Other Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

A Physical Model Of Human Skin And Its Application For Search And Rescue, Abel S. Nunez

Theses and Dissertations

For this research we created a human skin reflectance model in the VIS and NIR. We then modeled sensor output for an RGB sensor based on output from the skin reflectance model. The model was also used to create a skin detection algorithm and a skin pigmentation level (skin reflectance at 685nm) estimation algorithm. The average root mean square error across the VIS and NIR between the skin reflectance model and measured data was 2%. The skin reflectance model then allowed us to generate qualitatively accurate responses for an RGB sensor for different biological and lighting conditions. To test the …

Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation Applied To Flight Training, Joel D. Hanson

Master's Theses

Between 1994 and 2003 spatial disorientation resulted in at least 202 aircraft

accidents, 184 of them resulting in fatalities. Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS)

provides a cost effective and safe way to simulate spatial disorientation and

potentially test pilot’s vestibular system prior to aircraft operation. This experiment

investigates the use of GVS as an indicator of motion sensitivity and explores the

effects of GVS on flight simulation performance. Bilateral bipolar rectangular pulse

electrical stimulations were given to subjects via skin-mounted electrodes placed over

each mastoid process to stimulate the vestibular system with roll and yaw sensations.

Two studies were conducted in …

Wireless Pedometer, Jeffrey Lease

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Automated Basketball Return System, Victor Mendoza, Chris Chamberlain

Electrical Engineering

The project is meant to assist a basketball player in their practicing. The project hangs directly on the basketball rim and automatically rotates to find the player on the court. Once the player is detected, the automated basketball return system (ABRS) stays focused in the direction of the player so that any baskets successfully made will be funneled back to the player. When the player moves from center, IR motion detectors find which direction you moved to and rotates accordingly, until the player is focused in front of the funnel again. If at any time the player is absent from …

Custom Design Rack Mount System For Ftp Server, Himanshu Parmar

Electrical Engineering

For a very long time now I have been quite interested in having my personal web server. Senior project gave me the perfect opportunity to explore and to custom design web server that would fit my future storage/web needs.

There are multiple aspects of the project that I worked on to custom design the web server. The list and brief description of each of these categories is given bellow.

1. Ftp Options: There are several ftp options available, so I researched these options and found the client service that would work best with my requirements.

2. Number of Users: One …

Design Of Acousto-Optic Chaos Based Secure Free-Space Optical Communication Links, Anjan K. Ghosh, Pramode K. Verma, Samuel Cheng, Robert C. Huck, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, Mohammed A. Al-Saedi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We discuss the design of an acousto-optic cell based free space optical communication link where the data beam is made secure through chaos encryption. Using external signal modulation of the diffracted light from a hybrid acousto-optic cell chaos (or directly via incorporation in the sound-cell driver's bias voltage) encryption of data is possible. We have shown numerically that decryption of the encoded data is possible by using an identical acousto-optic system in the receiver.

A Study Of Dempster-Shafer's Theory Of Evidence In Comparison To Classical Probability Combination, Scott J. Seims

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

A Study of Dempster-Shafer’s Theory of Evidence in Comparison to Classical Probability Combination

Scott J. Seims

This thesis is an assessment on the effectiveness of Dempster-Shafer’s Theory of Evidence in comparison to Classical Probabilistic Combination as it applies to Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Automatic Target Recognition (ATR). A three feature based classifier (peaks, corners and edges) ATR system is presented. These classifiers are assumed to be independent. The results of both the weight-based Maximum Likelihood and Dempster-Shafer’s Theory of Evidence data fusion techniques are presented.

Using Dempster-Shafer an accuracy of 77.50 percent is obtained, which is less than the …

Affine Region Tracking And Augmentation Using Mser And Adaptive Sift Model Generation, Matthew James Marano

Master's Theses

Relatively complex Augmented Reality (AR) algorithms are becoming widely available due to advancements in affordable mobile computer hardware. To take advantage of this a new method is developed for tracking 2D regions without a prior knowledge of an environment and without developing a computationally expensive world model. In the method of this paper, affinely invariant planar regions in a scene are found using the Maximally Stable Extremal Region (MSER) detector. A region is selected by the user to define a search space, and then the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) is used to detect affine invariant keypoints in the region. …

Time-Frequency Analysis Of Intracardiac Electrogram, Erik Brockman

Master's Theses

The Cardiac Rhythm Management Division of St. Jude Medical specializes in the development of implantable cardioverter defibrillators that improve the quality of life for patients diagnosed with a variety of cardiac arrhythmias, especially for patients prone to sudden cardiac death. With the goal to improve detection of cardiac arrhythmias, this study explored the value in time-frequency analysis of intracardiac electrogram in four steps. The first two steps characterized, in the frequency domain, the waveforms that construct the cardiac cycle. The third step developed a new algorithm that putatively provides the least computationally expensive way to identifying cardiac waveforms in the …

Application Of Pv Panels In Large Multi-Story Buildings, Sara Kayal

Master's Theses

Application of PV Panels in Large Multi-Story Buildings Feasibility Study Sara Kayal

The awareness of global warming along with an ever increasing demand for a new source of energy has brought a strong interest in harnessing natural resources such as solar energy. This thesis evaluates the viability of applying photovoltaic (PV) panels in high-rise commercial buildings of around 20 stories. Specifically, the thesis is intended to provide a pre-planning tool during the early design stage for architects and designers who are considering the deployment of PV panels in new multi-story construction.

The first three chapters cover a comprehensive literature review …

Development Of An Imager System Optimized For Low-Power, Limited-Bandwidth Space Applications, Kalia R. Glassey

Master's Theses

A relatively new picosatellite standard, CubeSats have traditionally been used for simple educational missions. As CubeSats become more complex and utilize more complex sensors such as imagers, they gain enhanced credibility as satellite platforms.

Imaging systems on CubeSats have the potential to be used for a variety of uses, such as earth and weather monitoring, attitude determination, and remote sensing. However the size and power limitations of CubeSats pose an interesting challenge to the design of a capable, robust imaging system.

This thesis outlines the objectives and requirements of CP-3’s imaging system, and describes the development process and methods. Test …

Patterning And Characterization Of Carbon Nanotubes Grown In A Microwave Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition Chamber, Mauricio Kossler

Theses and Dissertations

This research studies the growth of carbon nanotubes (CNT) from a nickel catalyst to be used on a field emission device. This thesis can be divided into three sections: the construction of a vacuum chamber for field emission testing, the design and fabrication of a triode structure to enable improved electron emission, and the pretreatment and growth of CNTs. To experimentally test the field emission of CNTs, a vacuum chamber must attain a vacuum of at least 10^-5 torr. Our vacuum chamber designed and built achieved a maximum, final pressure of 10^-8 torr. A triode structure was designed …

Fabrication Of Silicon Photovoltaic Micro-Particles For Low-Cost Solar Energy Generation, Siddhartha Kala

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The relatively high cost of the high quality semiconductor materials (typically silicon) and complex conventional techniques for the fabrication of solar cells result in the overall high cost of the commercially available solar cells. Although, research in the field of solar technologies has been going on for a long time, but, utilization of solar energy still remains limited to a very few applications, owing to the high manufacturing costs and lower efficiency. In this work we present a new solar technology based on silicon photovoltaic micro-particles and demonstrate a fabrication technique for such particles. The photovoltaic micro-particles can be manufactured …