Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Energy Storage Devices For Seamless Integration Of Renewable Energy, Meng Liu

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Renewable energy, as a promising resource for supporting continuously growing electricity demand, bears the disadvantages of un-controllable variability and partial unpredictability, which present challenges for large-scale integration into power systems. To maintain stable system frequency, the mechanical energy driving the generators should be balanced with the electrical energy consumed by loads and losses at all times. However, high penetration level of renewable energy presents challenges for this basic requirement. Energy storage system (ESS) is one of the most promising solutions to shape the variable renewable generation to follow certain production plans which benefits both system operation and market participation. In …

Home Area Networks For Smart Grid Communications, Zhuo Li

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

his dissertation studies five topic which are focused on but not limited to the area of Home Area Networks (HANs) in Smart Grid communications: capacity optimization for IR-UWB (Chapter 2), power consumption and downlink outage probability in a dynamic HAN (Chapter 3), uplink multiuser selection in a dynamic HAN (Chapter 4), capacity optimization in Heterogeneous HANs (Chapter5), hybrid models of OFDM-based power line and wireless communications for HAN security (Chapter 6), and scaling laws of ergodic capacity for hybrid wireless networks with distributed base stations (DBS) (Chapter 7). We investigate the capacity optimization of Impulse Radio (IR) UWB user within …

Portable And Miniature Imaging System For In-Vivo Fluorescence /Luminescence Analysis, Zhaoqiang Peng

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

For fluorescence and bioluminescence in vivo imaging systems, the current commercial product is limited by huge bulk and a constant working environment. In this thesis, we proposed and investigated a compact and portable in vivo device with similar performance as congeneric commercial products. By analyzing general requirements of each component in optical system, we dug in the principle and put forward several key parameters that should be considered for building in vivo imaging systems. Moreover, on the precondition of qualifying these parameters, and in order to build the most compact system, three design approaches have been discussed. By deliberating each …

The Impact Of Hybrid Energy Storage On Power Quality When High Power Dc Loads Are Operated On A Microgrid Testbed, Jay Paul Kelley

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

As the Navy's demands for high power transient loads evolves, so too does the need for alternative energy sources to back-up the more traditional power generation. Such applications in need of support include electrical grid backup and directed energy weapon systems such as electromagnetic launchers, laser systems, and high power microwave generators, among others. Among the alternative generation sources receiving considerable attention are energy storage devices such as rechargeable electrochemical batteries and capacitors. In such applications as those mentioned above, these energy storage devices offer the ability to serve a dual role as both a power source to the various …

Using Aerial Range Feature Descriptor (Arfd) For Lidar Strip Adjustment And Mosaicing, Yanyan Hu

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) has become the primary surface data extraction mapping technique nowadays. Airborne LiDAR system consists of three major components, which are laser ranging and scanning unit, Global Position System (GPS) and Inertia Measurement Unit (IMU). LiDAR data are collected in a rectangular strip-wise pattern with 10% - 30% overlapping ratio between adjacent strips. When the calibration parameters within the system components are not accurately determined, systematic errors might occur within LiDAR strips. The systematic errors lead to strip discrepancies, which will further affect the quality of end-user products like Digital Elevation Map (DEM) or Digital Surface …

Complexity Reduction In Inter Layer Inter Prediction In Scalable High Efficiency Video Coding, Karuna Gubbi Shivashankar Sastri

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

In scalable extension of HEVC, the base layer is coded using normal HEVC codec and the enhancement layers are coded using interlayer prediction for both intra and inter predictions. The prediction process for the enhancement layer in scalable video coding is complex and the proposed algorithm in the thesis concentrates mainly on reducing the complexity of the inter-layer inter prediction to code the enhancement layer.

Membrane Transfer Of Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells, Venkata Kesari Nandan Vempati

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

Silicon has been dominating the solar industry for many years and has been touted as the gold standard of the photovoltaic world. The factors for its dominance: government subsidies and ease of processing. Silicon holds close to 90% of the market share in the material being used for solar cell production. Of which 14% belongs to single-crystalline Silicon. Although 24% efficient bulk crystalline solar cells have been reported, the industry has been looking for thin film alternatives to reduce the cost of production. Moreover with the new avenues like flexible consumer electronics opening up, there is a need to introduce …

Reducing The Complexity Of Inter-Prediction Mode Decision For High Efficiency Video Codec, Kushal Shah

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard is the latest joint video project of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) standardization organizations, working together in a partnership known as the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC). While the HEVC is based on the same architecture of the widely used H.264/AVC standard [8], it includes many new coding tools and almost all the encoder blocks are optimized with respect to their counterparts in the H.264/AVC. This allows the new standard to achieve up to 50% bitrate reduction compared to its predecessor at …

Parallel Optimization Of Intra Mode Selection In Hevc Using Open Mp, Pratik Devendrakumar Mehta

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

HEVC aims at providing an efficient video coding algorithm which not only provides high performance, but also improves coding efficiency. It also provides high compression efficiency as compared to its counter parts, but at the cost of an increase in complexity. The increased number of intra prediction modes in HEVC allows better compression and more flexible block representation. The purpose of the thesis is to optimize the mode decision process using Open MP to reduce the encoding time without further increase in complexity. This includes implementing a parallel computing method that will calculate 35 distinct intra prediction modes in parallel …

Active Current Injection Method For Limiting Ground Fault Current Harmonics In Underground Coal Mines, Yigong Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

Current practice in U.S. underground coal mine high-voltage distribution systems is to attempt to limit ground fault current to 25 Amperes and de-energize the circuit at 10 Amperes. However, the significant amount of system capacitance due to the use of shielded cables can cause ground fault current to be two or three times the intended ground fault limit. Consequently, this practice can cause several issues such as ground fault currents significantly exceeding the neutral grounding resistor current limit, loss of relay selectivity in the distribution system, and transient overvoltages in certain ground fault situations. These issues are solved to some …

Sparse Nonlinear Optimization For Signal Processing And Communications, Zengli Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation proposes three classes of new sparse nonlinear optimization algorithms for network echo cancellation (NEC), 3-D synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image reconstruction, and adaptive turbo equalization in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) underwater acoustic (UWA) communications, respectively.

For NEC, the proposed two proportionate affine projection sign algorithms (APSAs) utilize the sparse nature of the network impulse response (NIR). Benefiting from the characteristics of l₁-norm optimization, affine projection, and proportionate matrix, the new algorithms are more robust to impulsive interferences and colored input than the conventional adaptive algorithms.

For 3-D SAR image reconstruction, the proposed two compressed sensing (CS) approaches exploit the …

Far-Field Prediction Using Only Magnetic Near-Field Scanning And Modeling Delay Variations In Cmos Digital Logic Circuits Due To Electrical Disturbances In The Power Supply, Xu Gao

Doctoral Dissertations

"The first topic of this dissertation is far-field prediction using only magnetic near-field scanning. Near-field scanning has been used extensively for the far-field estimation of antennas. Applied to electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) problems, near-field scanning has been used to estimate emissions from both integrated circuits (ICs) and printed circuit boards (PCBs). Interest in applying far-field predictions using near-field to EMI/EMC problems has recently grown. To predict the far-field emissions from a PCB in the top half space, the near-field data on a planar surface above PCB usually is sufficient. However, near-field measurement on only one planar surface may not be enough …

Simulation Of Electron Hop Funnels Using Version 9.2 Of Lorentz-2e, Tyler Rowe, Marcus Pearlman, Jim Browning

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Electron hop funnels have been simulated using the new version of the particle trajectory simulation software, Lorentz-2E. Simulations were conducted to determine the validity of the version 9.2 results and the consistency of the results to a previous version of the software, version 8.0. In addition, a new method of injecting a uniform current with all rays of equal charge is discussed, and the results of the method are presented. Version 9.2 of the software was successfully implemented and a new emission model tested. The transition of the software version will allow for faster simulation times of the electron hop …

Large Area Conformal Infrared Frequency Selective Surfaces, Jeffrey D'Archangel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Frequency selective surfaces (FSS) were originally developed for electromagnetic filtering applications at microwave frequencies. Electron-beam lithography has enabled the extension of FSS to infrared frequencies; however, these techniques create sample sizes that are seldom appropriate for real world applications due to the size and rigidity of the substrate. A new method of fabricating large area conformal infrared FSS is introduced, which involves releasing miniature FSS arrays from a substrate for implementation in a coating. A selective etching process is proposed and executed to create FSS particles from crossed-dipole and square-loop FSS arrays. When the fill-factor of the particles in the …

Measuring Pain Withdrawal Threshold Using A Novel Device In "Pseudo-Continuous" Mode, A. H. Walker, S. Thurman, N. Martinez, S. Burns, M. Dobretsov

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

The study of pain and analgesia is an important area of biomedical research that has led to a significant number of advances in the treatment of acute and chronic pain. This study introduces a novel approach to mechanical testing of pain withdrawal of a rat hind paw to a stimulus. This systematic method involves a modified electronic esthesiometer controlled by an IDEA drive that allows for consistency in experiments. The device gives the experimenter computer control of the step size and velocity of approach of the probe stimulus. We discuss here some of the limitations in the current techniques used …

Design And Analysis Of Circularly Polarized Electrically Small Antennas, Jesse R. Ludwig

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

A growing need for efficient wireless communication is prevalent in the world in which we live. From cell phones to television to GPS applications, wireless communications are vital in consumer electronics and military applications. In these applications, a miniaturized antenna is sometimes necessary for reducing overall size of the communication system. For many satellite based communication applications, circular polarization in antennas is needed for efficient communication. In this thesis, the miniaturization technique known as T-top loading is utilized on two novel antenna designs. One design is an electrically small, circularly polarized planar cross dipole and the other design is a …

Calcium-Mediated Pore Expansion And Cell Death Following Nanoelectroporation, Olga N. Pakhomova, Betsy Gregory, Iurii Semenov, Andrei G. Pakhomov

Bioelectrics Publications

Opening of long-lived pores in the cell membrane is the principal primary effect of intense, nanosecond pulsed electric field (nsPEF). Here we demonstrate that the evolution of pores, cell survival, the time and the mode of cell death (necrotic or apoptotic) are determined by the level of external Ca²⁺ after nsPEF. We also introduce a novel, minimally disruptive technique for nsEP exposure of adherent cells on indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass coverslips, which does not require cell detachment and enables fast exchanges of bath media. Increasing the Ca²⁺ level from the nominal 2–5 μM to 2 mM for …

Introduction To Fourth Special Issue On Electroporation-Based Technologies And Treatments, Damijan Miklavčič, Lluis M. Mir, P. Thomas Vernier

Bioelectrics Publications

This fourth special electroporation-based technologies and treatments issue of the Journal of Membrane Biology contains reports on recent developments in the field of electroporation by participants in the 7th International Workshop and Postgraduate Course on electroporation based technologies and treatments (EBTT 2013) held in Ljubljana, November 17–23, 2013. The 65 participants included faculty members, invited lecturers, special guests, and young scientists, and students from 16 countries. In addition to lectures on the fundamentals, this year’s sessions included talks on microbial inactivation by pulsed electric fields, modeling of intracellular electroporation, electroporation in food processing, and electrotransfer-facilitated DNA vaccination.

Temporal Modulation Of Plasma Species In Atmospheric Dielectric Barrier Discharges, Aijun Yang, Xiaohua Wang, Dingxin Liu, Mingzhe Rong, Michael G. Kong

Bioelectrics Publications

The atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge in helium is a pulsed discharge in nature and the moment of maximum species densities is almost consistent with peak discharge current density. In this paper, a one-dimensional fluid model is used to investigate the temporal structure of plasma species in an atmospheric He-N₂ dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). It is demonstrated that there exist microsecond delays of the moments of the maximum electron and ion densities from the peak of discharge current density. These time delays are caused by a competition between the electron impact and Penning ionizations, modulated by the N_{2 …}

A Tutorial On Learning Human Welder's Behavior: Sensing, Modeling, And Control, Y. K. Liu, W. J. Zhang, Yu Ming Zhang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Human welder's experiences and skills are critical for producing quality welds in manual GTAW process. Learning human welder's behavior can help develop next generation intelligent welding machines and train welders faster. In this tutorial paper, various aspects of mechanizing the welder's intelligence are surveyed, including sensing of the weld pool, modeling of the welder's adjustments and this model-based control approach. Specifically, different sensing methods of the weld pool are reviewed and a novel 3D vision-based sensing system developed at University of Kentucky is introduced. Characterization of the weld pool is performed and human intelligent model is constructed, including an extensive …

Mobile Indoor Positioning For Augmented Reality Systems, Robert B. Glass

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the creation and setup of a prototype that allows users of the device to interact within an indoor real world environment and a virtual environment simultaneously using high-tech common technology. The prototype is comprised of a small mobile device such as a cellular mobile phone, Raspberry Pi computer, a battery powered handheld Pico projector, and software developed for the Android OS. The software can easily be ported to other mobile and non-mobile operating systems. The mobile device must contain accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope embedded sensors as well as 802.11 wireless network chip. The prototype software implements an …

Rss Based Localization In A Rayleigh Fading Environment, Rojina Adhikary

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to quantify the improvement that can be obtained in sensor agent localization accuracy as a function of the number of multipath components that can be resolved. We assume that a known number sensor agents are located at unknown coordinates within a rectangular grid having anchors at the corner locations, whose locations are known. Further, we assume fading is Rayleigh and that the propagation constant is constant but unknown. Also, we assume that modulation is spread spectrum and that either the sensors or agents are capable of resolving multipath components down to the chip level …

Adaptive Relay-Selection In Decode-And-Forward Cooperative Systems, Adham Ahmed Hagag

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the past few years adaptive decode-and-forward cooperative diversity systems have been studied intensively in literature. Many schemes and protocols have been proposed to enhance the performance of the cooperative systems while trying to alleviate its drawbacks. One of the recent schemes that had been shown to give high improvements in performance is the best-relay selection scheme. In the best-relay selection scheme only one relaying nodes among the relays available in the system is selected to forward the source's message to the destination. The best relay is selected as the relay node that can achieve the highest end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio …

Reconfigurable Microstrip Antennas With Tunable Radiation Pattern Characteristics, Ahmed Khidre

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reconfigurable beam antenna systems are capable of changing their radiation characteristics in real time, such as beam direction, beam shape, beamwidth, etc. Such antenna system is desired for various wireless applications because of many reasons among them; it helps to enhance signal strength received from an intended target, mitigates interference, and accommodates sudden changes in traffic demand of wireless networks. It might also help to reduce the deployment cost of wireless networks infrastructures. In this dissertation, designs for reconfigurable beam microstrip antennas with tunable radiation characteristics have been proposed. The method to achieve these designs is the reconfigurable parasitic element …

Inkjet Bioprinting Of Solid Peroxides For Constructing Oxygen Generating Scaffolds To Improve Cells Viability And Growth Under Hypoxic Environment, Daniel Reyna Soriano

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Tissue engineering has emerged as an interdisciplinary field to overcome current challenges for tissue repair or replacement in the human body. In essence, it proposes new medical therapies customized to match the biology of specific patients. The potential benefits offered by tissue engineering have driven scientific inquiry to make it a clinical reality.

One of the current challenges in tissue engineering is to provide oxygen supply to thick tissues as oxygen diffusion is limited to 100 - 200 µm layer of viable tissue. Engineered vascular conduits are applied in vitro, providing pre-vascularization to tissues; however, host anastomosis is still a …

Experimental Study And Analysis Of A Polymer Fiber Bragg Grating Embedded In A Composite Material, Ginu Rajan, Manjusha Ramakrishnan, Yuliya Semenova, Eliathamby Ambikairajah, Gerald Farrell, Gang-Ding Peng

Articles

The characteristics of polymer fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) embedded in composite materials are studied in this paper and are compared with characteristics of their silica counterparts. A polymer FBG of 10 mm length which exhibits a peak reflected wavelength circa 1530 nm is fabricated and characterized for this purpose. A silica FBG with a peak reflected wavelength circa 1553 nm is also embedded in the composite material for a comparison study. The fabricated composite material sample with embedded sensors is subjected to temperature and strain changes and the corresponding effects on the embedded polymer and silica FBGs are studied. The …

Optimal Fuzzy Load Frequency Controller With Simultaneous Auto-Tuned Membership Functions And Fuzzy Control Rules, Abas Ali Zamani, Ehsan Bijami, Farid Sheikholeslam, Bahram Jafrasteh

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this paper, an auto-tuned fuzzy load frequency controller (FLFC)-based artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is developed to quench the deviations in the frequency and tie-line power due to load disturbances in an interconnected power system. Optimal tuning of membership functions (MFs) and fuzzy control rules is very important to improve the design performance and achieve a satisfactory level of robustness for a particular operation. In this work, to reduce the fuzzy system design effort and take large parametric uncertainties into account, a new systematic and simultaneous tuning method is developed for designing MFs and fuzzy rules. For this, the …

Btsql: Nested Bitemporal Relational Database Query Language, Canan Atay, Abdullah Uz Tansel

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

A nested bitemporal relational data model and its query language are implemented. The bitemporal atom (BTA) is the fundamental construct to represent temporal data and it contains 5 components: a value, the lower and upper bounds of valid time, and the lower and upper bounds of the recoding time. We consider 2 types of data structures for storing BTAs: 1) string representation and 2) abstract data-type representation. We also develop a preprocessor for translating a bitemporal structured query language (BtSQL) statement into standard SQL statements. The BtSQL includes the select, insert, delete, and update statements of the SQL, extended for …

An Urgent Precaution System To Detect Students At Risk Of Substance Abuse Through Classification Algorithms, Faruk Bulut, İhsan Ömür Bucak

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In recent years, the use of addictive drugs and substances has turned out to be a challenging social problem worldwide. The illicit use of these types of drugs and substances appears to be increasing among elementary and high school students. After becoming addicted to drugs, life becomes unbearable and gets even worse for their users. Scientific studies show that it becomes extremely difficult for an individual to break this habit after being a user. Hence, preventing teenagers from addiction becomes an important issue. This study focuses on an urgent precaution system that helps families and educators prevent teenagers from developing …

Impact Of Small-World Topology On The Performance Of A Feed-Forward Artificial Neural Network Based On 2 Different Real-Life Problems, Okan Erkaymaz, Mahmut Özer, Nejat Yumuşak

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Since feed-forward artificial neural networks (FFANNs) are the most widely used models to solve real-life problems, many studies have focused on improving their learning performances by changing the network architecture and learning algorithms. On the other hand, recently, small-world network topology has been shown to meet the characteristics of real-life problems. Therefore, in this study, instead of focusing on the performance of the conventional FFANNs, we investigated how real-life problems can be solved by a FFANN with small-world topology. Therefore, we considered 2 real-life problems: estimating the thermal performance of solar air collectors and predicting the modulus of rupture values …