–Forensic Attack On Prnu Based Source Identification Techniques, Prithviraj Sengupta, Venkata Udaya Sameer, Ruchira Naskar, Ezhil Kalaimannan

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

A lot of photographers and human rights advocates need to hide their identity while sharing their images on the internet. Hence, source–anonymization of digital images has become a critical issue in the present digital age. The current literature contains a number of digital forensic techniques for “source–identification” of digital images, one of the most efficient of them being Photo–Response Non–Uniformity (PRNU) sensor noise pattern based source detection. PRNU noise pattern being unique to every digital camera, such techniques prove to be highly robust way of source–identification. In this paper, we propose a counter–forensic technique to mislead this PRNU sensor noise …

Robust Optimization And Groundwork For Problem Mapping, Leo Austin Ghelarducci

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Goals of this research were to develop a conceptual algorithm that can optimize execution time for generating a solution set and demonstrate that a solution set of one sub-problem can be applied to another sub-problem within the same problem set. To achieve the proposed goals, GloPro was developed to generate rule sets for different sub-problems within a problem set, as well as identifying which rule sets are to be utilized for a given instance of the problem. The algorithm was to be robust, as to be applicable to a wide array of problems without radical re-design per problem. This idea …

Electrical Optimization Of A Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle, Andre J. Napier

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Hybrid electric vehicles electrification and optimization is a prominent part of today’s automotive industry. GM and the Department of Energy challenge 16 universities across North America to redesign a Chevrolet Camaro into a hybrid electric vehicle. This thesis will address how Embry Riddle Aeronautical University’s EcoCAR team electrified and optimized the vehicle. The objective of the thesis is to optimize the electric portion of the vehicle, particularly the low voltage circuitry. Prior work is discussed in detail on the vehicle communication bus, building the power distribution unit and the approach the electrical team took when building the electric portion of …

Application Of Neural Networks To Acoustic Localization, Stephen Cronin

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The intent of the work conducted was to build a neural network for the purposes of acoustic localization. The target of this localization is a sound source underwater. For our purposes, it is an acoustic pinger, as it produces consistent sound at a fixed rate making it ideal for testing. The network was intended to ingest raw data streams and output location information based on the arrangement of sensors employed. To achieve an accurate network, a simulation factoring in the environment was to be created to produce a data set large and diverse enough to describe the unique parameters of …

Feasibility Of Neural Networks For Maritime Visual Detection On A Mobile Platform, Robert Goring

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Object detection through computer vision has traditionally been difficult to reliably implement due to various lighting conditions caused by weather and time of day. Any changes in conditions can be detrimental to the detector’s ability to accurately identify objects. A modern approach implements deep learning techniques to classify and train a neural network. While highly effective, this approach can be cumbersome and computationally intensive. This project will investigate the feasibility of using deep learning to detect, classify, and track objects in near real-time while being processed on a mobile platform. I will investigate the feasibility of these processes on a …

Special Issue Of Best Papers From The 11th International Conference On Systematic Approaches To Digital Forensic Engineering (Sadfe 2016)

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The SADFE series feature the different editions of the International Conference on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensics Engineering. Now in its eleventh edition, SADFE has established itself as the premier conference for researchers and practitioners working in Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensics Engineering.

SADFE 2016, the eleventh international conference on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensic Engineering was held in Kyoto, Japan, September 20 - 22, 2016.

Digital forensics engineering and the curation of digital collections in cultural institutions face pressing and overlapping challenges related to provenance, chain of custody, authenticity, integrity, and identity. The generation, analysis and sustainability of digital …

Compression Of Virtual-Machine Memory In Dynamic Malware Analysis, James E. Fowler Ph.D.

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Lossless compression of memory dumps from virtual machines that run malware samples is considered with the goal of significantly reducing archival costs in dynamic-malware-analysis applications. Given that, in such dynamic-analysis scenarios, malware samples are typically run in virtual machines just long enough to activate any self-decryption or other detection- avoidance maneuvers, the virtual-machine memory typically changes little from that of the baseline state, with the difference being attributable in large degree to the loading of additional executables and libraries. Consequently, delta coding is proposed to compress the current virtual-machine memory dump by coding its differences with respect to a predicted …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.