Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Metal Additive Microfabrication Of Semiconductor Packages With Inbuilt Thermal Management System, Bhushan Lohani

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Moore’s law describes the development capabilities in electronics manufacturing. Although his estimation held for decades, at present, the doubling of components every two years seems to be approaching a halt. The assessment was based on the miniaturization of transistors to create space for more. Miniaturization led to higher component density, decreased cost, lowered power consumption, and compactness. However, it also came with high current density, increased Joule heating, and reduced critical charge. One of the limiting factors is the heat generated from such devices, which is heavily discussed in International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS) and International Technology Roadmap …

Localization And Identification Of Emi Sources In Shielding Enclosures Based On A Two-Step Source Reconstruction Method, Zi An Wang, Jun Fa Mao, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Ping Li

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Localization and identification of unknown electromagnetic interference (EMI) sources in shielding enclosures is a great challenge due to the complex electromagnetic environment. In this work, a two-step source reconstruction method is proposed to address this issue. The actual EMI sources are initially modeled by equally distributed equivalent electric dipoles in the shielding enclosure. Effects of surrounding environments are rigorously incorporated using the numerical Green's function which bridges between the equivalent dipoles and planar scanned tangential magnetic near-field. Next, the initial equivalent sources are downsized via evaluating the contribution of each equivalent dipole. The parameters of remaining equivalent dipoles are updated …

Silicon Carbide-Based Dna Sensing Technologies, Abdulla Al Mamun, Mason Mcgarrity, Jong Hoon Kim, Feng Zhao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

DNA sensing is critical in various applications such as the early diagnosis of diseases and the investigation of forensic evidence, food processing, agriculture, environmental protection, etc. As a wide-bandgap semiconductor with excellent chemical, physical, electrical, and biocompatible properties, silicon carbide (SiC) is a promising material for DNA sensors. In recent years, a variety of SiC-based DNA-sensing technologies have been reported, such as nanoparticles and quantum dots, nanowires, nanopillars, and nanowire-based field-effect-transistors, etc. This article aims to provide a review of SiC-based DNA sensing technologies, their functions, and testing results.

Towards A Robust Defense: A Multifaceted Approach To The Detection And Mitigation Of Neural Backdoor Attacks Through Feature Space Exploration And Analysis, Liuwan Zhu

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

From voice assistants to self-driving vehicles, machine learning(ML), especially deep learning, revolutionizes the way we work and live, through the wide adoption in a broad range of applications. Unfortunately, this widespread use makes deep learning-based systems a desirable target for cyberattacks, such as generating adversarial examples to fool a deep learning system to make wrong decisions. In particular, many recent studies have revealed that attackers can corrupt the training of a deep learning model, e.g., through data poisoning, or distribute a deep learning model they created with “backdoors” planted, e.g., distributed as part of a software library, so that the …

Simple Mechanically Reconfigurable Patch Antennas, Luis Alonso Hernandez Galvan

Theses and Dissertations

Reconfigurable antennas form an active subdivision of antenna and communications research primarily targeted at achieving reconfigurability in the RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave frequency regimes. Mechanical, all-electronic, material based, and optical methods are the most common approaches to achieve reconfigurability. Each method can overlap to create new and innovative approaches to enable device tunability. The sub-class of reconfigurable antennas are antennas that dynamically achieve an adaptable transformation of their frequency, radiation-pattern, polarization, and/or bandwidth characteristics to enable multiple dynamic functionalities.

In this thesis, we designed new rectangular and triangular microstrip patch array antennas operating in the 5G midband at 5GHz. These …

Integrated Energy-Aware Motion Planning And Charge Scheduling Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Hayleyesus Alemayehu

All Theses

The growing demand for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is driven by their operational convenience, cost-effectiveness, availability, and adaptability to various scenarios. In energy-constrained environments, optimizing energy consumption and ensuring a continuous power supply for UAVs is crucial for mission success. The objective of this thesis is to address this issue by integrating energy-aware motion planning and charge scheduling for UAVs by utilizing a charger hosted on an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), whose rendezvous locations and routes are jointly computed to minimize overall energy consumption.

This thesis proposes a hierarchical trajectory and control framework comprising local and global planners for each …

Design And Fabrication Of An Optical Blade Tip Timing Sensor, Nick Tomlinson

All Theses

Electricity is a vital energy source that powers modern technology. Turbines are heavily relied on in the electric power industry for the conversion of natural energy sources into electricity. These turbines operate under harsh conditions which increase the likelihood of blade damage. Structural health monitoring of a turbine’s blades is important to detect problems before a blade experiences failure. The blade tip timing method can be used to monitor blade vibrations and determine if damage has occurred. An optical blade tip timing sensor is designed and fabricated to advance the field of sensing in the power industry.

Enhanced Hardware Trojan Detection In Chips By Reducing Linearity Between Features, Alfred M. S. Moussa

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Globally, there has been an increase in demand for System on Chip (SoC) applications, active medical implants, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, due to challenges in the global supply chain, the design, fabrication, and testing of Integrated Circuits are often outsourced to untrusted third-party entities around the world rather than a single trusted entity. This situation presents an opportunity for adversaries to compromise the device’s integrity, performance, and functionality by inserting malicious modifications known as Hardware Trojans (HTs) into the original design. HTs can also create a backdoor in the system for malicious alterations.

The problem of hardware …

A Novel Brain Computer Interface Design, Steven Vogan

Senior Honors Theses

A brain computer interface (BCI) is a system which connects neural signals to a computer system. They have been used for controlling systems including robotics, on-screen computer control such as mouse movement, typing, and synthesizing audio signals. Invasive, or implanted, systems are often long-term medical solutions, or used for research where very clear signal is required. Non-invasive systems usually rely on exterior signals gathered through a headset using one or more electrode sensors. These signals are composed of sums of neuron activation potentials from brain activity and can be used to determine particular aspects of brain function. All BCIs rely …

Survey Of How Irregularities In The Electrical System Of The Human Heart Link To Different Heart Arrhythmias, Jazmine Boloor

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis explores the circuital pathway that a signal takes within the heart throughout a full heartbeat and provides a timing analysis. It then surveys the different pathways that could arise in the electrical system of the heart, and the associated heart diseases linked to the location of each pathway. Common heart arrhythmias such as atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia, atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia, atrial flutter, and atrial fibrillation are surveyed, and their pathways are analyzed. Electrocardiograms are presented to aid in understanding of the timing analysis associated with irregularity in heart function. Finally, this thesis explores an avenue of the heartbeat …

An Avalanche Transistor-Based Pulse Generator Design For Infrared Laser Applications, Abraham Lopez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis details the design and results of a circuit intended for infrared laser applications, specifically for transcranial infrared light simulation (TILS) experiments and for use as a range finder. The circuit itself is comprised of a transistor, high voltage power supply, laser diode, capacitor, resistor, diode, and low voltage pulse. The design of a range finder is also developed. The range finder design is the same as the circuit developed for TILs with the addition of a few more components for receiving the returned light pulse such as a photodiode, op-amp, and comparator. The techniques used for a successful …

Auto-Segmentation In Pancreatic And Liver Radiation Therapy, Cenji Yu

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Background

Gastrointestinal cancers exhibit a high mortality rate compared to other cancer types. Among these, pancreatic cancer ranks as the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The five-year survival rate remains alarmingly low at a mere 9%. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), another aggressive form of cancer, is rapidly becoming the primary cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. The treatment of both liver cancer and pancreatic cancer heavily relies on a multidisciplinary approach. Innovative treatment strategies involving dose-escalated regimens, such as stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), are emerging as an important pillar of the management of liver and pancreatic …

Augmented Human Inspired Phase Variable Using A Canonical Dynamical System, Timothy Driscoll

All Theses

Accurately parameterizing human gait is highly important in the continued development of assistive robotics, including but not limited to lower limb prostheses and exoskeletons. Previous studies introduce the idea of time-invariant real-time gait parameterization via human-inspired phase variables. The phase represents the location or percent of the gait cycle the user has progressed through. This thesis proposes an alternative approach for determining the gait phase leveraging previous methods and a canonical dynamical system.

Human subject experiments demonstrate the ability to accurately produce a phase variable corresponding to the human gait progression for various walking configurations. Configurations include changes in incline …

Accurate Orientation Control Of Tendon Driven Continuum Robots That Exhibit Elasticity, Manu Srivastava

All Dissertations

This dissertation makes new contributions to the modeling and implementation of Tendon Driven Continuum Robots (TDCRs). Specifically, motivated by 3D printing of concrete using a continuum hose robot in construction applications, we focus on TDCRs featuring compliance in the robot backbone and actuating tendons, e.g. surgical robots/endoscopes/catheters with tendon actuation. We expand previous mechanics-based models to show how and why such compliance significantly restricts performance when traditional kinematics-based planning and control techniques are applied.

The main contribution of this work is a new Elasticity Compensation(EC) model that explains why the ad hoc approach of preloading/pretensioning the tendons compensates for compliance …

Fabrication And Measurement Of Lt-Gaas Photoconductive Antennas And Arrays, Zachary Paul Uttley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the fabrication and measurement of LT-GaAs based terahertz (THz) photo conductive antennas (PCAs) and arrays. The LT-GaAs THz PCAs are fabricated to serve as reference devices to new 2D material black phosphorous (BP) based THz PCAs. The LT-GaAs and BP devices have identical metallic electrodes, allowing for a comparison of emitted THz intensity and bandwidth. All PCAs have been measured using an open bench pulsed time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) system with a usable bandwidth from 0.1-4 THz, pumped with a 780nm Ti:Sapphire femtosecond laser. The results have shown LT-GaAs devices outperforming BP devices in signal amplitude and bandwidth …

Achieving High Renewable Energy Integration In Smart Grids With Machine Learning, Yaze Li

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The integration of high levels of renewable energy into smart grids is crucial for achieving a sustainable and efficient energy infrastructure. However, this integration presents significant technical and operational challenges due to the intermittent nature and inherent uncertainty of renewable energy sources (RES). Therefore, the energy storage system (ESS) has always been bound to renewable energy, and its charge and discharge control has become an important part of the integration. The addition of RES and ESS comes with their complex control, communication, and monitor capabilities, which also makes the grid more vulnerable to attacks, brings new challenges to the cybersecurity. …

Double-Sided Cooled Power Modules For Electric Vehicles, Riya Paul

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Double-sided cooled (DSC) power modules in conjunction with Silicon Carbide (SiC) power devices are expected to significantly elevate the performance of the next-generation electric vehicle power inverters. The double-sided cooling enables maximum heat dissipation, resulting in higher power density. SiC power devices, with their fast-switching speeds, reduce the power losses for higher efficiency. A half-bridge power module consisting of 13 mΩ 1.2 kV SiC devices is used for this work. A baseline DSC power module was designed, fabricated, and tested. This unique design uses truncated rectangular copper connection blocks for better heat dissipation from the device top side compared to …

Partial Discharge Mitigation In Power Modules Using An Automation-Driven Design Rule Development Method, Shilpi Mukherjee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Power modules used for the conversion and conditioning of electrical power for applications like electric vehicles, more-electric aircraft, the power grid, etc., are largely designed manually by engineers. Design automation of power modules is starting to gain recognition as a timely and necessary alternative to intuitive manual design and fabrication. With increasing need for wide bandgap materials that can operate at higher voltages, and the need to make modules more compact, hazards like electrical breakdown are more likely. Partial discharge (PD) is a silent and invisible precursor to electrical breakdown. It is compounded with compaction, creating a potential for electrical …

A Real-Time Anpc Inverter Digital Twin With Integrated Design-For-Trust, Paulo Vitor Do Amaral Custodio

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The demand for renewable energy has increased over the last few years, and so has the demand for greater expectations within the energy market. This increasing trend has been accompanied by more significant usage of internet-connected devices (IoT), leading to critical electrical infrastructure being connected to the internet. Implementing internet connectivity with such devices and systems provides benefits such as improving the system's performance, facilitating irregularity and anomaly mitigation, and providing additional situational awareness for enhanced decision-making. However, enhancing the connected system with IoT introduces a drawback – a greater vulnerability to cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks targeting critical infrastructure in the electrical …

Nrc-Sim: A Node-Red Based Multi-Level, Many-Core Cache Simulator, Ezequiel Treviño

Theses and Dissertations

As computational systems become ever-more integral to daily life, so too does the importance of understanding how these complex systems work. For those unfamiliar with the underlying concepts, this can be a daunting task. In an effort to address such concerns, this paper presents a Node-RED based cache simulator that enables users to observe the effects of their desired cache configuration, with users having the ability to easily modify various parameters, such as the core count, the number of levels within the cache, and coherence protocols, among other parameters. Through the use of Node-RED, NRC-SIM allows for simplicity of use …

Comparison Of Random Coupling Model To Stochastic Dyadic Green’S Function When Coupling To A Distributed Port, Evelyn Anne Dohme

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The Random Coupling Model (RCM) provides statistical representation of coupling between ports in a highly overmoded resonant cavity based on knowledge of radiation impedances of system ports and cavity properties. A recent variant of RCM, the Stochastic Dyadic Green’s Functions (S-DGF), provides the statistical distribution of fields in the cavity. By using Source Reconstruction Methods (SRM) to approximate equivalent surface currents, I hypothesized that the S-DGF can calculate the fields at their location, enabling a statistical estimate of the coupled power. Using nearfield radiation from simple patch antenna simulations and the SRM to estimate the equivalent fields and account for …

A Cohesive Simulation And Testing Platform For Civil Autonomous Aerial Sensing And Operations, Stockton G. Slack

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Drones (also known as sUAS or small Uncrewed Aerial Systems) are often flown with cameras to take images of an area of land. These images can then be used to create a map by stitching these images together. This map can then be analyzed using scientific principles to learn things about the land and make decisions or take action based on the information.

The scientific application of drones is very advantageous, but flying a drone is inherently dangerous, impacting the safety of the airspace (particularly in the event of a crash), and drones are more dangerous the bigger they are. …

Super-Resolution Textured Digital Surface Map (Dsm) Formation By Selecting The Texture From Multiple Perspective Texel Images Taken By A Low-Cost Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Uav), Bikalpa Khatiwada

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Textured Digital Surface Model (TDSM) is a three-dimensional terrain map with texture overlaid on it. Utah State University has developed a texel camera which can capture a 3D image called a texel image. A TDSM can be constructed by combining these multiple texel images, which is much cheaper than the traditional method. The overall goal is to create a TDSM for a larger area that is cheaper and equally accurate as the TDSM created using a high-cost system.

The images obtained from such an inexpensive camera have a lot of errors. To create scientifically accurate TDSM, the error presented in …

Reclaiming Fault Resilience And Energy Efficiency With Enhanced Performance In Low Power Architectures, Noel Daniel Gundi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Rapid developments of the AI domain has revolutionized the computing industry by the introduction of state-of-art AI architectures. This growth is also accompanied by a massive increase in the power consumption. Near-Theshold Computing (NTC) has emerged as a viable solution by offering significant savings in power consumption paving the way for an energy efficient design paradigm. However, these benefits are accompanied by a deterioration in performance due to the severe process variation and slower transistor switching at Near-Threshold operation. These problems severely restrict the usage of Near-Threshold operation in commercial applications. In this work, a novel AI architecture, Tensor Processing …

Modeling And Validating Temporal Rules With Semantic Petri Net For Digital Twins, Han Liu, Xiaoyu Song, Ge Gao, Hehua Zhang, Yu-Shen Liu, Ming Gu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Semantic rule checking on RDFS/OWL data has been widely used in the construction industry. At present, semantic rule checking is mainly performed on static models. There are still challenges in integrating temporal models and semantic models for combined rule checking. In this paper, Semantic Petri-Net (SPN) is proposed as a novel temporal modeling and validating method, which implements the states and transitions of the Colored Petri-Net directly based on RDFS and SPARQL, and realizes two-way sharing of knowledge between domain semantic webs and temporal models in the runtime. Several cases are provided to demonstrate the possible applications in digital twins …

Improved Vehicle-Bridge Interaction Modeling And Automation Of Bridge System Identification Techniques, Omar Abuodeh

All Dissertations

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recognizes the necessity for cost-effective and practical system identification (SI) techniques within structural health monitoring (SHM) frameworks for asset management applications. Indirect health monitoring (IHM), a promising SHM approach, utilizes accelerometer-equipped vehicles to measure bridge modal properties (e.g., natural frequencies, damping ratios, mode shapes) through bridge vibration data to assess the bridge's condition. However, engineers and researchers often encounter noise from road roughness, environmental factors, and vehicular components in collected vehicle signals. This noise contaminates the vehicle signal with spurious modes corresponding to stochastic frequencies, impacting damage monitoring assessments. Thus, an efficient and reliable SI …

Investigation Of Vo2 Thin Films And Devices For Opto-Electromechanical Applications, Samee Azad

All Dissertations

Specialized and optimized low pressure direct oxidation technique have been implemented to synthesize high quality VO₂ thin films on various substrates (sapphire, SiO₂/Si, AT-cut quartz, GaN/AlGaN/GaN/Si and muscovite). Structural and surface characterization methods such as X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy have been administered on the grown VO₂ films which indicate their material quality. Transition of characteristics of the VO₂ films are caused by semiconductor metal transition (SMT). This phenomenon is attributed as the change maker in transition of resistivity and transmitted optical power through the VO₂ films. Apart the substrates mentioned, …

Chip- And System-Level Reliability On Sic-Based Power Modules, Pengyu Lai

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The blocking voltage, switching frequency and temperature tolerance of power devices have been greatly improved due to the revolution of wide bandgap (WBG) materials, such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). Owing to the development of SiC-based power devices, the power rating, operating voltage, and power density of power modules have been significantly improved. However, the reliability of SiC-based power modules has not been fully explored yet. Thus, this dissertation focuses on the chip- and system-level reliability on SiC-based power modules. For chip-level reliability, this work focuses on on-chip SiC ESD protection devices for SiC-based integrated circuits (ICs). …

Integrated And Monolithic Iii-Nitride Devices Grown By Mbe, Rohith Allaparthi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

III-Nitride (III-N) semiconductors with wide bandgap (WBG) characteristics offer promising advancements for high power density, high voltage, and high-frequency applications, presenting a promising alternative to traditional silicon (Si) technology. However, native substrate material for the majority of WBG semiconductors is still not commercially affordable. Because of its highly mature progression, utilizing standard Si wafers as substrates is a cost-effective alternative. This dissertation explores the development of electronic devices based on III-N thin films, grown monolithically via molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), followed by several processing techniques. Initially, a heterojunction p-n diode is realized, incorporating the growth of single-crystal WBG AlN films …

Modeling & Small Signal Analysis Of Grid Forming Inverter, Kadesh Hepburn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a rising number of inverter-based resources (IBRs) being integrated with distribution systems are becoming a more common occurrence. With integration of IBRs inverters, power utilities are experiencing an increase of number of operations with regards to voltage and frequency support. To maintain grid stability and reliability, IBRs need to provide some of the services currently (or formerly) provided by synchronous generators. Interconnection standards, like the IEEE 1547. 2018 has include requirements for IBRs to have the capability to provide some of these services—such as frequency and voltage support—and the procurement and deployment of the services can be implemented …