Systems and Communications Commons^™

Assessing Computer Vision Based Conflict Detection In Uas Traffic Monitoring Under Secure Communication Constraints, Fadjimata Issoufou Anaroua

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The rapid growth of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is creating a new low-altitude airspace ecosystem where drones, air taxis, service suppliers, communication networks, sensors, and ground-based monitoring systems must work together safely. Within this ecosystem, UAS Traffic Management (UTM) is expected to provide a digital framework for coordinating operations beyond traditional air traffic control. However, reliable integration also requires resilient monitoring methods that can detect non-cooperative aircraft, protect communication links, and maintain timely situational awareness under real-world constraints.

This dissertation examines how computer vision can support cooperative monitoring systems such as Remote ID and ADS-B …

Autonomous Terrain-Mapping Robot For Search And Rescue, Soumil Joshi, Seann Calub

Electrical Engineering

This report documents the design, modular testing, and challenges faced while developing an autonomous terrain-mapping robot intended to navigate to a destination waypoint and deliver a small payload for search-and-rescue applications. The system combines a LiDAR sensor, an IMU sensor, and a Raspberry Pi 3B as the onboard processor, and an ESP32 microcontroller interfacing with motor drivers over a four-wheel chassis. A companion mobile application was developed to enable remote control and monitoring of the robot over a WiFi hotspot connection. A lithium-ion battery pack supplies power to all onboard components, with power budgets verified against component datasheets. Testing progresses …

Archimedean Spiral Antenna Array With Klopfenstein And Exponential Tapered Balun Feeds, Leo Joseph Alvelais Iv, Paul Obrecht, Naguib Abdulla, Preston Mavady, Collin Fan

Electrical Engineering

This project presents the design, fabrication, and experimental evaluation of a broadband 3x3 Archimedean spiral antenna array tile for 2.8-3.8 GHz. Each element combines a two-arm spiral on Rogers RO4350B, a printed 50 to 150 Ω tapered balun, and a conductive backplane. Klopfenstein and Exponential feed implementations were modeled in Ansys HFSS, generated and tuned with automated scripting, fabricated, and evaluated with calibrated network and anechoic-chamber measurements. The Klopfenstein-fed hardware met the -10 dB input-reflection criterion across the project band. The exponential array provided a broad matched response but reached approximately -8 dB near 2.95 GHz. Measured center-element patterns retained …

Improving Urban Search And Rescue Team Coordination Through Adaptive Context Awareness, Daniel Reyes Duran

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Modern multi-agent Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) operations heavily rely on mobile geospatial Common Operating Pictures (COPs) to maintain team coordination and Situational Awareness (SA). However, the proliferation of high-frequency sensor telemetry at the tactical edge has introduced a data saturation paradox challenge: while information theoretically drives informed decision-making, unmanaged data surges induce increased operator cognitive overload and alert fatigue on mobile End-User Devices (EUDs), while downstream data-broadcasting models inherently strain edge processing and viewport environments.

To resolve these constraints, this dissertation presents a context-aware Value of Information (VoI) data-management framework integrated directly with a custom, event-driven Android Team Awareness …

Energy Efficient Load Balancing In Multi-Band Cellular Networks Via Reinforcement Learning, Ahmed Shoukry El Soukkary

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates energy-efficient load balancing in homogeneous multi-band cellular networks through the joint design of user association (UA) and transmit power allocation (PA). The original mixed-integer nonlinear formulation is decomposed into two coupled yet tractable subproblems: a UA stage and a PA stage for high-frequency bands. For UA, a SINR-ratio-based heuristic is proposed to prioritize users that are most sensitive to suboptimal band assignments, and it is benchmarked against a Max- SINR baseline. For PA, the high-band power control problem is addressed using reinforcement learning, where a Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) agent learns power levels and band-activation decisions under …

Universal Communications Module: Converting Ieee2030.5 Xml Files To Ansi/Cta-2045, Wyatt Bilodeaux

University Honors Theses

The goal of this thesis is to discuss the method and organization of the Universal Communication module capstone project. This project was part of the Portland State University Electrical engineering degree program. While this thesis is part of the University honors curriculum. This thesis goes into detail about team structure and how a 9 person engineering capstone project was managed and organized. It looks at how we broke down the project into sections to be able to properly distribute our resources. This was one of the earliest and most important challenges that this capstone team had to tackle. This was …

Discrete S-Band Low-Noise Amplifier Designs For High Data-Rate Cubesat Uplink, Alejandro Martin Cosper, Alejandro Cosper

Master's Theses

In the world of small satellites, there is growing interest in higher-data-rate systems and the technologies that enable them. Due to limitations in the extremely reliable and proven Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) systems, the current CubeSats developed by the Cal Poly CubeSat Laboratory operate at 9600 Baud. However, the low Baud rate is rooted in decades of proven flights and is very resistant to many forms of signal degradation. While a slow but simple system was critical to past successes, future satellite payloads may require higher data rates to drastically reduce the number of passes needed to transfer large amounts of …

A Study On Quantization And Hardware Cost Tradeoffs In A 5g Nr Ldpc Decoder On Fpga, Giancarlo Acosta

Master's Theses

The fixed-point implementation of a 5G New Radio LDPC decoder forces a tradeoff between precision and hardware cost, governed by the variable node word length W_L, the check node message width W_R, and the normalized min-sum correction factor α. This thesis characterizes how these three parameters affect both error correction performance and FPGA resource utilization for an LDPC decoder on an established LDPC decoder architecture. A bit-accurate MATLAB core model records bit error rate (BER) and frame error rate (FER) while a verified HDL Coder model generates synthesizable VHDL for Vivado synthesis, and both are swept …

Performance Evaluation Of Roadside Unit-Assisted Wireless Communication For Connected Vehicles, Keyrollos A. Hanna, Ethan M. Nguyen

Electrical Engineering

This project presents the design and implementation of a wireless communication network intended to improve situational awareness between vehicles and reduce the likelihood of multivehicle collisions. Two TurtleBot3 Burger platforms equipped with Raspberry Pi computers were used to simulate vehicles operating within a shared environment. Communication latency and packet loss were evaluated under multiple operating conditions, including direct vehicle-to-vehicle communication and communication assisted by a roadside unit (RSU). The results were analyzed to determine whether the proposed system could transmit warning messages with sufficient speed and reliability for collision prevention applications. The project demonstrates the feasibility of low-cost vehicle communication …

Wildlife Tracking Via Uav&Rf, Nam Ah Nguyen

Electrical Engineering

Animal tracking collars transmit very-high-frequency (VHF) beacon signals so researchers can locate tagged wildlife in terrain where direct visual tracking is difficult. This project develops a radio-frequency (RF) wildlife tracking prototype in which a UAV carries a receiving antenna and receiver over the search area to detect the collar signal and send measurements to a ground station. A transmitter test device was built to emulate a tracking collar. An STM32 microcontroller reads keypad input, controls a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), tunes a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) to the selected VHF frequency, and sends the RF signal through an amplifier and antenna. The …

Portable Food Pasteurization Using Pulsed Electric Fields (Pef), Thomas E. Mcmillan Iii

Electrical Engineering

Foodborne illnesses remain a significant public health concern, motivating continued development of alternative food pasteurization technologies. Pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment is a non-thermal pasteurization method that inactivates microorganisms through electroporation while minimizing thermal degradation of food products. The long-term objective of this project was development of a portable PEF food pasteurization system.

An iterative design approach was used to investigate generation of the high-voltage pulses required for PEF treatment. Multiple pulse forming network topologies were evaluated through simulation, leading to selection of a solid-state Marx generator architecture. A low-voltage five-stage prototype was designed, constructed, and tested to validate the …

Wireless Communication In Autonomous Vehicles, Kaylie Bao, Nicholas Andrews, Mark Negus

Electrical Engineering

This project focuses on developing and testing a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication system using Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) based on the IEEE 802.11p standard. The system uses the NXP i.MX 8XLite V2X Evaluation Kit, which includes the SAF5400 modem for wireless communication in the 5.9 GHz band.

The main goal of this project was to establish reliable communication between two V2X evaluation boards and to verify that custom, user-defined data could be transmitted between them. Through iterative testing, we were able to successfully send and receive custom 802.11 frames using the provided command-line tools and achieve consistent communication between nodes. …

Lora Radio Propagation & Antenna Design For Freight Trains, Cesar Chavez, Marlon Jennson Hernandez

Electrical Engineering

Freight-train environments present significant challenges for wireless communication due to large metallic structures, varying cargo types, and changing antenna orientations that can degrade radio-frequency propagation. This project evaluated the performance of LoRa-based communication links intended for End-of-Train (EOT) and Head-of-Train (HOT) systems operating at 915 MHz. Field testing was conducted to characterize antenna performance using metrics including received signal strength indicator (RSSI), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and communication range. Experimental results showed that antenna polarization and directivity significantly affect communication performance in freight-train environments. Directional antennas provided improved signal strength when properly aligned but experienced performance degradation as antenna orientation changed. …

Space Quacker Advanced Development (Squad): Lora Modulation On A Leo Cubesat Mission For Evaluation Of 916 Mhz Uplink, Samantha Brunton

Master's Theses

The LoRa Modulation format was developed by SEMTECH in 2018 and has revolutionized terrestrial Internet of Things (IoT) networks. LoRa (Long Range) has been successfully demonstrated as a long-range, low-data-rate communication modulation format and packet protocol for low-power terrestrial applications. LoRa offers low power consumption, low cost, robust signal sensitivity, and long communication range. Recently, interest has grown in using LoRa communication in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite systems, especially for global IoT connectivity. Previous studies have investigated the theoretical feasibility and simulated the performance of LoRa satellite communication. Companies such as Lacuna Space have demonstrated the practical potential of …

Retinomorphic Mid-Wave Infrared In-Sensor Processing Engine: Device-To-Architecture Co-Design, Hemalatha Nagaraju

Theses

Conventional frame-based CMOS image sensors acquire full-frame pixel data at discrete time intervals, resulting in substantial spatial redundancy and loss of temporal information between frames. The repeated conversion and transfer of redundant pixel data increases bandwidth and power consumption in machine vision systems. Retinomorphic sensing architectures address these limitations by enabling programmable, analog-domain processing directly at the sensor interface. A compact behavioral model of the PbSe device is developed in HSPICE based on calibrated TCAD simulation data to capture gate-controlled photocurrent modulation under varying illumination and gate bias conditions. Error analysis is performed to quantify the deviation between TCAD-generated photocurrent …

Millimeter-Wave Antenna Gain Enhancement Through Stacked Planar Substrates, Zachary Bergstedt

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

This work presents a new wideband millimeter-wave (mmWave) and sub-terahertz antenna design with flexible directivity through the integration of stepped horn antennas and transverse substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) slots for radar and communication applications. The work gives a theoretical and analytical basis for this filter-inspired approach to improving bandwidth and directivity, and presents design and results for a standalone stepped horn, a Ka-band antenna with a solid stepped horn and SIW feed, and W-band antennas with empty SIW feeds and stepped horns manufactured out of multiple planar layers. The realized antennas show bandwidth up to 40% and gain up to …

Leveraging Information Theory And Ecological Network Analysis To Monitor Communication Networks In A Student Aerospace Team, Christine Sessions

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Effective communication is a critical component of successful collaboration in group projects and team settings. However, systematically tracking and analyzing team communications can be challenging, especially in complex, multi-member teams such as those found in the aerospace industry. This paper explores an information-theoretic approach that leverages encoding techniques and graph theory to analyze communication networks within a university’s multi-year, student-led cubesat design project (Project COMET). By utilizing Shannon Entropy as a measure of information flow, encoding communication patterns, and analyzing Ecological Network Analysis parameters, this research aims to understand how an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University student project team evolves over the …

Data-Driven Physical-Layer Optimization For Rf And Optical Communications: Transmitarray Metasurfaces, Contextual-Bandit Mud, And Coherent Optical Links, Chengtao M. Xu

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This dissertation studies three physical-layer optimization problems that share a common difficulty: the forward model, whether an electromagnetic solver or a statistical channel model, is either too expensive to evaluate at design scale or too unstable to hold across a single processing block. The first two problems are treated in their own right, as problems in antenna design and in multi-user detection over time-variant channels; the third carries the methodology onto a coherent optical link, where size, weight, and power constraints make a small-satellite deployment the natural target.

The antenna work targets a tri-layer pixelated unit cell fabricated on Avient …

Protocol-Aware Enforcement-Point Postcards And Collector Feedback For Ot/Ics Forensic Readiness And Closed-Loop Defense, Haden Fowler

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this work, we apply P4-programmable switches to Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control System (ICS) traffic with the objective of turning enforcement decisions into structured forensic evidence that can also support fast, scoped feedback. OT investigations often rely on later correlation of endpoint logs, passive packet traces, and historian data, but those sources can be incomplete, hard to align in time, and missing the decision made at the enforcement point. We address this gap by implementing a P4-based enforcement switch that parses Modbus/TCP write traffic, applies protocol-aware policy checks, and exports protocolaware postcards to a collector. The collector stores …

Hardware Integration Of Preamble Based 802.11a Wi-Fi Frame Location For Usrp Radios, Nicholas P. Margavio

Honors Theses

Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a network of devices that can exchange information over the internet, and its deployments are projected to reach 30.9 billion by 2025, with most lacking encryption. One solution for these unencrypted devices is to use Specific Emitter Identification (SEI). SEI exploits distinct, native, and unintentional features of a radio’s signal to identify it and enhance wireless network security uniquely. For example, IEEE 802.11a Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi) radio waveforms have a fixed structure that occupies the first 16 microseconds, from which SEI features can be extracted and used to identify the originating radio. By removing the …

Uav-Based Sensor Integration For In-Situ Lake Water Quality Monitoring, Alec R. Campbell

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Surface water monitoring is often constrained by limited spatial and temporal coverage due to the labor-intensive nature of traditional sampling methods, particularly in environments that are difficult to access or pose safety risks. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer a promising solution by enabling more frequent, spatially distributed, and cost-effective data collection. This study presented the design, development, and field evaluation of a UAV-based system for real-time, in-situ water quality monitoring. The system integrated multiple sensors, including oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), RGB spectrometry, pH, electrical conductivity (EC), dissolved oxygen (DO), and a multispectral spectrometer within a UAV platform.

Field testing was conducted …

Cooperative Unmanned Aerial System (Uas) Geolocation Of Emitters, Christopher Peters

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

A collection of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) can be networked as a cooperative wireless sensor array to geolocate an unknown-location RF emitter using time-based measurements. In operation, however, environmental multipath and hardware errors in sensor positioning and timing can degrade emitter localization accuracy and limit the practicality of single-snapshot solutions. This dissertation evaluates time-of-arrival and time-difference-of-arrival (TOA/TDOA) geolocation for cooperative UAS arrays under realistic error sources and develops geometry-control strategies that actively reduce localization uncertainty through iterative UAS repositioning.

This work studies the Location on a Conic Axis (LOCA) method for emitter localization. Using Monte Carlo simulations with hardware error …

Insect Inspired Behavioral Strategies For Improving Multi-Agent System Resilience In The Presence Of Contagious Faults, James E. Hand

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

As Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) become increasingly involved in every aspect of everyday life the need to maintain reliability and resilience within these systems grows. However, in equal measure bad actors wishing to maliciously control or alter these systems are growing in both scale and capability. Thus, there is a present need for control schemes and agent behaviors that provide security against these threats while also avoiding large degradation in system performance as a tradeoff. Current research has covered a wide breadth of avenues and strategies that provide measurable resilience to faulted agents. However, these strategies often require group consensus, specialized …

Developing A Multi-Band Gnss Remote Sensing Station To Measure Precipitable Water Vapor For Flash Flood Nowcasting, Madison Gleydura

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Flash flood nowcasting in Central and Southern Appalachia is particularly challenging due to steep terrain, narrow valleys, highly localized rainfall patterns, and limited measurement coverage. Traditional remote sensing methods, such as Doppler radar and microwave radiometry, suffer from reduced resolution at long range and signal blockage by mountains. GNSS-meteorology offers an established alternative for measuring precipitable water vapor and is currently integrated into several numerical weather models. Recent research demonstrates that commercial-grade GNSS receivers can produce tropospheric products comparable to those from geodetic-grade equipment. The gaps in mountain coverage can be addressed by developing a low-cost, self-contained embedded system that …

Scalable And Fault-Tolerant Network Architectures For Real-Time Video Transmission In Industrial Networked Control Systems, Moustafa Awad

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses the challenge of transporting supervisory video alongside time-critical control traffic in industrial Networked Control Systems (NCS) without violating stringent real-time constraints. A simple yet scalable network architecture is developed and evaluated for a plant-level deployment comprising three interconnected workcells with sensors, controllers, actuators, and cameras. The design explicitly accommodates bandwidth-intensive video streams while preserving the responsiveness of watchdog/control traffic. Analytical delay modeling decomposes end-to-end latency into transmission, propagation, processing, and queuing components, and Riverbed-based simulations are used to validate the model under realistic mixed-traffic conditions. A traffic-engineering strategy - phase-shifting supervisory camera transmissions - effectively desynchronizes frame …

Flexible Fault-Tolerant Multi-Die Fpga-Based Architectures For Varying Space Environments, Yosof Ali Seif El Din Ali Maklad

Theses and Dissertations

It is well-known fact that spacecraft’s electronic components operate in an extreme harsh and varying space environments, beside changing orbit or passing through Van Allan Belts during orbital course results of radiation levels change. This thesis focuses on SRAM-based FPGA systems on-board of such spacecrafts, that are commonly utilized in space applications’ critical applications due to their capabilities and flexibility to reconfigure, since these systems are vulnerable to frequent negative impacts of ionizing radiation, thus inducing soft and hard errors leading to disastrous failures that could jeopardize the entire spacecraft. The soft errors’ effects are frequent yet can be mitigated, …

Parking Information And Supervision System, Joshua A. Thum, Alex J. Kinch, Jacob A. Dye

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In densely populated areas, finding parking can be an arduous and time-consuming struggle, especially in large and tall parking decks. Drivers would benefit from a convenient way to find an open parking spot without having to scour the entire lot first. The goal of this project is to sense available parking spots in a parking garage or parking lot using physical object detection and visual detection with computer vision verification, and display the open spots to drivers entering the lot. This information will be displayed locally at the lot and in an app, with the latter allowing someone to see …

Ransomware As Organization: A Comparative Analysis Of Corporate And Criminal Structures In Conti, George Urling

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Cybercriminal groups continue to pose major threats to global cybersecurity. One of the most common types of cybercriminal groups are, “Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS)" groups, who create and sell ransomware. While research is conducted into the development of ransomware, there is limited reporting on the organizational structure and habits of RaaS groups. In 2022, prominent RaaS group Conti had their chat logs leaked, with the logs ranging from 2020 to 2022. This study seeks to provide a deeper understanding of RaaS group structures by utilizing the Conti leaked logs as a case study. The study, entitled “Ransomware as Organization: A Comparative Analysis …

Array Signal Processing And Machine Learning In 5g/6g Networks, Roopesh Kumar Polaganga

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation investigates advanced methodologies in Array Signal Processing (ASP) and Machine Learning (ML) to enhance the performance, efficiency, and intelligence of next-generation wireless networks, with a primary focus on 5G and emerging 6G systems. As wireless networks face rapid traffic growth, increasingly heterogeneous service requirements, and more complex propagation environments, conventional design and optimization approaches become insufficient to meet evolving demands in reliability, capacity, spectral efficiency, and energy efficiency. On the network intelligence side, this work develops data-driven frameworks for causal discovery, scheduler enhancement, session-duration prediction, and Radio Resource Control (RRC) state optimization using real-world telecommunication network data. On …

Deep Learning For Wireless Communications, Swarada Ajit Kulkarni

Electrical Engineering Dissertations

The rapid evolution of wireless communication imposes stringent requirements for ultra-reliable, low-latency transmission in dynamic, interference-prone environments. Traditional model-driven signal processing struggles to adapt to nonlinear hardware effects, time-varying channels, and complex interference patterns. Deep learning (DL) offers a transformative, data-driven alternative, enabling end-to-end optimization and robust adaptation under uncertain propagation conditions.

This dissertation investigates deep learning architectures for intelligent and resilient wireless communication through three complementary contributions. The first introduces a Vision Transformer (ViT)-based modulation classification framework that leverages self-attention to capture local and global dependencies in spectrogram representations of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) signals. The ViT achieves superior …