Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Off-Policy Integral Reinforcement Learning For Semi-Global Constrained Output Regulation Of Continuous-Time Linear Systems, Yongliang Yang, Xianzhong Chen, Yixin Yin, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a data-driven method based on off-policy integral reinforcement learning to solve the semi-global output regulation of continuous-time linear systems with input saturation. A family of state feedback laws for the input constrained output regulation problem is designed based on solving an algebraic Riccati equation. In contrast to the existing methods, complete knowledge of the system dynamics is no longer required in this paper. Instead, the data collected from online implementation is efficiently utilized to design the controller. Therefore, the controller design in this paper is data driven. It is shown that the presented method can find feedback …

Using Augmented Reality To Enhance Learning Experiences About Electrical Circuits, Juan Estrella

Publications and Research

The term Augmented Reality (AR) refers to the technologies that superimpose digital content generated by computers over the user’s view of the real world. AR technologies enhance the version of the physical environment with computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, or graphics overlaid on top of the real-world view. In recent years, AR has moved beyond expensive military applications and has now entered a wide variety of domains. In engineering education, AR technologies can serve as a learning aid as well as a basis for innovation. The technology provides 3-D visualizations that allow to: (i) observe flaws in designs …

Method To Provide Meta-Stable Operation Of Dc Microgrid Comprising A Pulsed Load, David G. Wilson, Wayne Weaver, Rush D. Robinett Iii, Ronald Matthews, Steven F. Glover

Michigan Tech Patents

A Hamiltonian surface shaping power flow control (HSSPFC) method is used to analyze the meta-stability and adjust pulsed power loads on a DC electric power distribution network. Pulsed power loads are nonlinear, time-variant systems that cause nonlinear limit-cycles. During the on periods of a pulsed load, the system can be in an unstable state and is damped back to stability during the off state of the load. Therefore, over the entire period of the pulse the system may only be assessed as meta-stable. As shown through simulation, HIL and hardware results, the HSSPFC method is more accurate than the other …

Plagiarism Detection Avoidance Methods And Countermeasures, Brian R. Snider

Faculty Publications - Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Plagiarism is a major problem that educators face in the information age. Today's plagiarist has a near limitless supply of well-written articles via the internet. Due to the scale of the problem, detecting plagiarism has now become the domain of the computer scientist rather than the educator. With the use of computers, documents can be conveniently scanned into a plagiarism detection system that references public web pages, academic journals, and even previous students' papers, acting as an "all-seeing eye."

However, plagiarists can overcome these digital content detection systems with the use of clever masking and substitutions techniques. These systems cost …

Power Utility Tests For Multi-Mw High Energy Batteries, Oluwaseun M. Akeyo, Huangjie Gong, Vandana Rallabandi, Nicholas Jewell, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

This paper reviews the procedures, layouts and metrics described in the new test manual issued by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), in order to determine the performance and functionality of a utility scale battery energy storage system (BESS). In this approach, the large battery unit is connected to the dc-link of a bidirectional power conversion system (PCS), which may be interfaced with either the utility grid or a load bank for the purpose of estimating the BESS operation and performance characteristics, some of which includes; available charge/discharge energy at rated power, continuous charge/discharge duration, battery ramp rate, and ac …

Simulation Studies For A Multi-Mw Hybrid Wind-Solar Pv System For Desalination Plants, Vandana Rallabandi, Nasser Alawhali, Oluwaseun M. Akeyo, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

This paper presents a power system configuration and control schemes for a Multi-MW wind-solar hybrid system, which includes multiple wind turbines and solar panels to support a desalination plant. The wind and solar systems are sized such that the desalination plant obtains, as far as possible, its power from the renewable sources, to minimize the dependence on the utility grid. Each section of the wind turbine system includes a variable speed permanent magnet synchronous generator connected to the grid via a back-to-back voltage source converter. The rectifier operates the wind system at the maximum power point, and the inverter provides …

Integration Of An Electrical Engineering Capstone Course With Social Justice And Global Studies, David Parent, Patricia Backer

Faculty Publications

A four course package (six units total) consisting of two general education (GE) classes and two electrical engineering capstone classes that are taught in a highly integrated manner, that not only meets university GE requirements, but also meets the new ABET criteria in which the need to address a societal need is embedded with design criteria. The prompts for the new integrated GE/capstone Assessment results are also presented, along with methods to increase student motivation for studying GE.

Examination The Impact Of Various Factors On Student Success In An Introduction To Circuit Analysis Course, David Parent

Faculty Publications

In this work in progress, several models to predict student success in a sophomore introduction to circuit analysis class were created based on prior grade point average, grade in a pre-requisite physics class, the semester the pre-requisite physics class was taken, the number of units a student was taking, the number of times a student repeated the circuits class, and the number of times a student repeated any class prior to enrollment. While all models were statistically significant, the model that included prior GPA and the grade in a pre-requisite physics was the most significant for the data collection effort. …

Development Of Mr Clutch For A Prospective 5-Dof Robot, Sergey Pisetskiy, Mehrdad Kermani Ph.D., P.Eng.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

This paper presents an improved design approach for the construction of a Magneto-Rheological (MR) clutch intended to be used in a prospective 5 degrees of freedom robot. The MR clutch features embedded Hall sensors for intrinsic torque control. After a brief description of the MR clutch principles, the details of the mechanical design are discussed. Simulation and preliminary experimental results demonstrate the main characteristics and advantages of the proposed MR clutch.

Effect Of Wireless Communication Delay On Dc Microgrids Performance, Mahmoud Saleh, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

This paper investigates the effect of wireless communication technologies latency on the converters and the bus voltage of centrally communication based controlled DC microgrids (MGs) during islanding. A DC microgrid with its communication based control scheme was modeled to show the impact of latency. Simulation results show that the impact may be severe depending on the design, and the operational condition of the microgrid before latency occurs.

Improving A Transient Stability Control Scheme With Wide-Area Synchrophasors And The Microwecc, A Reduced-Order Model Of The Western Interconnect, Robin Hallett

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

This thesis is composed of two research projects. The first project investigated the feasibility of improving a generator tripping control scheme using wide-area synchrophasors and the second project focused on building a reduced-order model of the western North American power system (wNAPS) for use in a real-time digital simulator.

Transient stability is a major reliability issue for power systems. Radially-connected power plants are especially prone to transient stability problems. An example of this is the fourgenerator Colstrip power plant located in southeast Montana, USA. The Colstrip generators are protected by a tripping control system called the Acceleration Trend Relay (ATR) …

Low-Profile Diplexing Filter/Antenna Based On Common Radiating Cavity With Quasi-Elliptic Response, Kirti Dhwaj, Xiaoqiang Li, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Tatsuo Itoh

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A low-profile single-layer substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) diplexing filtering antenna with two-pole response in each channel is presented. Synthesis technique is proposed, which allows independent design of the filtering networks for the two channels. A common slot loaded SIW cavity is used to obtain the desired radiation in both channels. The diplexing filtering antenna provides quasi-elliptic response in both channels due to source-load coupling. The filtering antenna provides a maximum broadside gain of 2.65 and 2.7 dBi at operating frequencies of 5.25 (lower channel) and 5.8 GHz (upper channel), respectively. The interchannel isolation is more than 29 dB with a …

Real Time Operation Of Smart Homes With Pv And Battery Systems Under Variable Electricity Rate Schedules And Transactive Power Flow, Huangjie Gong, Oluwaseun M. Akeyo, Vandana Rallabandi, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

According to some utility schedules, the electricity rate is variable such that homes may be encouraged to buy and store power in a battery when it is inexpensive, and self-consume or sell to the grid during other times. Power arbitrage through a battery energy storage (BES), can help maintain consumer comfort and minimize residential electricity bills. This paper reports the calculated daily energy costs incurred by different types of homes for a given utility electricity rate schedule. The homes exchange power among each other behind a section of the distribution network. A free market system is formed and the electricity …

Pneumatospinning Of Collagen Microfibers From Benign Solvents, Seth Polk, Nardos Sori, Nick Thayer, Yas Maghdouri-White, Anna A. Bulysheva, Michael P. Francis

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

Introduction. Current collagen fiber manufacturing methods for biomedical applications, such as electrospinning and extrusion, have had limited success in clinical translation, partially due to scalability, cost, and complexity challenges. Here we explore an alternative, simplified and scalable collagen fiber formation method, termed 'pneumatospinning,' to generate submicron collagen fibers from benign solvents. Methods and results. Clinical grade type I atelocollagen from calf corium was electrospun or pneumatospun as sheets of aligned and isotropic fibrous scaffolds. Following crosslinking with genipin, the collagen scaffolds were stable in media for over a month. Pneumatospun collagen samples were characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, circular dichroism, …

Indirect Imaging Using Computational Imaging Techniques, Aparna Viswanath

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

The work describes various methods employed towards solving the problem of indirect imaging. Computational techniques are employed to indirectly decipher information about an object hidden from view of a camera. Notion of virtualizing the source of illumination and detectors on real world rough surfaces was exploited to construct a non line of sight computational imager. Diversity was explored from the stand point of both illumination of the object and imaging of light reflected from the object. To understand the impact of scattering by real world rough surfaces, an instrument was developed that allows characterization of isoplanatic angle for different surface …

No2- And No3- Enhance Cold Atmospheric Plasma Induced Cancer Cell Death By Generation Of Onoo-, Dehui Xu, Qingjie Cui, Yujing Xu, Zhijie Liu, Zeyu Chen, Wenjie Xia, Hao Zhang, Dingxin Liu, Hailan Chen, Michael G. Kong

Bioelectrics Publications

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a rapidly developed technology that has been widely applied in biomedicine especially in cancer treatment. Due to the generation of various active species in plasma, CAP could induce various tumor cells death and showed a promising potential in cancer therapy. To enhance the biological effects of gas plasma, changing the discharging parameters is the most commonly used method, yet increasing discharging power will lead to a higher possibility of simultaneously damage surrounding tissues. In this study, by adding nontoxic concentration of additional nitrite and nitrate in the medium, we found that anti-tumor effect of CAP …

Ion-Sensitive Field-Effect Transistors With Micropillared Gates For Measuring Cell Ion Exchange At Molecular Levels, Mohammad G. Abdallah, Rayan Khan, Christian Garcia, Young-Tae Kim, Samir M. Iqbal

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The detection of small concentrations of cancer cells before cancer takes over the primary organ completely, or metastasizes to other areas of the body is important for early screening of cancer. One approach to address cancer early screening is through cell ion exchange bioelectricity, which characterizes voltage potential in non-neuronal cells to regulate shape changing, proliferation, differentiation, migration, and cancer formation. Herein, novel ion-sensitive field-effective transistor (ISFET) modality is shown to measure cell behavior during the change of cell properties at molecular levels. ISFETs produce low resistance signals and consume low power. The small size of ISFETs enables miniature diagnosis …

Impact Of Communication Latency On The Bus Voltage Of Centrally Controlled Dc Microgrid During Islanding, Mahmoud Saleh, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

Maintaining a sustainable and reliable source of energy to supply critical loads within a renewable energy based microgrid (MG) during blackouts is directly related to its bus voltage variations. For example, voltage variation might trigger protection devices and disconnect DERs within the MG. Centrally controlled MGs (CCMGs) type is dependent on communication. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the impact of communication networks performance degradation, such as latency, on the bus voltage of CCMGs. This paper investigates the effect of wireless communication technologies latency on the bus voltage and performance of centralized DC MGs. Two mathematical models were developed …

An Efficient Mode-Based Domain Decomposition Hybrid 2-D/Q-2d Finite-Element Time-Domain Method For Power/Ground Plate-Pair Analysis, Ping Li, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Yao Jiang Zhang, Shuai Xu, Hakan Bagci

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Generally, with a surface magnetic current excitation, only the TM zmn modes are activated between the power/ground plate pair. As a result, the magnetic field only has azimuthal component while the longitude component is zero. To make full use of this quasi-2-D (Q-2D) property, a Q-2D finite-element time-domain (FETD) method combined with the basic 3-D triangular prism mesh elements is firstly proposed to solve the magnetic field wave equation. It is further noted that the higher order modes are confined in the proximity of the antipads (labeled as via domain) due to the exponential attenuation property along the propagating direction. …

Using Gs/S Adc To Evaluate The Emi Of Gan-Based Power Devices, Chi Zhang

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

As the silicon-based power devices are gradually reaching their performance limits, new power transistors such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) FETs have been rapidly developed in recent years. GaN devices have been widely accepted by researchers for its higher speed and efficiency than silicon power devices. However, despite all its merits, the GaN device faces a more severe problem of electromagnetic interference (EMI) than the silicon device due to its high performance. Various control techniques of EMI have been studied so far and many of them require the evaluation of EMI. Research shows that the EMI level …

Investigating The Effect Of Detecting And Mitigating A Ring Oscillator-Based Hardware Trojan, Lakshmi Ramakrishnan

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

The outsourcing of the manufacturing process of integrated circuits to fabrications plants all over the world has exposed these chips to several security threats, especially at the hardware level. There have been instances of malicious circuitry, such as backdoors, being added to circuits without the knowledge of the chip designers or vendors. Such threats could be immensely powerful and dangerous against confidentiality, among other vulnerabilities.

Defense mechanisms against such attacks have been probed and defense techniques have been developed. But with the passage of time, attack techniques have improved immensely as well. From directly observing the inputs or outputs, adversaries …

Standing-Wave Dielectric Array Antennas, Ayman Althuwayb

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Due to the evolutions in wireless communication systems, antenna engineers have been confronting a number of challenges regarding improving the performance of antennas, miniaturizing the size as well as considering the fabrication simplicity. Although dielectric resonator antennas typically suffer from exhibiting low gain, they have been thoroughly under investigating as they are being excellent candidates to be utilized to fulfill contemporary communication systems requirements and specifications, especially at high-frequency ranges. The reason behind this solicitude is because they have several advantageous features, including but not limited to the simplicity of the used excitation mechanism and fabrication easiness.

One of the …

Personalized Health Knowledge Graph, Amelie Gyrard, Manas Gaur, Saeedeh Shekarpour, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Amit Sheth

Publications

Our current health applications do not adequately take into account contextual and personalized knowledge about patients. In order to design “Personalized Coach for Healthcare” applications to manage chronic diseases, there is a need to create a Personalized Healthcare Knowledge Graph (PHKG) that takes into consideration a patient’s health condition (personalized knowledge) and enriches that with contextualized knowledge from environmental sensors and Web of Data (e.g., symptoms and treatments for diseases). To develop PHKG, aggregating knowledge from various heterogeneous sources such as the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, clinical notes, and Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) is necessary. In this paper, we …

Electrochemical Hydrogenation Of Acetone To Produce Isopropanol Using A Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Reactor, Chen Li, Ashanti M. Sallee, Xiaoyu Zhang, Sandeep Kumar

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Electrochemical hydrogenation (ECH) of acetone is a relatively new method to produce isopropanol. It provides an alternative way of upgrading bio-fuels with less energy consumption and chemical waste as compared to conventional methods. In this paper, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) hardware was used as an electrochemical reactor to hydrogenate acetone to produce isopropanol and diisopropyl ether as a byproduct. High current efficiency (59.7%) and selectivity (>90%) were achieved, while ECH was carried out in mild conditions (65 degrees C and atmospheric pressure). Various operating parameters were evaluated to determine their effects on the yield of acetone and …

Interface Model Of Pem Fuel Cell Membrane Steady-Dtate Behavior, Russell L. Edwards, Ayodeji Demuren

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Modeling works which simulate the proton-exchange membrane fuel cell with the computational fluid dynamics approach involve the simultaneous solution of multiple, interconnected physics equations for fluid flows, heat transport, electrochemical reactions, and both protonic and electronic conduction. Modeling efforts vary by how they treat the physics within and adjacent to the membrane-electrode assembly (MEA). Certain approaches treat the MEA not as part of the computational domain, but rather an interface connecting the anode and cathode computational domains. These approaches may lack the ability to consistently model catalyst layer losses and MEA ohmic resistance. This work presents an upgraded interface formulation …

Parallel Implementation Of Facial Detection Using Graphics Processing Units, Russell Marineau

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This thesis proposes to study parallelization methods to improve the computational runtime of the popular Viola-Jones face detection algorithm. These methods employ multithreaded programming and CUDA programming approaches. The thesis provides a discussion of background information on all relevant topics, which is then followed by a presentation of the code architecture changes that are proposed. Specific implementation details are then discussed in more details followed by a discussion and comparison of results obtained through various tests. This thesis first begins by presenting a history and description of the Viola-Jones algorithm. Detailed explanations of each step in the process used to …

Circuitry Design And Magnetic Susceptibility Evaluation Of 7t Fmri Implantable Rf Coil, Rong Wang, Celia M. Dong, Ed X. Wu, Robert C. Roberts, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Implantable coils have been widely utilized in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) owing to their superior signal to noise ratio. To effectively minimize the magnetic field distortion and image artifacts, the magnetic susceptibility of the implantable coil needs to be evaluated before practical use. In this work, we experimentally identify the magnetic susceptibility of each component of the implantable coil with the 7T Bruker NMR imaging scanner and provide useful guidelines for the following manufacturing. A 5 5 mm 2 implantable surface coil with a tunable frequency range is subsequently introduced for the 7T fMRI of the rat primary somatosensory …

Multispecies Fruit Flower Detection Using A Refined Semantic Segmentation Network, Philipe A. Dias, Amy Tabb, Henry P. Medeiros

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

In fruit production, critical crop management decisions are guided by bloom intensity, i.e., the number of flowers present in an orchard. Despite its importance, bloom intensity is still typically estimated by means of human visual inspection. Existing automated computer vision systems for flower identification are based on hand-engineered techniques that work only under specific conditions and with limited performance. This letter proposes an automated technique for flower identification that is robust to uncontrolled environments and applicable to different flower species. Our method relies on an end-to-end residual convolutional neural network (CNN) that represents the state-of-the-art in semantic segmentation. To enhance …

Implementation Of Secure Dnp3 Architecture Of Scada System For Smart Grids, Uday Bhaskar Boyanapalli

Master of Science in Computer Science Theses

With the recent advances in the power grid system connecting to the internet, data sharing, and networking enables space for hackers to maliciously attack them based on their vulnerabilities. Vital stations in the smart grid are the generation, transmission, distribution, and customer substations are connected and controlled remotely by the network. Every substation is controlled by a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system which communicates on DNP3 protocol on Internet/IP which has many security vulnerabilities. This research will focus on Distributed Network Protocol (DNP3) communication which is used in the smart grid to communicate between the controller devices. We …

Dynamic Power System Training Simulation Platform And Tools For The Operational Management Of Smart Grids In The Liberalized Energy Market, Darlus France Mengapche

Doctoral

The major changes in distribution networks (medium and low voltage networks) over recent decades led to new challenges and issues in the operational management of these networks. Amongst others, issues such as load flow problems (power flow reversal, overloading of network equipment, network congestions), voltage problems (voltage limit violations, voltage increases and decreases, harmonics), power schedule management problems, network state estimation and problems with the operation of protection equipment could be encounterd. Besides, the control center staff which is confronted with new complex tasks, challenges and responsibilities, must be prepared and trained for the operational management of the future distribution …