Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Vhf Transmitter Development For Wildlife Tracking, Bryan Westra

Masters Theses

Wildlife biologists often use collars with VHF transmitters to gather wildlife data. The purpose of this project is to determine the best approach to designing a wildlife tracking VHF transmitter on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB). A variety of frequency generation methods were considered for the transmitter, including transistor-based crystal oscillators and chip based solutions from the chip manufacturers Analog Devices and Silicon Labs. Prototypes of the feasible options were built and evaluated for cost, power consumption, efficiency, size, frequency range, signal bandwidth, and frequency stability. It was found that the Silicon Labs Si4010 chip was the best solution based …

Reconfigurable Reflectarray Antennas With Bandwidth Enhancement For High Gain, Beam-Steering Applications, Michael Trampler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reconfigurable reflectarrays are a class of antennas that combine the advantages of traditional parabolic antennas and phased array antennas. Chapter 1 discusses the basic operational theory of reflectarrays and their design. A review of previous research and the current status is also presented. Furthermore the inherent advantages and disadvantages of the reflectarray topography are presented. In chapter 2, a BST-integrated reflectarray operating at Ka band is presented. Due to the monolithic integration of the tuning element, this design is then extended to V band where a novel interdigital gap configuration is utilized. Finally to overcome loss and phase limitations of …

Sparse Signal Recovery Under Sensing And Physical Hardware Constraints, Davood Mardaninajafabadi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on information recovery under two general types of sensing constraints and hardware limitations that arise in practical data acquisition systems. We study the effects of these practical limitations in the context of signal recovery problems from interferometric measurements such as for optical mode analysis. The first constraint stems from the limited number of degrees of freedom of an information gathering system, which gives rise to highly constrained sensing structures. In contrast to prior work on compressive signal recovery which relies for the most part on introducing additional hardware components to emulate randomization, we establish performance guarantees for …

Frequency-Reconfigurable Microstrip Patch And Cavity-Backed Slot Espars, Wei Ouyang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wireless communication systems have rapidly evolved over the past decade which has led to an explosion of mobile data traffic. Since more and more wireless devices and sensors are being connected, the transition from the current 4G/LTE mobile network to 5G is expected to happen within the next decade. In order to improve signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), system capacity, and link budget, beam steerable antenna arrays are desirable due to their advantage in spatial selectivity and high directivity. Electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) that can achieve low-cost continuously beamsteering using varactor diodes have attracted a lot of attention. This dissertation …

Networked Microgrid Optimization And Energy Management, Robert S. Jane

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Military vehicles possess attributes consistent with a microgrid, containing electrical energy generation, storage, government furnished equipment (GFE), and the ability to share these capabilities via interconnection. Many military vehicles have significant energy storage capacity to satisfy silent watch requirements, making them particularly well-suited to share their energy storage capabilities with stationary microgrids for more efficient energy management. Further, the energy generation capacity and the fuel consumption rate of the vehicles are comparable to standard diesel generators, for certain scenarios, the use of the vehicles could result in more efficient operation. Energy management of a microgrid is an open area of …

Performance Evaluation Of Communication Technologies And Network Structure For Smart Grid Applications, Desong Bian, Murat Kuzlu, Manisa Pipattanasomporn, Saifur Rahman, Di Shi

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The design of an effective and reliable communication network supporting smart grid applications requires the selection of appropriate communication technologies and protocols. The objective of this study is to study and quantify the capabilities of an advanced metring infrastructure (AMI) to support the simultaneous operation of major smart grid functions. These include smart metring, price-induced controls, distribution automation, demand response, and electric vehicle charging/discharging applications in terms of throughput and latency. OPNET is used to simulate the performance of selected communication technologies and protocols. Research findings indicate that smart grid applications can operate simultaneously by piggybacking on an existing AMI …

Optimal Power Flow Control Of Networked Dc Microgrids, Eddy H. Trinklein

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The US military is moving toward the electrification of many weapon systems and platforms. Advanced weapon systems such as high energy radar, electro-magnetic kinetic weapons and directed energy pose significant integration challenges due to their pulsed power electrical load profile. Additionally, the weapons platforms, including ships, aircraft, and vehicles can be studied as a mobile microgrids with multiple generation sources, loads, and energy storage. There is also a desire to extend the mission profile and capabilities of these systems. Common goals are to increase fuel efficiency, maintaining system stability, and reduce energy storage size as typically required to enable pulsed …

Dual Graphene Patch Antenna For Ka Band Satellite Applications, Mohammed Amin Rabah, Mohammed Bekhti

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Currently; grapheme offers a new opportunity to use in space technology and this is due to its amazing properties like conductivity, strength, flexibility and transparency which allows us to exploit new generation of ultra-fast nanoscale components; Since future wireless communication techniques are geared towards the use of the high frequency spectrum and many recent research prove this trend. This letter presents a proposal for design of a dual graphene-based antenna to use in new communication techniques in Ka band, where the proposed antenna can work for uplink and dowlink frequencies at same time since it has return loss less then …

Compact Broadband Triple-Ring Five-Port Reflectometer For Microwave Brain Imaging Applications, Toufiq Md Hossain, Mohd Faizal Jamlos, Mohd Aminudin Jamlos, Ping Jack Shoh, Siti Zuraidah Ibrahim, Muammar Mohamad Isa, Dominque M.M.-P. Schreurs, Adam Narbudowicz, Mohd Fairusham Ghazali

Articles

The broadband five-port refectometer (FPR) is proposed using a triple-ring based technique. The design introduces a tapering in the inter-ring transmission lines (TLs), which provides additional degrees of freedom for optimization and contributes to increased bandwidth. The miniaturization strategy allows incorporating the third ring without signifcant size increase. In addition, a method for expressing the effective physical dimension of a planar symmetric FPR is also presented in an easily comprehensible way, which can be implemented for other symmetric planar junctions with more than four ports. The proposed design comprises three concentric rings with phase-shifting arrangements between the inter-ring TLs and …

Straintronic Nanomagnetic Devices For Non-Boolean Computing, Md Ahsanul Abeed

Theses and Dissertations

Nanomagnetic devices have been projected as an alternative to transistor-based switching devices due to their non-volatility and potentially superior energy-efficiency. The energy efficiency is enhanced by the use of straintronics which involves the application of a voltage to a piezoelectric layer to generate a strain which is ultimately transferred to an elastically coupled magnetostrictive nanomaget, causing magnetization rotation. The low energy dissipation and non-volatility characteristics make straintronic nanomagnets very attractive for both Boolean and non-Boolean computing applications. There was relatively little research on straintronic switching in devices built with real nanomagnets that invariably have defects and imperfections, or their adaptation …

Recurrent Residual U-Net For Medical Image Segmentation, Md Zahangir Alom, Christopher Yakopcic, Mahmudul Hasan, Tarek M. Taha, Vijayan K. Asari

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Deep learning (DL)-based semantic segmentation methods have been providing state-of-the-art performance in the past few years. More specifically, these techniques have been successfully applied in medical image classification, segmentation, and detection tasks. One DL technique, U-Net, has become one of the most popular for these applications. We propose a recurrent U-Net model and a recurrent residual U-Net model, which are named RU-Net and R2U-Net, respectively. The proposed models utilize the power of U-Net, residual networks, and recurrent convolutional neural networks. There are several advantages to using these proposed architectures for segmentation tasks. First, a residual unit helps when training deep …

A Survey Of Techniques For Mobile Service Encrypted Traffic Classification Using Deep Learning, Pan Wang, Xuejiao Chen, Feng Ye, Zhixin Sun

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The rapid adoption of mobile devices has dramatically changed the access to various net- working services and led to the explosion of mobile service traffic. Mobile service traffic classification has been a crucial task that attracts strong interest in mobile network management and security as well as machine learning communities for past decades. However, with more and more adoptions of encryption over mobile services, it brings a lot of challenges about mobile traffic classification. Although classical machine learning approaches can solve many issues that port and payload-based methods cannot solve, it still has some limitations, such as time-consuming, costly handcrafted …

Impact On Distribution System Protection With The Integration Of Eg On The Distribution Network, Jane Courtney, Aaron Mcdonnell

Conference papers

A significant increase in EG connections on the distribution network over the past decade in Ireland has presented challenges to the Distribution System Operator (DSO). The connection of EG can cause co-ordination of Distance protection to be altered and has resulted in variations in short circuit levels. Multidirectional power flow has been introduced into a Distribution system that was not designed for the direction change in current flow. The impact of connecting EG to a typical 38 kV Distribution Network was demonstrated as part of this study. Increasing fault levels and protection co-ordination selectivity problems were identified when the network …

Low-Power Reconfigurable Sensing Circuitry For The Internet-Of-Things Paradigm, Alexander Dilello

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

With ubiquitous wireless communication via Wi-Fi and nascent 5th Generation mobile communications, more devices -- both smart and traditionally "dumb" -- will be interconnected than ever before. This burgeoning trend is referred to as the Internet-of-Things. These new sensing opportunities place a larger burden on the underlying circuitry that must operate on finite battery power and/or within energy-constrained environments. New developments of low-power reconfigurable analog sensing platforms like field-programmable analog arrays (FPAAs) present an attractive sensing solution by processing data in the analog domain while staying flexible in design. This work addresses some of the contemporary challenges of low-power wireless …

Low Power Voltage Reference Cells For Sensing Applications, Kody Ray Tucker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Two low-power voltage reference cells for a system on-chip design are presented in this report. Both cells utilize a combination of standard transistors to produce an output voltage near 1 volt. Choosing the appropriate design procedures can aid in minimizing the temperature coefficient (TC) of the output reference voltage coming out of the cell. One circuit, covered first, is currently being fabricated on a standard 0.5 µm chip complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process, while the other is still in the designing stage. The first one has a TC of 86 ppm/◦C with a reference voltage of 1.10 V while …

Automatic Range Finding Bow Sight, Garrett Gill, Dillon Denny, Cory Verba

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

With the growing popularity of archery, a system designed to help an archer achieve the best shot possible becomes necessary. The Automatic Range Finding Bow Sight is a system that consists of a single pin sight controlled by a servo motor. The servo motor controls the sight pin by rotating a drive wheel that will move the pin up or down. The sight pin movement is based on a reading obtained by a built-in rangefinder and speed data input by the user. This data will then be compared to programmed lookup tables in order to find the appropriate pin position. …

The Ability For Investigators To Visible Identify And Interpret Damage To Electrical Conductors, Jacob Alan Graham Critchley

Online Theses and Dissertations

The intent of a fire investigations is to correctly interpret the damage in order to identify the cause responsible for the fire and potentially help prevent similar incidents in the future. According to current guidelines of fire scene processing, fire investigators can implement the procedure of arc mapping as a tool to assist in the determination of the fire’s progression and origin at a fire scene. To do this effectively requires the investigator to identify and correctly interpret the damage to electrical conductors as thermal melting (i.e, fire damage) or electrical activity. This study examined the ability of fire investigators …

Structural Changes Within Anode Materials Of Na+ Batteries, Alex L'Antigua

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Combat Robot, Andrew J. Szabo Ii, Chris Heldman, Tristin Weber, Tanya Tebcherani, Holden Leblanc, Fabian Ardeljan

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This honors project will also serve as an engineering senior design project.

The objective is to design and build the software and electrical systems for a 60 lb weight class combat robot that will function autonomously and outperform manually driven robots during competition.

While running autonomously, the robot will use LiDAR sensors to detect and attack opponent robots. This robot will also be able to be remote controlled in manual mode. This will mitigate the risk in case the autonomy or sensors fail. LED lights on the robot will indicate whether it is in autonomous or manual mode. The system …

Smart Garage Opener, Jacob Wasson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this research project was to design an anti-theft device that interfaces with a standard garage door opener to allow packages to easily be delivered into a garage in a safe and secure manner. Primary functionality of the device is to use a package’s tracking number and corresponding barcode to open and close a garage door to a preset height so that a package can be delivered inside the garage before it closes. My contribution to the project revolved around the programming and board design of the microcontroller circuit that controls the input and output signals of the …

Safe Pass, Alycia Riese, Julia Hariharan, Greg Synek, Jonathan Hall

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project is to design a sensor to be mounted on Class IV and higher vehicles to detect on-coming traffic. If traffic has been detected, the system is to warn drivers behind the stopped vehicle that passing is unsafe. The vehicle detection is to be implemented using a LiDAR detection method along with signal processing. A wireless transceiver is to transmit from the front radar module to the rear warning indicator module when the conditions are unsafe for passing. The project goals are to increase road safety and maintain traffic flow. The report details the challenges due …

Cycle Assist, Tyler Matthews

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The senior engineering design project presented in the paper that succeeds this, outlines the steps taken to design and implement an electronic bicycle that is able to keep a user’s heart-rate in a selected “intensity zone” though the use of an electronic motor and custom control circuitry. My portion of this project was to allow for safe and consistent power delivery to the rest of the electronics. That is to say, I built a battery pack and battery management system (BMS) to safely supply sufficient power to the rest of the electronics that were required for this project. In order …

S.A.V.E. M.E., Taylor Davis, Kelly Nicole O'Neill, Adrianna M. Dunlap, Parsa Esshaghi Bayat

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

S.A.V.E. M.E. stands for Submerged Automated Vehicular Elevation Minor Extraction or alternatively a Home Swimming Pool Rescue Device. The objective of this project is to design and prototype a system that will make unattended swimming pools through detecting a victim’s presence, deploying a means to save the victim, and alerting others nearby of the situation. This system encompasses sensors and devices within the pool and an alarm system outside of the pool. Upon detection of a sufficiently sized object entering the pool when the system is armed, a device will maneuver to the victim and deploy a flotation device that …

Electric Load Forecasting Using Long Short-Term Memory Algorithm, Tianshu Yang

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Power system load forecasting refers to the study or uses a mathematical method to process

past and future loads systematically, taking into account important system operating

characteristics, capacity expansion decisions, natural conditions, and social impacts, to

meet specific accuracy requirements. Dependence of this, determine the load value at a

specific moment in the future. Improving the level of load forecasting technology is

conducive to the planned power management, which is conducive to rationally arranging

the grid operation mode and unit maintenance plan, and is conducive to formulating

reasonable power supply construction plans and facilitating power improvement, and

improve the …

Mathematical Programming Approach For The Design Of Satellite Power Systems, Allen Flath Iii

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Satellite power systems can be understood as islanded dc microgrids supplied by specialized and coordinated solar cell arrays augmented by electrochemical battery systems to handle high-power loads and periods of eclipse. The periodic availability of power, the limited capacity of batteries, and the dependence of all mission service on power consumption create a unique situation in which temporal power and energy scarcity exist. A multi-period model of an orbital satellite power system’s performance over a mission’s duration can be constructed. A modular power system architecture is used to characterize the system’s constraints. Using mathematical programming, an optimization problem can be …

Curricular Optimization: Solving For The Optimal Student Success Pathway, William G. Thompson-Arjona

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Considering the significant investment of higher education made by students and their families, graduating in a timely manner is of the utmost importance. Delay attributed to drop out or the retaking of a course adds cost and negatively affects a student’s academic progression. Considering this, it becomes paramount for institutions to focus on student success in relation to term scheduling.

Often overlooked, complexity of a course schedule may be one of the most important factors in whether or not a student successfully completes his or her degree. More often than not students entering an institution as a first time full …

Optimum Design Of Axial Flux Pm Machines Based On Electromagnetic 3d Fea, Narges Taran

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) machines have recently attracted significant attention due to several reasons, such as their specific form factor, potentially higher torque density and lower losses, feasibility of increasing the number of poles, and facilitating innovative machine structures for emerging applications. One such machine design, which has promising, high efficiency particularly at higher speeds, is of the coreless AFPM type and has been studied in the dissertation together with more conventional AFPM topologies that employ a ferromagnetic core.

A challenge in designing coreless AFPM machines is estimating the eddy current losses. This work proposes a new hybrid analytical …

Impact Of Combined Heat And Power Generation On An Industrial Site Distribution Network, Thomas Neally

Masters

Presence of Distributed Generation (DG) in Industrial Site Distribution Network (ISDN) can represent a significant impact on the operational characteristics of the network. Present planning and operation criteria use for ISDN are in general not suitable to cope with the presence of a significant DG capacity. The presence of DG provides considerable benefits from both engineering and economic viewpoints. However, it changes radial configurations of the distribution feeders. Consequently it may cause coordination failure to existing protection system which is originally set based on radial configuration. In addition, high penetration of DG into ISDN may increase feeder loss, and cause …

Fall Detection Using Channel State Information From Wifi Devices, D.M Sameera Palipana

PhDs

Falls among the independently living elderly population are a major public health worry, leading to injuries, loss of confidence to live independently and even to death. Each year, one in three people aged 65 and older falls and one in five of them suffers fatal or non fatal injuries. Therefore, detecting a fall early and alerting caregivers can potentially save lives and increase the standard of living. Existing solutions, e.g. push-button, wearables, cameras, radar, pressure and vibration sensors, have limited public adoption either due to the requirement for wearing the device at all times or installing specialized and expensive infrastructure. …

การพยากรณ์ค่าอุณหภูมิของน้ำมันด้านบนในหม้อแปลงไฟฟ้ากำลังสำหรับการประเมินสมรรถนะโดยใช้แบบจำลองการเรียนรู้ของเครื่อง, สุวพันธุ์ อริเดช

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

อายุการใช้งานที่สูญเสียไปจากการใช้งานหม้อแปลงมีสาเหตุหลักมาจากค่าอุณหภูมิที่เกิดขึ้นภายในหม้อแปลง ได้แก่ค่าอุณหภูมิขดลวดและอุณหภูมิน้ำมัน หม้อแปลงที่ทำงานในสภาวะการจ่ายโหลดและอุณหภูมิแวดล้อมค่าหนึ่งจะเกิดความร้อนภายในที่แตกต่างกันทั้งนี้ขึ้นอยู่กับสภาพในปัจจุบันและการเสื่อมสภาพในอดีตของหม้อแปลง วิทยานิพนธ์นี้ศึกษาแบบจำลองการเรียนรู้ของเครื่องที่สามารถเรียนรู้พฤติกรรมการเกิดความร้อนภายในหม้อแปลงโดยใช้ข้อมูลในอดีตเพื่อพยากรณ์ค่าอุณหภูมิน้ำมันด้านบนและอุณหภูมิขดลวดของหม้อแปลงที่จะเกิดขึ้นก่อนการใช้งานจริง ข้อมูลดังกล่าวสามารถนำมาหาอายุการใช้งานที่คาดว่าจะสูญเสียไปของหม้อแปลงแต่ละตัวเพื่อใช้ในการวางแผนการส่งจ่ายกำลังไฟฟ้าและการเลือกบำรุงรักษาอุปกรณ์ นอกจากนี้การใช้ขอบเขตการพยากรณ์ช่วยตรวจสอบข้อมูลพฤติกรรมทางความร้อนของหม้อแปลงเพื่อใช้ตรวจหาสัญญานที่อาจบ่งชี้ความผิดปกติหรือการเสื่อมสภาพของหม้อแปลงได้ โดยจากผลการทดสอบแสดงให้เห็นว่าข้อมูลจากแบบจำลองการเรียนรู้ของเครื่องสามารถพยากรณ์อายุการใช้งานที่สูญเสียของหม้อแปลงได้ใกล้เคียงกับการใช้ข้อมูลที่ตรวจวัดได้จริง นอกจากนี้วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้เสนอการสร้างขอบเขตการพยากรณ์เป็นอีกหนึ่งวิธีที่ช่วยในการติดตามความเปลี่ยนแปลงพฤติกรรมทางความร้อนของหม้อแปลงซึ่งมีประโยชน์ในการบริหารจัดการหม้อแปลง