Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Lawn Buddy, Jayson Johnston, Andrew Brown, Jacob Maljian

Electrical Engineering

Grass lawns are a common hallmark of the American home. In 2019, a survey from the National Association of Landscape Professionals found that 81% of all Americans owned a lawn [1]. Mowing is a time consuming and costly chore that is part of maintaining a grass lawn. The manual labor in mowing a lawn can exceed 40 hours per year [2]. People commonly incur weekly costs on mowing services to save time. Traditional gas powered mowers are physically demanding and use engines that need routine maintenance. They operate loudly enough that users should be wearing hearing protection and the noise …

Evaluating Driving Performance Of A Novel Behavior Planning Model On Connected Autonomous Vehicles, Keyur Shah

Honors Scholar Theses

Many current algorithms and approaches in autonomous driving attempt to solve the "trajectory generation" or "trajectory following” problems: given a target behavior (e.g. stay in the current lane at the speed limit or change lane), what trajectory should the vehicle follow, and what inputs should the driving agent apply to the throttle and brake to achieve this trajectory? In this work, we instead focus on the “behavior planning” problem—specifically, should an autonomous vehicle change lane or keep lane given the current state of the system?

In addition, current theory mainly focuses on single-vehicle systems, where vehicles do not communicate with …

Study Of A Symmetrical Llc Dual-Active Bridge Resonant Converter Topology For Battery Storage Systems, John K. George

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A symmetrical LLC resonant converter topology with a fixed-frequency quasi-triple phase-shift modulation method is proposed for battery-powered electric traction systems with extensions to other battery storage systems. Operation of the converter with these methods yields two unique transfer characteristics and is dependent on the switching frequency. The converter exhibits several desirable features: 1) load-independent buck-boost voltage conversion when operated at the low-impedance resonant frequency, allowing for dc-link voltage regulation, zero-voltage switching across a wide load range, and intrinsic load transient resilience; 2) power flow control when operated outside the low-impedance resonance for integrated battery charging; 3) and simple operational mode …

An Analytic Study Of Pursuit Strategies, Mark E. Vlassakis

Theses and Dissertations

The Two-on-One pursuit-evasion differential game is revisited where the holonomic players have equal speed, and the two pursuers are endowed with a circular capture range ℓ > 0. Then, the case where the pursuers' capture ranges are unequal, ℓ₁ > ℓ₂ ≥ 0, is analyzed. In both cases, the state space region where capture is guaranteed is delineated and the optimal feedback strategies are synthesized. Next, pure pursuit is considered whereupon the terminal separation between a pursuer and an equal-speed evader less than the pursuer's capture range ℓ > 0. The case with two pursuers employing pure pursuit is considered, and …

A Comparative Analysis Of Reinforcement Learning Applied To Task-Space Reaching With A Robotic Manipulator With And Without Gravity Compensation, Jonathan Fugal

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Advances in computing power in recent years have facilitated developments in autonomous robotic systems. These robotic systems can be used in prosthetic limbs, wearhouse packaging and sorting, assembly line production, as well as many other applications. Designing these autonomous systems typically requires robotic system and world models (for classical control based strategies) or time consuming and computationally expensive training (for learning based strategies). Often these requirements are difficult to fulfill. There are ways to combine classical control and learning based strategies that can mitigate both requirements. One of these ways is to use a gravity compensated torque control with reinforcement …

Vision-Based Autonomous Tracking Of A Non-Cooperative Mobile Robot By A Low-Cost Quadrotor Vehicle, Cheikhna Ahmed Tidiane Sy

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The goal of this thesis is the detection and tracking of a ground vehicle, in particular a car-like robot, by a quadrotor. The first challenge to address in any pursuit or tracking scenario is the detection and unique identification of the target. From this first challenge, comes the need to precisely localize the target in a coordinate system that is common to the tracking and tracked vehicles. In most real-life scenarios, the tracked vehicle does not directly communicate information such as its position to the tracking one. From this fact, arises a non-cooperative constraint problem. The autonomous tracking aspect of …

An Application Of Sliding Mode Control To Model-Based Reinforcement Learning, Aaron Thomas Parisi

Master's Theses

The state-of-art model-free reinforcement learning algorithms can generate admissible controls for complicated systems with no prior knowledge of the system dynamics, so long as sufficient (oftentimes millions) of samples are available from the environ- ment. On the other hand, model-based reinforcement learning approaches seek to leverage known optimal or robust control to reinforcement learning tasks by mod- elling the system dynamics and applying well established control algorithms to the system model. Sliding-mode controllers are robust to system disturbance and modelling errors, and have been widely used for high-order nonlinear system control. This thesis studies the application of sliding mode control …

Developing An Automatic Control System For Track Relays In The Relay Room Of The Railway Stations Of The Joint Stock Company “Uzbekistan Temir Yo’Llari”, Q.K. Nuriddinov

Journal of Tashkent Institute of Railway Engineers

This article deals with the problems of developing an automatic control system for track relays in the relay room of the railway stations of the Joint Stock Company “Uzbekistan Temir Yo’llari”. The statistical data of failures that occurred at the railway stations of the Joint Stock Company “Uzbekistan Temir Yo’llari” are given. A functional diagram of a local module for inputting analog signals from Signaling, Centralization, Interlocking and data transmission systems on a personal computer using a microcontroller via an Ethernet channel has been developed.

Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle Controller With Pid Stability Regulation, Christian E. Aguirre

Electrical Engineering

The earth’s oceans and rivers remain widely unexplored. Hobbyists and companies across the globe invest money and resources into remotely operated vehicles (ROV) to further expand underwater knowledge. Each ROV includes a controller that operates motors and monitors other crucial system vitals. The ROV Controller project makes the process of designing an ROV simpler and more affordable by providing a multi-purpose programmable controller.

The ROV controller features programmable digital inputs/outputs and analog inputs. The controller processes control signals from analog joysticks, digital signals from a gyroscope and utilizes a MUX to expand the analog input capabilities of the Arduino. The …

H2 Control For Improved Stability Of Multi-Area Electric Power System With High Levels Of Inverter-Based Generation, Muthanna Abdulkareem Al-Sarray

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increased generation capacity from non-dispatchable energy resources such as wind and solar has created challenges to ensuring the reliable delivery of electric power. This research develops a systematic three-step method of assessing the reliability of electric power systems under a variety of different possible fault conditions to ensure that overall system stability is preserved in a manner the meets regulatory requirements. The first step is a risk-based reliability method (RBRM) that accounts for the probability of a line outage versus the severity of impact. This allows system planners to judiciously allocate expenses for reliability improvements based on the greatest economic …

Control Strategy For A Small-Scale Microgrid Based On Battery Energy Storage System-Virtual Synchronous Generator (Bess-Vsg), Wei Gao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As one of widely deployed renewable energy resources, PV power is playing a very important role in microgrids today. It has advantages such as making the best of natural solar energy and being friendly to our environment. In this thesis, solar PV based microgrid is studied using modeling and simulation. Microgrid can run in either grid-connected-mode or islanded-mode. However, there are also some disadvantages for solar power. For solar panel, its output is influenced by weather conditions such as illumination intensity and temperature. In addition, during the control process of grid-connected mode, it is hard to guarantee its output power …

Duty-Cycle Based Physical Unclonable Functions (Pufs) For Hardware Security Applications, Mahmood Javed Azhar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Duty cycle and frequency are important characteristics of periodic signals that are exploited to develop a variety of application circuits in IC design. Controlling the duty cycle and frequency provides a method to develop adaptable circuits for a variety of applications. These applications range from stable on-chip clock generation circuits, on-chip voltage regulation circuits, and Physical unclonable functions for hardware security applications. Ring oscillator circuits that are developed with CMOS inverter circuits provide a simple, versatile flexible method to generated periodic signals on an IC chip. A digitally controlled ring oscillator circuit can be adapted to control its duty cycle …

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 …

Optimal Multidimensional Droop Control For Wind Resources In Dc Microgrids, Kaitlyn J. Bunker, Wayne Weaver

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The inclusion of electricity generation from wind in microgrids presents an important opportunity in modern electric power systems. Various control strategies can be pursued for wind resources connected in microgrids, and droop control is a promising option since communication between microgrid components is not required. Traditional droop control does have the drawback of not allowing much or all of the available wind power to be utilized in the microgrid. This paper presents a novel droop control strategy, modifying the traditional approach and building an optimal droop surface at a higher dimension. A method for determining the optimal droop control surface …

Linear And Nonlinear Adaptive Attitude Control Of Asteroid-Orbiting Spacecraft Using State Feedback And Output Feedback, Nicholas Moya

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis presents the derivation of both a linear and nonlinear adaptive control law for the attitude states of a spacecraft in orbit around rotating asteroids. The asteroid is assumed to be irregularly shaped and in an elliptical orbit around the sun. The linearized, time-varying spacecraft model will assume to include unknown parameters and will have external disturbances present. The objective is to control the roll, pitch, and yaw angle trajectories of the spacecraft such that they track desired reference trajectories. To achieve this, the control law will be composed of (1) a feedback controller, sufficiently robust to disturbance such …

Learn-To-Fly Control System Design, Alexander Brent Streit

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In order to improve aircraft flight control system development life cycle, new flight control techniques are being explored to allow the system to ``learn-to-fly" with limited a priori information of the aircraft's aerodynamic characteristics. One approach is to have a system identification process operating on-the-fly to generate mathematical models which can be used to update control laws. In this thesis, a wind tunnel experiment was conducted with a model aircraft set up to be free-to-roll, so system identification and control methods could be explored for a one-degree-of-freedom case. In particular this thesis covers the design of a novel control system …

Cyber-Physical Embedded Systems With Transient Supervisory Command And Control: A Framework For Validating Safety Response In Automated Collision Avoidance Systems, Daniel K. Trembley

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The ability to design and engineer complex and dynamical Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) requires a systematic view that requires a definition of level of automation intent for the system. Since CPS covers a diverse range of systemized implementations of smart and intelligent technologies networked within a system of systems (SoS), the terms “smart” and “intelligent” is frequently used in describing systems that perform complex operations with a reduced need of a human-agent. The difference between this research and most papers in publication on CPS is that most other research focuses on the performance of the CPS rather than on the correctness …

Analysis Of Evolutionary Algorithms In The Control Of Path Planning Problems, Pavlos Androulakakis

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the ability of evolutionary algorithms (EAs) to develop near optimal solutions to three different path planning control problems. First, we begin by examining the evolution of an open-loop controller for the turn-circle intercept problem. We then extend the evolutionary methodology to develop a solution to the closedloop Dubins Vehicle problem. Finally, we attempt to evolve a closed-loop solution to the turn constrained pursuit evasion problem. For each of the presented problems, a custom controller representation is used. The goal of using custom controller representations (as opposed to more standard techniques such as …

Ball Oscillating Bouncer, Eric Blok, Daniel Altemese, Ryan Nowacki, Maram Qurban

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this report is to document the need, objectives, marketing and engineering requirements, as well as validate the design of an autonomous control device capable of continuously bouncing a table tennis ball on a paddle. This includes the design of a self correcting system using lightweight materials, and as few sensors and components as possible to achieve a compact, portable design. To accomplish this, the system is designed to react to a ball falling from as short a distance as 10 centimeters above the paddle, meaning all sensor processing, control processing, and motor drives should be able to …

Photovoltaic Inverter Control To Sustain High Quality Of Service, Yan Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The increasing penetration of distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) generation presents both challenges and opportunities for distribution systems. The intermittent nature of solar irradiance may lead to power quality degradation. At the same time, PV inverters –if properly designed and operated– can be used to improve power quality. The goal of this dissertation is to develop power flow optimization methods for power distribution networks with high penetration of PV generation. The approaches proposed in this dissertation have been tested using the modified version of the IEEE 34-node distribution system and the IEEE 123-node distribution system, as well as the validated model …

Hardware Based Testing Of Communication Based Control For Dc Microgrid, Mahmoud Saleh, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

This paper further describes our work presented in Industry Application Society 2016 Conference, with more details related to the control and operation of the microgrid. The DC microgrid facility was custom designed and implemented at CCNY with minimal off-the-shelf components to enable flexibility and reconfiguration capability. The design steps, requirements, and experimental results of the developed testbed were discussed. As a case study, a central controller for energy management algorithm was developed and tested under several operational scenarios. The experimental results verify the applicability of the developed testbed for validating DC microgrid controllers.

Autonomous Highway Systems Safety And Security, Imran Sajjad

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis aims to address question of safety and security in autonomous highway systems. Chains of multiple self-driving vehicles (platoons) give rise to inherent vulnerabilities to attacks resulting from their control algorithms. These weaknesses can possibly result in collisions or decreased traffic flow.

This work first provides an overview of these vulnerabilities analyzed from a control systems perspective. The capabilities and extent of damage that an attack can cause are analyzed. Then some possible mitigation strategies are presented that can defend against these attacks.

Simulation results are provided to support the effectiveness of these controllers and an experimental validation is …

Vision-Based Control Of A Full-Size Car By Lane Detection, N. Chase Kunz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Self-driving cars are an area of increasing investment for researchers and auto manufacturers. Integration has already begun for such vehicles in urban environments. An essential aspect of navigation in these areas is the ability to sense and follow lane markers. This thesis focuses on the development of a self-driving, full-size, electric car which uses only a camera and lane markers to stay on the road. A complete method for automation is shown for a stock vehicle. Discussion includes reverse engineering of the steering, braking, and acceleration signals, as well as methods for lane detection and full-vehicle control.

Applications Of Krylov Subspace And Balanced Truncation Model Order Reduction In Power Systems, Sebastian Emanuel Garrido

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dynamic representations of power systems usually result in the order of hundreds or even thousands of buses. Therefore, reduction of these dynamic representations is convenient. Two applications of model order reduction in power systems are discussed in this thesis. First, Krylov subspace-based method is applied to the IEEE-123 Node Test Feeder in the context of distribution-level power systems simulation. Second, a Balanced Truncation-based model reduction is implemented in the 3-Machine 9-Bus system for designing a power system controller in the context of generation- and transmission-level power systems.

First, for the IEEE-123 Node Test Feeder, a two-sided Arnoldi algorithm is proposed …

Dynamic Model And Control Of Quadrotor In The Presence Of Uncertainties, Courage Agho

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers the control of quadrotor using a linear PID control and ℒ1 adaptive control. In a justifiable concept, PID controller can be used to control a quadrotor, but in the presence of uncertainties or disturbance, the quadrotor can’t be automatically adjusted to control the changing dynamics of the quadrotor. To solve the problem associated with uncertainties, various control methodology can be used for controlling the changing dynamic of quadrotor, but in this thesis, ℒ1 adaptive control is used because it allows for fast and robust adaptation for desired transient performance in the presence of matched and unmatched uncertainties. …

Performance Comparison Of The Notable Acceleration- And Angle-Based Guidance Laws For A Short-Range Air-To-Surface Missile, Bülent Özkan, Mustafa Kemal Özgören, Gökmen Mahmutyazicioğlu

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Short-range air-to-surface missiles have become globally popular in the last two decades. As a performance driver, the type of guidance law gains importance. In this study, proportional navigation, velocity pursuit, and augmented proportional navigation guidance laws, whose resulting guidance commands take the form of lateral acceleration, are applied to a short-range air-to-surface missile against both stationary and maneuvering ground targets. Body pursuit and linear homing guidance laws, which yield angular commands, are additionally applied. Having completed the relevant computer simulations, we conclude that none of the acceleration- and angle-based guidance laws are absolutely superior to the others.

A Hybrid State/Event Driven Communication-Based Control For Dc Microgrids, Yusef Esa

Dissertations and Theses

The U.S. electric power industry is undergoing unprecedented changes triggered by the growing electricity demand, and the national efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, there is a call for increased power grid resiliency, survivability and self-healing capabilities. As a result of these challenges, the smart grid concept emerged. One of the main pillars of the smart grid is microgrids. In this thesis, the technical merits of clustering multiple microgrids during blackouts on the overall stability and supply availability have been investigated.

We propose to use the existing underground distribution grid infrastructure, if applicable, during blackouts to form microgrid clusters. …

Electromagnetic Signal Feedback Control For Proximity Detection Systems, Adam K. Smith

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel in the United States and remains an essential source of energy. While more than half of coal production comes from surface mining, nearly twice as many workers are employed by underground operations.

One of the key pieces of equipment used in underground coal mining is the continuous mining machine. These large and powerful machines are operated in confined spaces by remote control. Since 1984, 40 mine workers in the U. S. have been killed when struck or pinned by a continuous mining machine. It is estimated that a majority of these accidents could …

Flight Control And Hardware Design Of Multi-Rotor Systems, Nathan M. Zimmerman

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This thesis overviews crucial concepts involved in achieving quadcopter flight such as orientation estimation and control system implementation. This thesis also presents researchers with comprehensive hardware and software specifications for a quadcopter system. The primary application for this system would be for research with regards to the implementation of advance control techniques as well as data acquisition. Key constructs of this system include hardware software specifications for a flight controller, the radio system, and the sensorless brushless motor controllers. Firstly, the thesis starts by developing a reference frame and a mathematical model for the quadcotper system. Next, flight orientation estimation …

Automatic Water Pump Controller, Alam D. Salguero, Kyle Russell Marquez Weeks

Electrical Engineering

In countries including Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, a city water authority supplies the clean water and pumps it into large ground-level storage tanks. A resident’s water pump then pumps the water to a water tank on top of his/her house. When the water level in the ground-level storage tank becomes too low, the pump siphons air and shuts down, requiring a resident to manually prime the water pump to get it running again. Residents struggle to monitor the water level of the tanks effectively and keep the pump running properly. To remedy the issue, the Automatic Water Pump …