Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

An Exact Analysis For Four-Order Acousto-Optic Bragg Diffraction Which Incorporates Both Incident Light Angle And Sound Frequency Dependencies, Adeyinka Sunday Ademola

Electrical Engineering Theses

This thesis extends the prior work which produced an exact solution to the four-order acousto-optic (AO) Bragg cell with assumed fixed center frequency and with exact Bragg angle incident light. The extension predicts the model that incorporates the dependencies of both the input angle of light and the sound frequency. Specifically, a generalized 4^th order linear differential equation (DE), is developed from a simultaneous analysis of four coupled AO system of DEs. Through standard methods, the characteristic roots, which requires solving a quartic equation, is produced. Subsequently, a derived system of homogeneous solutions, which absorbs the roots obtained using …

Silent Communication Device, Christopher Wayne Schutter

Master's Theses

Oral communication has constituted as a necessary aspect of how people interact with one another, but there are always situations where this form of communication can create distractions, irritation, or even danger. Take for example, a student in a laboratory who needs to communicate effectively with a lab partner without creating a distraction to those trying to work around said student or a soldier on a battlefield who needs to relay information effectively to his or her comrades without revealing his or her position to the enemy. It becomes apparent that people need a more exclusive form of communication in …

Implantable Wireless Sensor Networks: Application To Measuring Temperature For In Vivo Detection Of Infections, Praharsh Madappaly Veetil

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

It is has been proven that infection in the body cause a local temperature increase due to localized inflammation. Therefore, a method to provide early diagnostic or long-term tracking of this infection will provide great benefits to patients with diabetic foot ulcers or sickle cell disease, and those receiving hemodialysis where they suffer from a weakened immune system. The goal of this project is to develop an implantable wireless temperature sensor based on a wireless sensor network system for monitoring infections in situ. The analog signals from the thermistors are digitized and wirelessly transmitted to a computer with an ez430-rf2500 …

Active Charge Balancing For Cardiac Stimulation, Maci Miri

Electrical Engineering

Worldwide, there are about 3 million people who have pacemakers, with 10,000 new implantations of ICD’s each month. [heart.org] Due to the gravity and importance of the function that ICD’s provide, these devices must be extremely reliable and highly effective. However, because of the high tolerances of IC manufacturing, stimulation circuits for pacemakers may be slightly unmatched and over time, may have a net DC charge applied to the tissues in the heart. Extra charge pumped into body tissues is dangerous for the patient’s health; the pH of the tissue can be raised and corrosion of the stimulating electrodes may …

A Stroke Therapy Brace Design, Evan Kirkbride

Electrical Engineering

Victims of stroke often have difficulty with rehabilitation. With limited movement on their affected arm, patients often do not want to move much for physical therapy. In this project, we design a robotic brace that helps stroke patients move their arm more effectively in a reaching or pulling motion. By giving patients more movement in their affected arm than they would have otherwise, patients gain more from rehabilitation. The brace also adapts to the patient’s needs, providing more inclination or resistance as needed for their physical therapy. This kind of therapy engages patients rather than relying on their likely dwindled …

Hall Effect Modeling In Fem Simulators And Comparison To Experimental Results In Silicon And Printed Sensors, Leonardo A. Frem

Master's Theses

Finite element method simulation models for thin-film semiconductor-based Hall sensors were developed using secondary data in order to understand their behavior under strong magnetic fields. Given a device geometry and charge carrier density and mobility, the models accurately calculated sensor resistance, Hall voltage under a normally-incident constant magnetic field, and expected offset from a population of Hall devices. The model was successfully matched against data from integrated chip Hall sensors from St. Jude Medical. Additionally, the feasibility of creating Hall effect devices with common carbon ink was explored experimentally. The material properties obtained from testing these ink-based devices through the …

Exertion Control, Travis Taylor

Electrical Engineering

Current wearable fitness devices give the user after-the-fact fitness data, but little real-time feedback. Exertion Control, a new wearable device, continuously measures the user’s heart rate, creates a heart rate target, and helps the user reach it. This project completes the senior design and master’s thesis requirements and contains two milestones. The senior design product continuously measures the wearer’s heart rate and logs it with a user-friendly interface. This data models the heart’s exertion response and recovery response. The master’s thesis device refines the closed control loop with the user to give them a workout optimized to fit their needs.

Design Of Smartseat Car Seat Safety System To Prevent Child Vehicular Heat Stroke, Alexis D. Lamott

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Child vehicular heatstroke deaths continue to be a preventable accident seen yearly. As such, a proposed safety system has been designed to monitor environmental temperatures and weight in an infant seat, to alert guardians that a young child is at risk of child vehicular heatstroke death or serious heatstroke related injury. The SmartSeat system is comprised of three separate printed circuit boards that work in unison to form the overall system.

Numerical And Analytical Modeling To Determine Performance Trade-Offs In Hydrogel-Based Ph Sensors, Piyush Dak, Muhammad Ashraful Alam

Birck and NCN Publications

Hydrogel based pH sensors are promising candidates for implantable sensors due to their low-cost and biocompatibility. Despite their commercial potential and numerous theoretical/experimental reports, the trade-offs between different performance parameters are not well understood, and explicitly stated. In this work, we develop a numerical and analytical framework to show that there is a fundamental trade-off between the performance parameters i.e. sensitivity/dynamic range vs. response-time/response-asymmetry in hydrogel sensors under constrained swelling conditions. Specifically, we consider the effect of the gel parameters, such as the ionizable group density ( N_f) and its dissociation constant ( K_a), on the …

Utilizing Brain-Computer Interfacing To Control Neuroprosthetic Devices, Cheyne J. Angy

Senior Honors Theses

Advances in neuroprosthetics in recent years have made an enormous impact on the quality of life for many people with disabilities, helping them regain the functionality of damaged or impaired abilities. One of the main hurdles to regaining full functionality regarding neuroprosthetics is the integration between the neural prosthetic device and the method in which the neural prosthetic device is controlled or manipulated to function correctly and efficiently. One of the most promising methods for integrating neural prosthetics to an efficient method of control is through Brian-computer Interfacing (BCI). With this method, the neuroprosthetic device is integrated into the human …

Hardware Design And Integration And Software Programming For Optical Elastography, Nima Taherkhani

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The elastic and viscoelastic properties of skin are a reflection of its health. Measurement of these elastic properties can be used as the indicator of various pathologies. The measurement concept in our works is to mechanically stimulate the skin with a low frequency pneumatic force using non-invasive means of deflecting the skin and use laser speckle to study the elasticity of the skin.

The goal of this work was to develop a setup for in vivo optical elastography of skin. This setup includes an electro-mechanical device which is able to deliver a sinusoidal pneumatic stimulus equivalent to 10 grams of …

The Viability Of High-Frequency Oscillation Analysis In Eeg Signals For Seizure Prediction, Bryan David Kern

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Seizure prediction is a decades-old research problem that has yet to reach any satisfying conclusions. Many studies have tackled the problem with varying results, but there has yet to be any major breakthroughs that define the direction of all future research. However, a promising, new predictor may have presented itself in recent years in the form of high frequency oscillations (HFOs). With the discovery of HFOs (80 - 800 Hz) as a biomarker for epilepsy, new interest has been placed in studying the high frequency content of EEGs to find a possible link between epilepsy and HFOs. In this paper, …

Design And Fabrication Techniques Of Devices For Embedded Power Active Contact Lens, Errol Heradio Leon

Master's Theses

This thesis designed and fabricated various devices that were interfaced to an IC for an active contact lens that notifies the user of an event by detection of an external wireless signal. The contact lens consisted of an embedded antenna providing communication with a 2.4GHz system, as well as inductive charging at an operating frequency of 13.56 MHz. The lens utilized a CBC005 5µAh thin film battery by Cymbet and a manufactured graphene super capacitor as a power source. The custom integrated circuit (IC) was designed using the On Semiconductor CMOS C5 0.6 µm process to manage …

Permanent Magnet Display System, Xenia Leon Rodriguez

Electrical Engineering

Pacemakers can malfunction when exposed to high magnetic fields. This becomes especially problematic for patients with pacemakers who need MRI scans as MRI machines can subject the pacemaker to damaging magnetic fields. St.Jude Medical, one of the leading biotech companies, is working to make their pacemakers MRI-safe. In order to test their MRI-safe pacemaker designs, they need an automated test apparatus that will collect and report the magnetic field the pacemaker is being exposed to. This report describes the design of such a test system that reads the Tesla intensity the pacemaker is exposed to and wirelessly transmits the data …

A Stand-Alone Dna Hybridization Detection System, Sinan S. Sayood

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

The goal of this project was to design a portable device that can quickly and accurately detect the difference between single and double stranded DNA. This was accomplished by analyzing the capacitive properties of DNA solutions and implementing a charge-based capacitive monitoring system to detect and analyze the solutions. The detection system was designed without reliance on expensive functionalized electrodes, and instead is able to detect the properties of free- oating DNA. This approach greatly reduces the cost of the materials needed to construct the device. It also decouples the main sensor apparatus from the bulk of the electronics, reducing …

Design And Development Of Two Component Hydrogel Ejector For Three-Dimensional Cell Growth, Thomas Dunkle, Jessica Deschamps, Connie Dam

Honors Scholar Theses

Hydrogels are useful in wound healing, drug delivery, and tissue engineering applications, but the available methods of injecting them quickly and noninvasively are limited. The medical industry does not yet have access to an all-purpose device that can quickly synthesize hydrogels of different shapes and sizes. Many synthesis procedures that have been developed result in the formation of amorphous hydrogels. While generally useful, amorphous hydrogels exhibit limited capability in tissue engineering applications, especially due to their viscous properties. This endeavor aims to modulate the appropriate gelation parameters, optimize the injection process, and create a prototype that allows for the extrusion …

Modular Biped Robotic Base, Lawrence T. Chiavaroli, Andrew J. Forchione, Wesley A. Miller, Joseph M. Drockton

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This report contains the final developments and research involved with the modular biped robotic base. A need was first identified in 2011 when President Obama announced the National Robotics Initiative, an initiative focused on the funding of robotic development to work alongside or cooperatively with humans. This scope of this project concerns building a robotic base modeled after human legs and hips, capable of interfacing with future modular subsystems depending on what tasks are trying to be accomplished. Firstly, a mathematical torque simulation of the hip, knee, and ankle joints was developed in MATLAB. Using this information, complimentary actuators and …

Assessment Of Electrode Configurations Of Electrical Impedance Myography For The Evaluation Of Neuromuscular Diseases, Khondokar Mohammad Fazle Rabbi

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Electrical impedance myography (EIM) is a painless, noninvasive approach to measure the neuromuscular disease status. EIM parameters- resistance (R), reactance (X) and phase (θ) depend significantly on subcutaneous fat thickness, muscle size and inter electrode distance. The objective of this research is to find an electrode configuration which can minimize the effects on EIM parameters due to subcutaneous fat thickness variation. In this study, a model of human upper arm was developed using finite element method (FEM), which has already been established as an appropriate approach for the analysis of non-symmetrical shape for assessing alternations of muscle in disease-induced changes …

Nanopulse Generators: Their Design And Application To Cancer Therapy Studies, Daniel P. Wernig

Senior Honors Theses

Effective nanopulse generators have become critical in recent decades concerning the study of subcellular affects in response to nanosecond pulsed electric fields. It has been observed that nanosecond duration electric pulses can target intracellular organelles, ultimately leading to cell apoptosis, suggesting the possibility of a new, minimally invasive, low risk cancer therapy methodology. The standard topology for developing a medical nanopulser is the Blumlein “transmission line” approach. This approach relies on the nearly infinitesimal, yet finite amount of time required for an electromagnetic field to propagate down a short transmission line. Prior to design, requirements and constraints must be defined …

St. Jude Medical - R&D Robot For Sensor Testing, Andrew Chanul Kim, Stanley Logan Laszczyk, Edgar Nava, Nathan Gall

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Sonar For The Visually Impaired, Anastasia Newark, Edwin Ng, Scott Terhorst

Biomedical Engineering

There are currently no inexpensive assistive devices that allow the visually impaired detect low hanging objects that are above waist height and may cause injury, such as a rope or tree branch. The challenge presented to the team by the Quality of Life Plus Lab (QL+) was to develop a Sonar Cane device that attaches to a traditional white cane to address this problem. This device must be lightweight, inexpensive to manufacture, have a long battery life, and accurately detect obstacles to prevent user injury.

Alternate Computer Input Device For Individuals With Quadriplegia, Tobais Elder, Michelle Martinez, David Sylvester

Biomedical Engineering

This project details the design development of an alternative computer input system that allows a person with quadriplegia to move a computer's cursor and activate left and right click button inputs. After researching and analyzing possible solutions, an end design was chosen that most appropriately satisfied all user requirements and engineering specifications. This final design employs a head mounted Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) with 9 DoF (Degrees of Freedom) to track head movements and correlate these motions to computer cursor movements. A Sip-Puff Transducer monitors and interprets a user's application of negative and positive air pressure differentials to a vinyl …

Generation Of Bipolar Nanosecond Pulses, Sambasiva Rao Rajulapati

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Bipolar pulse generation has been studied using transmission line technology, which was mainly used for monopolar pulse generation. In this thesis, low impedance, high current, nanosecond pulse generators were designed, constructed and tested. Five transmission lines were connected in parallel, so the impedance was 10 n. The transmission lines were switched by a spark gap switch operated in air. The closing of the switch creates a matched condition on one side of the transmission lines and a short circuit on the other side of the transmission lines. When the transmission lines are precharged, one of the two waves in opposite …

Optimized Integrated Software Package For Classification Of Small Airway Dysfunction Using Genetic Algorithms, Elias Estrada

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Due to the similarity in the symptoms of respiratory disorders, an accurate diagnosis could be a difficult task. Regarding asthma as the main focus of this research, early detection of small airway impairment could represent a better opportunity for timely diagnosis. An integrated software package (ISP) based on the impulse oscillometry technique, has been developed to serve as an important tool for clinicians during classification of asthma severities on children [1]. The current version of the ISP was tested with data obtained during several years by Dr. Homer Nazeran and Dr. Michael Goldman from 110 Hispanic children [2], providing an …

Footwear Antennas For Body Area Telemetry, Domenico Gaetano, Patrick Mcevoy, Max Ammann, Jacinta Browne, Louise Keating, Frances Horgan

Articles

Antennas designed to link footwear sensors within body centric networks are introduced with two small UWB antennas, one directional and another quasi-omnidirectional. The radiating characteristics are evaluated for three positions on a sample sports shoe using a detailed simulation model and measurements with a homogenous foot phantom. Antenna performance is assessed for resilience to close proximity loading by the footwear materials and the phantom foot.

Eye "R" Glasses: Development Of An Infrared Sensor System For Detecting The Human Body, Rick Wong

Master's Theses

Throughout the years, sensors have been an integral part of automation, alert, and medical systems. Many of these systems measure physiological characteristics of the human body to alert themselves of their current conditions. Drowsy driver systems, for instance, measure the eyes and facial movements with a camera to determine if the driver is falling asleep at the wheel. Electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG), and electromyography (EMG) employ electrodes on the human body to measure electrical activity of a patient’s REM sleep cycle patterns. Pulse oximeters use optical light through a process called photoplethysmography (PPG) to measure heart rate.

As diverse as …

Assessment And Evaluation Of The Dynamic Behavior Of Muscles With Special Reference To Subjects With Diabetes Mellitus, Jorge Garza-Ulloa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Diabetes mellitus (simply diabetes) is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced. Each year, the costs of diabetes rise. Diabetes and its complications cost our national economy. Two new methods are proposed to measure the diabetes implications in the muscles of lower body: Muscle energy expenditure analysis based on the detection of muscle transition-to-fatigue, and Natural Fuzzy logic method for differential analysis in muscle/joint. Then the results are compared with the traditional method …

Effects Of Blood Flow On The Heating Of Cardiac Stents Due To Radio Frequency Fields, Nate Ian Elder

Open Access Theses

A safety concern during MRI scans with implanted medical devices is heating induced by the incident RF field. This research was performed to better understand the heating of cardiac stents during MRI. Heating of cardiac stents tends to occur at their ends. The temperature rise will be affected by blood flow through the lumen of the stent. In this work, an experiment was performed to simulate heating of a cardiac stent in the presence of blood flow during exposure to the electric field induced by a 64 MHz magnetic field, which corresponds to MRI at 1.5 T. The test procedure …

Framework For Simulation Of Heterogeneous Mpsoc For Design Space Exploration, Bisrat Tafesse, Venkatesan Muthukumar

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

Due to the ever-growing requirements in high performance data computation, multiprocessor systems have been proposed to solve the bottlenecks in uniprocessor systems. Developing efficient multiprocessor systems requires effective exploration of design choices like application scheduling, mapping, and architecture design. Also, fault tolerance in multiprocessors needs to be addressed. With the advent of nanometer-process technology for chip manufacturing, realization of multiprocessors on SoC (MpSoC) is an active field of research. Developing efficient low power, fault-tolerant task scheduling, and mapping techniques for MpSoCs require optimized algorithms that consider the various scenarios inherent in multiprocessor environments. Therefore there exists a need to develop …

Energy Harvesting Of Human Kinetic Movement, David Marusiak, Julia Carrillo

Electrical Engineering

Development of kinetic energy scavenging applications from the human body necessitates additional research to assist in designating a mounting position for a potential device. A data acquisition system adequately provides a parametric average power comparison among four locations on the body (waist, upper arm, hand, and calf) for both a male and female subject. Experimentally, the hand-held device provided the highest average power. Thus, subsequent investigation at set speeds provides further analysis of the output’s characteristically linear behavior. The physical energy-harvesting device features a plastic tube casing wrapped with the stationary coiled wire through which a neodymium magnet oscillates. While …