Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Design And Analysis Of Binary Driven Coherent M-Ary Qam Transmitter For Next Generation Optical Networks, Naji Albakay

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This work presents a design for a binary driven optical square M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmitter for high speed optical networks. The transmitter applies tandem quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulators to eliminate the need for linear broadband amplifiers and high-resolution digital to analog converters (DACs), which are both required by conventional transmitters. The transmitter design could be scaled to any order of square M-ary QAM by simply adding more QPSK modulators in tandem. It also provides a Gray coded symbol constellation, insuring the lowest bit error rate possible during symbol recovery. We also provide the design for the …

Automatic Performance Optimization On Heterogeneous Computer Systems Using Manycore Coprocessors, Chenggang Lai

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emerging computer architectures and advanced computing technologies, such as Intel’s Many Integrated Core (MIC) Architecture and graphics processing units (GPU), provide a promising solution to employ parallelism for achieving high performance, scalability and low power consumption. As a result, accelerators have become a crucial part in developing supercomputers. Accelerators usually equip with different types of cores and memory. It will compel application developers to reach challenging performance goals. The added complexity has led to the development of task-based runtime systems, which allow complex computations to be expressed as task graphs, and rely on scheduling algorithms to perform load balancing between …

An Rs-485 Transceiver In A Silicon Carbide Cmos Process, Maria Raquel Benavides Herrera

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the design, simulation and test results of a silicon carbide (SiC) RS-485 transceiver for high temperature applications. This circuit is a building block in the design and fabrication of a digital data processing and control system. Automation processes for extreme environments, remote connection to high temperature locations, deep earth drilling, and high temperature data acquisition are some of the potential applications for such a system. The transceiver was designed and developed in a 1.2 µm SiC-CMOS process by Raytheon Systems, Ltd. (UK). It has been tested with a supply voltage of 12 V and 15 V, temperatures …

Dc-Dc 4-Switch Buck-Boost Converter For Energy Harvesting From Elliptical Machines, Alexander C. Samietz, Gustavo Guzman

Electrical Engineering

The senior project report documents the process of replacing the network of resistors inside an elliptical machine with a DC-DC buck-boost converter. The buck-boost DC-DC converter accepts a wide input range of 5-60 Volts, with an output of 36 Volts for the most efficient use of the already available microinverter. The microinverter reclaims the lost energy and safely distributes it back to the electrical grid. The addition of this project reduces heat emissions from wasted energy and shrinks the carbon footprint of its users.

Test Bench Design For The Fontana Gaf Facility, Dalton Paul Wunderlich

Electrical Engineering

This senior design project consists of designing and building a test bench set up in the GAF facility located in Fontana CA. The project creates an area where testing of different configurations of equipment takes place before implementing the equipment on the production line. Having this isolated environment allows the engineers and technicians to follow several design build test iterations on new systems. The design has the versatility to handle different equipment set ups and test a large quantity of diverse situations. The test bench implements Allen Bradley ControLogix, PLC-5, multiple Powerflex drives and multiple Kinetix servo drives simultaneously. The …

On-Demand Band-Rejected Wideband Antenna Based On Peelable Resonator Membrane, Rong Wang, Min Li, Salahuddin Raju, Robert C. Roberts, Mansun Chan, Lijun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this letter, we present a wideband planar antenna with on-demand band-rejected characteristics based on the peelable double electric-LC (DELC) resonator membranes. By applying microfabrication techniques, the subwavelength DELC structure is completely encapsulated in a transparent and flexible thin film with a total thickness of 10 mum. Resonators with four different widths (4.0, 3.6, 3.2, 2.8 mm) are packaged as a solution kit, providing the rejection bands of 4.24-5.11, 4.61-5.38, 4.85-5.48, and 5.20-5.70 GHz, respectively. Owing to the passive and detachable features of this functional sticker, no biasing network is needed for the rejection band's on/off transition and the membrane …

A Wideband 2-D Fast Multipole Algorithm With A Novel Diagonalization Form, Ling Ling Meng, Mert Hidayetoǧlu, Tian Xia, Wei E.I. Sha, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Weng Cho Chew

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

It is well known that Green's function can be expressed by multipole expansion, plane-wave expansion, and exponential expansion (spectral representation). These three expansions constitute of the foundations of the fast multipole algorithm (FMA). The plane-wave expansion has the low-frequency breakdown issue due to its failure in capturing the evanescent spectra, while the multipole expansion is inefficient at high frequencies. The spectral representation usually involves in direction-dependent issue. In this communication, the 2-D FMA is interpreted as Parseval's theorem in Fourier transform. To achieve a stable and accurate transition between the multipole expansion and the plane-wave expansion, a novel diagonalization in …

Dual-Band Filtering Antenna With Novel Transmission Zero Characteristics, Kirti Dhwaj, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Tatsuo Itoh

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A single-layer two-pole dual-band filtering antenna (DBFA) with orthogonal polarizations in the two bands is presented in this letter. The DBFA is based on a common dual-mode T-shaped resonator (TR). The two modes of the common resonator each couple to one of the two orthogonally placed patches, resulting in required radiation. The TR is responsible for generation of three transmission zeroes (TZs) in frequency response corresponding to each polarization at the broadside: two of them being intrinsic TZs due to the TR and the third caused by far field interference of TR's radiation with that of the patch. The low …

Nanosatellite Launch Data-Logger (Sync), Christopher Martin Gerdom

Master's Theses

CubeSat designers are increasingly looking to incorporate delicate structures and optics into their payloads. These delicate payloads, however, may not survive the required absolute-worst-case launch vibration testing needed for flight certification. To help address this problem, and to better match testing conditions to real-world launch environments, this thesis introduces Sync, a compact 1/4U CubeSat payload designed to collect data on the vibrations and thermal environments CubeSats experience inside a deployer on the way to orbit. This data can be used to better understand the launch environment for different vehicles, and help develop new, more realistic testing guidelines that could enable …

Grid-Tied Solar System, Virginia Yan

Electrical Engineering

Distribution level solar energy generation has gained importance and popularity, because it helps create a sustainable electricity system while reducing the harmful environmental impacts our current power systems have. This project proposes an alternative energy source, a laboratory-scale grid-connected photovoltaic system. A KC120-1 solar panel produces 120 Watts maximum. A grid-tied solar power inverter does DC-to-AC conversion and minimizes energy transfer losses. The inverter also has an anti-islanding feature, which senses a power outage and prevents back-feeding through isolating the circuit. The circuit breakers isolate electrical components and protect the circuit. Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories SEL-751 feeder protection relay and SEL-735 …

3d Signal Strength Mapping Of 2.4ghz Wifi Networks, Brett D. Glidden

Electrical Engineering

Many commercial businesses operate out of multi-story office buildings. These companies often use many Wi-Fi access points to set up their own wireless network. IT personnel determine proper Wi-Fi access point placement using Wi-Fi strength maps. Conventional Wi-Fi strength maps only provide a two-dimensional view representing the wireless access point's effective range. The signal quality and strength measurements do not include changing vertical elevation. Efficient network layout in a multi-story building requires a system calculating signal quality metrics in three dimensions.

This project involves designing and prototyping a system to achieve 2.4GHz Wi-Fi signal quality measurements in a three-dimensional reference …

Applications Of Node-Based Resilience Graph Theoretic Framework To Clustering Autism Spectrum Disorders Phenotypes, John Matta, Junya Zhao, Gunes Ercal, Tayo Obafemi-Ajayi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

With the growing ubiquity of data in network form, clustering in the context of a network, represented as a graph, has become increasingly important. Clustering is a very useful data exploratory machine learning tool that allows us to make better sense of heterogeneous data by grouping data with similar attributes based on some criteria. This paper investigates the application of a novel graph theoretic clustering method, Node-Based Resilience clustering (NBR-Clust), to address the heterogeneity of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and identify meaningful subgroups. The hypothesis is that analysis of these subgroups would reveal relevant biomarkers that would provide a better …

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 …

A Novel Ultrasound Imaging Technique Using Random Signals, Anahita Khalilzadeh

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Ultrasound imaging has been used extensively because of its benign nature and relatively low cost implementation. The most common approach for forming an image is Brightness Mode (B-Mode), which uses an array with dynamic focusing. Focus is performed through Phase Shifters that are bulky and complicated components which increases the device cost.

This research describes a new method to form an Ultrasound image, without relying on phase shifting. The proposed method offers a lower cost solution compared to the B-Mode systems and overcomes some of their inherent limitations.

Furnace System Improvements, Kenji K. Anzai, Ethan Fedor, Patrick Zailaa

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Review (FDR) documents the work done by the group to manufacture the system to deliver improvements to the furnace in the Cal Poly microfabrication laboratory (better known as the cleanroom). The document describes the material covered in the Scope of Work (SOW), including background research, customer needfinding, and the problem statement, material associated with concept development and selection for Preliminary Design Review (PDR), material detailing the design and manufacturing plan of the system for Critical Design Review (CDR), and new material detailing the manufacture of the system for FDR.

Research done for the SOW resulted in a …

A Computational Analysis Of The Gradient Concentration Profile Of Deet And The Mosquito Behavioral Response, Brandon Carver

Master's Theses

DEET is a common active ingredient in most spatial repellents. DEET is also a volatile organic compound. DEET prevents mosquitoes from detecting and coming into contact with an human individual. Gas sensing technologies such as metal oxide semiconductor sensors can detect VOCs. The World Health Organization provides the majority of efficacy testing methods. This research adapts methods from the WHO and use of MOS sensors to further understand how and why DEET affects mosquitos. A custom developed system is used to measure DEET dissipation and observe mosquito behavioral response to the DEET. DEET dissipations and mosquito behavior is measured within …

Exfoliation, Synthesis, And Characterization Of Nanoscale Te, Takayuki Hironaka

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the experimental discovery of graphene, two dimensional materials have enjoyed more attention and emphasis in academic research than nanowires, but the latter are an important area of study for creating 1D materials, or single atom chains, the next generation materials for advancing electronic devices. Atomically thin layers can be generated from 2D materials with weak bonds in one direction, and by applying this concept to one dimensional weakly bonded materials, we hypothesize that single atom chains with atomic-scale diameters may be produced. Tellurium (Te) and selenium (Se) have lattices consisting of spiral chains oriented along the c-axis, and each …

Gesn Thin Film Epitaxy And Quantum Wells For Optoelectronic Devices, Perry Christian Grant

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Group IV photonics is an effort to generate viable infrared optoelectronic devices using group IV materials. Si-based optoelectronics have received monumental research since Si is the heart of the electronics industry propelling our data driven world. Silicon however, is an indirect material whose optical characteristics are poor compared to other III-IV semiconductors that make up the optoelectronics industry. There have been major efforts to integrate III-V materials onto Si substrates. Great progress on the integration of these III-V materials has occurred but incompatibility with CMOS processing has presented great difficulty in this process becoming a viable and cost-effective solution. Germanium …

Growth And Behaviors Of Inn/Gan Multiple Quantum Wells By Plasma-Assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy, Chen Li

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fully realizing the potential of InGaN semiconductors requires high quality materials with arbitrary In-content. To this date the growth of In-rich InGaN films is still challenging since it suffers from the low growth temperatures and many detrimental alloying problems. InN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) and super lattices (SLs) are expected to be promising alternatives to random InGaN alloys since in principle they can achieve the equivalent band gap of InGaN random alloys with arbitrarily high In-content and at the same time bypass many growth difficulties.

This dissertation focuses on studying the growth mechanisms, structural properties and energy structures of InN/GaN …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Electrochemical Glucose Sensors, Mohammed Marie

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electrochemical sensors based on the nanostructure of the semiconductor materials are of tremendous interest to be utilized for glucose monitoring. The sensors, based on the nanostructure of the semiconductor materials, are the third generations of the glucose sensors that are fast, sensitive, and cost-effect for glucose monitoring.

Glucose sensors based on pure zinc oxide nanorods (NRs) grown on different substrates, such ITO, FTO, and Si/SiO2/Au, were investigated in this research. Silicon nanowire (NW)- based glucose sensors were also studied. First, an enzyme-based glucose sensor was fabricated out of glass/ITO/ZnO NRs/BSA/GOx/nafion membrane. The sensor was tested amperometrically at different glucose concentrations. …

Cloud Based Wireless Sensor Monitoring, Pruthvi Devendrakumar Mistry

Theses and Dissertations

Internet of Things (IoT) brought a revolutionary change in embedded systems. It offloads the physical work of managing an equipment, appliance or device to a smart and network connected application. IoT makes it possible to monitor and control a huge network of devices remotely. The aim of this project is to develop a complete framework for smart data acquisition from a wireless sensor network to cloud servers. The framework includes configurable, low power, and small size embedded module that is attached to a sensor. The device reads data from the sensor and forwards them to the cloud server using the …

Human-Centered Design Of The Enhanced Pilot Learning Interface For The Aviation Community, De Vere Michael Kiss

Theses and Dissertations

he purpose of this research is to introduce a new device to help pilots navigate aircraft manuals. This informational navigational tool is designed to improve learning by reducing the time it takes a pilot candidate to retrieve aircraft system information within an aircraft manual. The device is called the Enhanced Pilot Learning Interface, an Advanced Interactive Media. The research project is based on human-centered design and consists of participatory design, modeling and simulation, human-in-the-loop simulation (HITLS), and expert user experience. Additionally, a traditional research experimentation was conducted to collect supporting statistical data. Preliminary tests of four current professional airline pilots …

An Approach To Improve Single Photon Detectors For Highly Sensitive Applications, Ahmed Chyad Kadhim

Theses and Dissertations

The problem of detecting a single photon is receiving considerable attention with the development of new single photon detectors in biophotonics, stressed free-space optical communication, low probability of intercept (LPI) optical communication, quantum communication, and remote sensing. The theoretical modeling of the waveforms of the single photon detector output produced in particular systems will expedite the search for and analysis of detected signals. Since SNSPDs require cooling to very low temperature, 4K, and PMTs work on the visible wavelength, current photon detection focus on research developing SPADs and using InGaAs/InP materials. However, SPADs can work over the infrared range of …

Phonon Polariton Enhanced Infrared Waveguides, Yuchen Yang

Theses and Dissertations

The need for robust, reliable and sensitive terahertz (THz) sources and detectors has motivated the research into waveguiding structures. The increasing adoption of micro- and nanofabricated optical components addresses the critical challenge of guiding light with subwavelength confinement. Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waveguides are among the most promising candidates for manipulating light on subwavelength scales and harbor many potential applications at visible and nearinfrared (NIR) wavelengths. However, the metal in the waveguide yields very weak or nonexistent response in the mid and long wave infrared range, since metal in this region is very lossy and has large magnitude real and …

Capillary-Tube Package Devices For The Quantitative Performance Evaluation Of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometers And Pulse Sequences, Lingyu Chi, Ming Huang, Annalise R. Pfaff, Jie Huang, Rex E. Gerald Ii, Klaus Woelk

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

With the increased sensitivity of modern nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers, the minimum amount needed for chemical-shift referencing of NMR spectra has decreased to a point where a few microliters can be sufficient to observe a reference signal. The reduction in the amount of required reference material is the basis for the NMR Capillary-tube Package (CapPack) platform that utilizes capillary tubes with inner diameters smaller than 150 µm as NMR-tube inserts for external reference standards. It is shown how commercially available electrophoresis capillary tubes with outer diameters of 360 µm are filled with reference liquids or solutions and then permanently …

Exploration Of Radiation Damage Mechanism In Mems Devices., Pranoy Deb Shuvra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We explored UV, X-ray and proton radiation damage mechanisms in MEMS resonators. T-shaped MEMS resonators of different dimensions were used to investigate the effect of radiation. Radiation damage is observed in the form of resistance and resonance frequency shift of the device. The resistance change indicates a change in free carrier concentration and mobility, while the resonance frequency change indicates a change in mass and/or elastic constant. For 255nm UV radiation, we observed a persistent photoconductivity that lasts for about 60 hours after radiation is turned off. The resonance frequency also decreases 40-90 ppm during irradiation and slowly recovers at …

Solar Irradiance Microforecasting, Austin Jeffrey Fite, Sara Naseem Kipps

Computer Engineering

In late winter quarter 2018 the University of New Mexico and Microgrid Labs provided the Cal Poly Electrical Engineering department with their prototype Solar Irradiance Microforecasting (SIMF) hardware. This hardware was provided to the University under the lone condition that data collected with it would be returned to Microgrid Labs to train their weather model. The goal of this senior project was to take the provided hardware and software and make it usable for students in the Cal Poly Electrical and Computer Engineering departments to hack and expand. The end goal with the hardware is near term cloud and weather …

Optimizing The Plasmonic Enhancement Of Light In Metallic Nanogap Structures For Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy, Stephen Joseph Bauman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Technology based on the interaction between light and matter has entered something of a renaissance over the past few decades due to improved control over the creation of nanoscale patterns. Tunable nanofabrication has benefitted optical sensing, by which light is used to detect the presence or quantity of various substances. Through methods such as Raman spectroscopy, the optical spectra of solid, liquid, or gaseous samples act as fingerprints which help identify a single type of molecule amongst a background of potentially many other chemicals. This technique therefore offers great benefit to applications such as biomedical sensors, airport security, industrial waste …

Growth And Characterization Of Silicon-Germanium-Tin Semiconductors For Future Nanophotonics Devices, Bader Saad Alharthi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The bright future of silicon (Si) photonics has attracted research interest worldwide. The ultimate goal of this growing field is to develop a group IV based Si foundries that integrate Si-photonics with the current complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) on a single chip for mid-infrared optoelectronics and high speed devices. Even though group IV was used in light detection, such as photoconductors, it is still cannot compete with III-V semiconductors for light generation. This is because most of the group IV elements, such as Si and germanium (Ge), are indirect bandgap materials. Nevertheless, Ge and Si attracted industry attention because they are …

Stability Analysis Of A High-Power Microgrid, David Manuel Carballo Rojas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to perform the modeling and stability analysis of a high-power microgrid with multiple parallel-and grid connected voltage source converters using the system parameters from the high-power microgrid testbed at the National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission (NCREPT) at the University of Arkansas in order to identify, minimize, if not eliminate, the potential instabilities that can affect the proper operation of the microgrid testbed. To achieve this objective, the mathematical modeling of the high-power microgrid considering the adverse effects of resonances due to interactions among the converter LCL output filters is presented and analyzed. …