Systems and Communications Commons^™

Blockchain Design For A Secure Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Zhe Xu

Masters Theses

In the realm of pharmaceuticals, particularly during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic, the supply chain for drugs has faced significant strains. The increased demand for vaccines and therapeutics has revealed critical weaknesses in the current drug supply chain management systems. If not addressed, these challenges could lead to severe societal impacts, including the rise of counterfeit medications and diminishing trust in government authorities.

The study identified that more than the current strategies, such as the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) in the U.S., which focuses on unique authentication and traceability codes for prescription drugs, is needed to …

Analog Cancellation Of A Known Remote Interference: Hardware Realization And Analysis, James M. Doty

Masters Theses

The onset of quantum computing threatens commonly used schemes for information secrecy across wireless communication channels, particularly key-based data-level encryption. This calls for secrecy schemes that can provide everlasting secrecy resistant to increased computational power of an adversary. One novel physical layer scheme proposes that an intended receiver capable of performing analog cancellation of a known key-based interference would hold a significant advantage in recovering small underlying messages versus an eavesdropper performing cancellation after analog-to-digital conversion. This advantage holds even in the event that an eavesdropper can recover and use the original key in their digital cancellation. Inspired by this …

Load Modeling And Evaluation Of Leds For Hardware Test Bed Application, Jillian M. Ruff

Masters Theses

The lighting industry was revolutionized with the emergence of LED lighting. Over the last 15 years, LED lighting device sales and utilization have grown immensely. The growth and popularity of LEDs is due to improved operation of the device when compared to previous lighting technologies. Efficient performance of the device is critical due to the growth of global energy consumption.

As nonrenewable generation fuel is finite, utilities have begun the transition to renewable energy generation. Generation and distribution systems become inherently complex to comprehend and maintain with incorporation of emerging supply and load technologies. With the unprecedented growth of LED …

Planar Ultra-Wideband Modular Antenna (Puma) Arrays For High-Volume Manufacturing On Organic Laminates And Bga Interfaces, James R. Lacroix

Masters Theses

This work proposes wideband and broadband Planar Ultra-wideband Modular Antenna (PUMA) arrays designed to improve cost and reliability for high production volume commercial and military applications. The designs feature simplified PCB stack-ups with high dielectric constant (Dk) dimensionally stable materials to improve the manufacturing cost and yield. Additionally, the packages use ball grid array (BGA) interconnects, commonly used in digital electronics, for simple solder reflow integration with radio frequency (RF) electronics. While high Dk materials present practical manufacturing benefits, theoretical background will show how and why PUMA arrays lose frequency bandwidth and scan volume with high Dk materials. Further, a …

Design And Simulation Of A Supervisory Control System For Hybrid Manufacturing, Michael Buckley

Masters Theses

The research teams of Dr. Bill Hamel, Dr. Bradley Jared and Dr. Tony Schmitz were tasked by the Office of Naval Research to create a hybrid manufacturing process for a reduced scale model of a naval ship propeller. The base structure of the propeller is created using Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), which is then scanned to compare created geometry to desired geometry. The propeller is then machined down to match the desired geometry. This process is iterated upon until the final product meets design tolerances. Due to the complex nature and numerous industrial machines used in the process, it …

Correcting For Terrain Interference, Attenuation, And System Bias For A Dual Polarimetric, X-Band Radar, Casey Wolsieffer

Masters Theses

This thesis outlines the procedure and theory used to calibrate the UMass eXperimental X-band Radar (UMAXX) for the purpose of monitoring meteorological events in the Pioneer Valley region. Due to the complex topography of the area, lower tilt angles are subject to partial or full beam blockage as well as ground clutter observed through the main beam or sidelobes. Additionally, there are biases internal and external to the system that impact the reflectivity and differential reflectivity measurements. These biases and corrections are addressed in this work. As the radar has been operational since September of 2018, there is ample data …

Perception System: Object And Landmark Detection For Visually Impaired Users, Chenguang Zhang

Masters Theses

This paper introduces a system which enables visually impaired users to detect objects and landmarks within the line of sight. The system works in two modes: landmark mode, which detects predefined landmarks, and object mode, which detects objects for everyday use. Users can get audio announcement for the name of the detected object or landmark as well as its estimated distances. Landmark detection helps visually impaired users explore an unfamiliar environment and build a mental map.

The proposed system utilizes a deep learning system for detection, which is deployed on the mobile phone and optimized to run in real-time. Unlike …

A Framework To Support Automatic Certification For Self-Adaptive Systems, Ioannis Nearchou

Masters Theses

Presently, cyber-physical systems are increasingly being integrated into societies, from the economic sector to the nuclear energy sector. Cyber-physical systems are systems that combine physical, digital, human, and other components, which operate through physical means and software. When system errors occur, the consequences of malfunction could negatively impact human life. Academic studies have relied on the MAPE-K feedback loop model to develop various system components to satisfy the self-adaptive features, such that violation of the safety requirements can be minimized. Assurance of system requirement satisfaction is argued through an industrial standard form, called an assurance case, which is usually applied …

Improving Resilience Of Communication In Information Dissemination For Time-Critical Applications, Rajvardhan Somraj Deshmukh

Masters Theses

Severe weather impacts life and in this dire condition, people rely on communication, to organize relief and stay in touch with their loved ones. In such situations, cellular network infrastructure\footnote{We refer to cellular network infrastructure as infrastructure for the entirety of this document} might be affected due to power outage, link failures, etc. This urges us to look at Ad-hoc mode of communication, to offload major traffic partially or fully from the infrastructure, depending on the status of it.

We look into threefold approach, ranging from the case where the infrastructure is completely unavailable, to where it has been replaced …

Crowdsourcing Based Micro Navigation System For Visually Impaired, Quan Shi

Masters Theses

Mobility and safety are primary concerns for blind and visually impaired (BVI) users when navigating in unfamiliar environments. Typically, a sighted person can locate a place of interest if they are provided guidance while approaching within a few meters of the location. However, this resolution of guidance is often insufficient for blind travelers. In this thesis, we propose a crowdsourcing based micro navigation system for BVI users in both indoor and outdoor environments. To achieve this goal, our system includes three parts: crowdsourcing reports generated by volunteers using the volunteer application, landmarks validation performed by the system administrator using the …

A Study On Modelling Spatial-Temporal Human Mobility Patterns For Improving Personalized Weather Warning, Yue Xu

Masters Theses

Understanding human mobility patterns is important for severe weather warning since these patterns can help identify where people are in time and in space when flash floods, tornados, high winds and hurricanes are occurring or are predicted to occur. A GIS (Geographic Information Science) data model was proposed to describe the spatial-temporal human activity. Based on this model, a metric was designed to represent the spatial-temporal activity intensity of human mobility, and an index was generated to quantitatively describe the change in human activities. By analyzing high-resolution human mobility data, the paper verified that human daily mobility patterns could be …

Improvements To The Umass S-Band Fm-Cw Vertical Wind Profiling Radar: System Performance And Data Analysis., Joseph Waldinger

Masters Theses

Upgrades to the University of Massachusetts S-Band FMCW boundary layer vertical wind profiling radar for use in the VORTEX-Southeast campaign are discussed. During the experiment, the radar characterizes velocity and reflectivity in clear-air and light to moderate precipitation conditions. Data is presented from the experiment which illustrates system performance and typical environmental results. This thesis begins with relevant background information on FM-CW radar operation, scattering mechanisms, and other calculations relevant to results discussed. The system hardware is described, along with improvements and modifications made prior to and during the experiment. Collected data is used to demonstrate system capabilities, improvements made, …

Autoplug: An Automated Metadata Service For Smart Outlets, Lurdh Pradeep Reddy Ambati

Masters Theses

Low-cost network-connected smart outlets are now available for monitoring, controlling, and scheduling the energy usage of electrical devices. As a result, such smart outlets are being integrated into automated home management systems, which remotely control them by analyzing and interpreting their data. However, to effectively interpret data and control devices, the system must know the type of device that is plugged into each smart outlet. Existing systems require users to manually input and maintain the outlet metadata that associates a device type with a smart outlet. Such manual operation is time-consuming and error-prone: users must initially inventory all outlet-to-device mappings, …

A Practical Realization Of A Return Map Immune Lorenz Based Chaotic Stream Cipher In Circuitry, Daniel Robert Brown

Masters Theses

Some chaotic systems are advantageously capable of self-synchronizing with a like system through a single shared state. Using a plain text binary message, a single system parameter can be modulated to mask this message and transmit it securely through the single shared state. The most simple implementations of this encryption technique are, however, vulnerable to the return map attack. Using a time-scaling factor to further obfuscate the modulation process, a return map attack immunity is gained. We report on the progress towards a realization of this process in real-time analog circuitry using off-the-shelf components.

The Design And Validation Of A Wireless Bat-Mounted Sonar Recording System, Jeremy Joseph Langford

Masters Theses

Scientists studying the behavior of bats monitor their echolocation calls, as their calls are important for navigation and feeding, but scientist are typically restricted to ground-based recording. Recording bat calls used for echolocation from the back of the bat as opposed to the ground offers the opportunity to study bat echolocation from a vantage otherwise only offered to the bats themselves. However, designing a bat mounted in-flight audio recording system, (bat-tag), capable of recording the ultra-sound used in bat echolocation presents a unique set of challenges. Chiefly, the bat-tag must be sufficiently light weight as to not overburden the bat, …

Seamless Application Delivery Using Software Defined Exchanges, Divyashri Bhat

Masters Theses

One of the main challenges in delivering content over the Internet today is the absence of a centralized monitoring and control system [38]. Software Defined Networking has paved the way to provide a much needed control over network traffic. OpenFlow is now being standardized as part of the Open Networking Foundation, and Software Defined Exchanges (SDXes) provide a framework to use OpenFlow for multi-domain routing. Prototype deployments of Software Defined Exchanges have recently come into existence as a platform for Future Internet Architecture to eliminate the need for core routing technology used in today’s Internet. In this work, we look …

Energy Agile Cluster Communication, Muhammad Zain Mustafa

Masters Theses

Computing researchers have long focused on improving energy-efficiency?the amount of computation per joule? under the implicit assumption that all energy is created equal. Energy however is not created equal: its cost and carbon footprint fluctuates over time due to a variety of factors. These fluctuations are expected to in- tensify as renewable penetration increases. Thus in my work I introduce energy-agility a design concept for a platform?s ability to rapidly and efficiently adapt to such power fluctuations. I then introduce a representative application to assess energy-agility for the type of long-running, parallel, data-intensive tasks that are both common in data …

Design And Implementation Of Low Complexity Wake-Up Receiver For Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks, Ming Yue

Masters Theses

"This thesis designs a low-complexity dual Pseudorandom Noise (PN) scheme for identity (ID) detection and coarse frame synchronization. The two PN sequences for a node are identical and are separated by a specified length of gap which serves as the ID of different sensor nodes. The dual PN sequences are short in length but are capable of combating severe underwater acoustic (UWA) multipath fading channels that exhibit time varying impulse responses up to 100 taps. The receiver ID detection is implemented on a microcontroller MSP430F5529 by calculating the correlation between the two segments of the PN sequence with the specified …

Propagation Prediction Over Random Rough Surface By Zeroth Order Induced Current Density, Narayana Srinivasan Balu

Masters Theses

Electromagnetic wave propagation over random sea surfaces is a classical problem of interest for the Navy, and significant research has been done over the years. Here we make use of numerical and analytical methods to predict the propagation of microwaves over random rough surface. The numerical approach involves utilization of the direct solution (using Volterra integral equation of the second kind) to currents induced on a rough surface due to forward propagating waves to compute the scattered field. The mean scattered field is computed using the Monte-Carlo method. Since the exact solution (consisting of an infinite series) to induced current …

Multi-Tag Access For A High Precision Ultra-Wideband Localization System, Nathan Carl Rowe

Masters Theses

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless positioning systems have many advantages for track- ing and locating items in indoor environments. Surgical navigation and industrial process control are potential applications for high accuracy UWB localization systems with millimeter or sub-millimeter accuracy. I present improvements made to an existing high accuracy, multi-tag, UWB localization system. The goal of this thesis was to improve the multi-tag performance of this system while maintaining the high localization accuracy, and to utilize the UWB system for digital communications allowing the existing narrowband 2.4 GHz transceiver to be eliminated.

This thesis presents a proof-of-concept for a multi-tag, UWB localization system …

Short Distance Ground Wave Propagation Modeling In Irregular And Forested Environments, Zachary Michael Crane

Masters Theses

A model for the phase of a ground wave propagating over irregular and forested terrain has been developed and tested for a transmission system operating at 3.315 MHz.

In this model, the time delay induced beyond that of the standard velocity of radio waves in air is modeled as a combination of 3 effects: the finite conductivity of the earth, the irregularity of the terrain over which the wave is propagating, and the forestation of the terrain.

The finite conductivity model is based on a small curvature formula developed by Van Der Pol and Bremmer. The terrain irregularity model models …

Primary User Emulation Attacks In Cognitive Radio - An Experimental Demonstration And Analysis, Benjamin James Ealey

Masters Theses

Cognitive radio networks rely on the ability to avoid primary users, owners of the frequency, and prevent collisions for effective communication to take place. Additional malicious secondary users, jammers, may use a primary user emulation attacks to take advantage of the secondary user's ability to avoid primary users and cause excessive and unexpected disruptions to communications. Two jamming/anti-jamming methods are investigated on Ettus Labs USRP 2 radios. First, pseudo-random channel hopping schemes are implemented for jammers to seek-and-disrupt secondary users while secondary users apply similar schemes to avoid all primary user signatures. In the second method the jammer uses adversarial …

Block Level Link Path Design And Multilayer Via Transition Model Assembly Using S-Parameters, Francesco De Paulis

Masters Theses

"In high-speed data communication systems the complexity of link path between transmitters and receivers present a challenge for designers to maintain an acceptable bit error rate. An approach is presented in this thesis to design the link path on a block-by-block basis. The unique advantage of this approach lies on the physics-based model of each block, which then relates performance to geometry and makes design improvement and optimization possible. A tool based on the manipulation of frequency domain data has been designed to help in the design and analysis process of fast communication systems. It accepts as inputs the frequency …