Systems and Communications Commons^™

Developing A Uas-Deployable Methane Sensor Using Low-Cost Modular Open-Source Components, Gavin Demali

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project aimed to develop a methane sensor for deployment on an unmanned aerial system (UAS), or drone, platform. This design is centered around low cost, commercially available modular hardware components and open source software libraries. Once successfully developed, this system was deployed at the Bath Nature Preserve in Bath Township, Summit County Ohio in order to detect any potential on site fugitive methane emissions in the vicinity of the oil and gas infrastructure present. The deliverables of this project (i.e. the data collected at BNP) will be given to the land managers there to better inform future management and …

Zips Racing Electric Can Communications, Andrew Jordan, Adam Long, Susanah Kowalewski, Rami Nehme

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The CAN protocol has been a standard of electronic communication networks of automotive vehicles since the early 2000s due to its robust reliability in harsh environments. For the 2020 competition year, the Zips Racing Electric design team will be building an entirely new, fully-electric vehicle with CAN communication implemented rather than communicating via pure analog signals. Hardware and software can be utilized to read analog electrical signals from a source, such as accelerator and brake sensors, and encode them into a digital message that meets the CAN 2.0B communication protocol standard. Likewise, software can be used to extract data from …

Kettlebell Ultra, Elissa Peters, Kathryn Wegman, Daniel Basch, Mason Pastorius

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will consist of an attachment to an average kettlebell that will track the number of repetitions that the user has performed. The device will send this data over Bluetooth to a smart phone application so the user can track their workout accurately.

Vehicle Operator Attention Monitor, Matthew Krispinsky, Matt Marsek, Matthew Mayfield, Brian Call

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Motor vehicle operators’ attention levels can be monitored to improve driver safety. By recording and analyzing the drivers eye gaze, hand position, vehicle speed and engine rpm the driver’s attention can be determined. A Raspberry Pi will be the main processing unit. Data will be pulled and analyzed from the OBD-II port on vehicle speed and engine rpm. The system will be powered from a 12V, 4A pin on the OBD-II port connected to the car battery. A webcam will be used to track the pupil location and determine when the driver is looking at the road. A battery powered …

Design Of Subsurface Phased Array Antennas For Digital Agriculture Application, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

With the advancement in subsurface communications technology, an overarching solution to a underground phased array antenna design for digital agriculture requires interdisciplinary research involving topics ranging from insights on the constitutive parameters of the soil medium and impact of soil moisture on the array factor to antenna measurements and subsurface communication system design. In this paper, based on the analysis of underground radio wave propagation in subsurface radio channel, a phased array antenna design is presented that uses water content information and beam steering mechanisms to improve efficiency and communication range of wireless underground communications. It is shown the subsurface …

Internet Of Things In Agricultural Innovation And Security, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

The agricultural Internet of Things (Ag-IoT) paradigm has tremendous potential in transparent integration of underground soil sensing, farm machinery, and sensor-guided irrigation systems with the complex social network of growers, agronomists, crop consultants, and advisors. The aim of the IoT in agricultural innovation and security chapter is to present agricultural IoT research and paradigm to promote sustainable production of safe, healthy, and profitable crop and animal agricultural products. This chapter covers the IoT platform to test optimized management strategies, engage farmer and industry groups, and investigate new and traditional technology drivers that will enhance resilience of the farmers to the …

Internet Of Things For Water Sustainability, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

The water is a finite resource. The issue of sustainable withdrawal of freshwater is a vital concern being faced by the community. There is a strong connection between the energy, food, and water which is referred to as water-food-energy nexus. The agriculture industry and municipalities are struggling to meet the demand of water supply. This situation is particularly exacerbated in the developing countries. The projected increase in world population requires more fresh water resources. New technologies are being developed to reduce water usage in the field of agriculture (e.g., sensor guided autonomous irrigation management systems). Agricultural water withdrawal is also …

Internet Of Things For Sustainable Mining, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

The sustainable mining Internet of Things deals with the applications of IoT technology to the coupled needs of sustainable recovery of metals and a healthy environment for a thriving planet. In this chapter, the IoT architecture and technology is presented to support development of a digital mining platform emphasizing the exploration of rock–fluid–environment interactions to develop extraction methods with maximum economic benefit, while maintaining and preserving both water quantity and quality, soil, and, ultimately, human health. New perspectives are provided for IoT applications in developing new mineral resources, improved management of tailings, monitoring and mitigating contamination from mining. Moreover, tools …

Internet Of Things In Sustainable Energy Systems, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

Our planet has abundant renewable and conventional energy resources but technological capability and capacity gaps coupled with water-energy needs limit the benefits of these resources to citizens. Through IoT technology solutions and state-of-the-art IoT sensing and communications approaches, the sustainable energy-related research and innovation can bring a revolution in this area. Moreover, by the leveraging current infrastructure, including renewable energy technologies, microgrids, and power-to-gas (P2G) hydrogen systems, the Internet of Things in sustainable energy systems can address challenges in energy security to the community, with a minimal trade-off to environment and culture. In this chapter, the IoT in sustainable energy …

Internet Of Things In Water Management And Treatment, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

The goal of the water security IoT chapter is to present a comprehensive and integrated IoT based approach to environmental quality and monitoring by generating new knowledge and innovative approaches that focus on sustainable resource management. Mainly, this chapter focuses on IoT applications in wastewater and stormwater, and the human and environmental consequences of water contaminants and their treatment. The IoT applications using sensors for sewer and stormwater monitoring across networked landscapes, water quality assessment, treatment, and sustainable management are introduced. The studies of rate limitations in biophysical and geochemical processes that support the ecosystem services related to water quality …

Levitate, Stephen Hargreaves, Isaac Hammonds, Russel Pease, Joseph Morris

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Levitate is designed to create a healthier work environment by providing a way of entertaining a worker while not distracting them. To fulfill this task, the device needs to be interesting and self-sufficient while not being overly flashy. To complete this task, Levitate is designed so that it is able to lift a platform from rest using magnetism and that will be able to stabilize itself using electromagnets. It initiates this process by lifting the permanent magnet using servo motors. Then, the device is able to achieve stability through the use of hall sensors feeding their results to the board …

Digital, Automated Reactive Target System, Nicholas Haas, Saipranay Vellala, Trandon Ware, Thomas Martin

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In this era, technology is woven into almost every facet of our leisure activities. Although technology has innovated hobbies ranging from chess to soccer, the art of shooting has been neglected. Unnecessary insufficiency such as bullet ricochets off of mechanical steel targets, ineffective progress tracking, and general inaccessibility to outdoor training facilities are all improvable areas of this sport. The Dynamic Automated Reactive Target (D.A.R.T) System aims to fill some of these gaps and help modernize recreational marksmanship. Modeling the system after a dueling tree will optimize the use of the system and allow for different training models to challenge …

Smart Collar, Gretchen T. Woodling, Sean Moran, Justen Bischoff, Jacob Sindelar

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Smart Collar is a universal pet tracker, designed to be small and exceedingly comfortable for any pet to wear. GPS technology is used to locate the device, allowing the user to track their pet, via a smart phone application. This application can be used to program the device, view maps of their pet’s location and history of travel. Operating primarily on Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) for data transfer, the device consumes very little power, allowing for several days of run-time per charge of the battery. Boasting no monthly service fees, The Smart Collar provides pet owner’s an …

Tabletop Mechanical Tester, Jamie Dombroski, Brian English, Richard Leffler, Andrew Shirk

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The need for hands-on and face-to-face experiences in the engineering classroom is very great. The equations, principles, and concepts can all be learned, but without the visual and tactile application, these don’t always sink in or become concrete. A small-scale tensile test machine was designed, sourced, manufactured, and tested for the purpose of being applied in classroom settings to provide this experience to engineering students. Extensive research was performed concerning tensile machines on the market, the essential elements of which are the load cell, grips, crosshead, extensometer, motor, and frame. The raw materials for the frame were purchased and drawings …

Estimation Of Atmospheric Conditions Over A Long Horizontal Path Using Multi-Frame Blind Deconvolution (Mfbd) Techniques In Comparison With Delayed Tilt Anisoplanatism (Delta) Software, Hannah Stoll

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The potential to track and view objects in space from the ground with greater near real time knowledge of the intervening turbulence would be a revolutionary capability. The objective of this thesis is to cross-validate two separate methods used to estimate the Fried parameter. This verification is a step toward a commercial grade product that would make real-time estimates of the turbulence strength along an optical path from a ground-based observatory to a satellite in orbit around the Earth. Michigan Technological University has developed a multi-frame blind deconvolution (MFBD) algorithm used to estimate r0 and it was tested against MZA’s …

Implementation Of A Channel-Aware Routing Protocol In The Network Simulator For Underwater Acoustic Communication Networking, Adesoji Bello

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Over two-thirds of the earth surface are occupied by water, however the level of research in the field of Underwater Wireless Sensor Networking (UWSN) does not necessarily commensurate with the size and potentials. Importantly, the underwater acoustic channel is susceptible to signal degradation as a result of the dynamic and harsh state of the environment such as high propagation delay and limited channel bandwidth.

The above challenges are the motivation behind the Implementation of The Channel-aware Routing Protocol (CARP) for the routing performance optimization in UWSN. CARP [1] is a cross-layer routing paradigm which collaboratively leverages the link quality estimation …

Development Of A Software-Defined Underwater Acoustic Communication System, Zijian Zhu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This report started with a brief history and recent development of underwater acoustic communication systems as well as software-defined radio technologies. Then, some challenges from underwater acoustic channels and available underwater acoustic communication modems are discussed. After finished introducing the basics of SDR and GNU Radio, a detailed description of implementing a software-defined acoustic communication system in GNU Radio are presented, along with some key concepts of the system.

Then, some hardware specifications are presented, following by detailed documentation on a software-defined acoustic communication system experiment with a host computer, a USRP, an acoustic hydrophone, and a hydrophone. At the …

Exploiting Feedback Information In Cognitive Radio Systems, Sara Abozeid Attlla

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we consider a cognitive radio (CR) network where the primary network's feedback information is utilized to design access schemes for the secondary network, to exploit the underutilized primary spectrum resources. Secondary users (SUs) identify the spectrum opportunities by sensing the spectrum for primary users (PUs) activities and by listening to the PUs feedback. The feedback signals monitored in this research work are the channel quality indicator (CQI) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) available in the PUs network. For detecting the PUs activities, SUs employ hard/soft energy sensing. The secondary access decisions are optimized to maximize the SUs …

A Blockchain Simulator For Evaluating Consensus Algorithms In Diverse Networking Environments, Peter Foytik, Sachin Shetty, Sarada Prasad Gochhayat, Eranga Herath, Deepak Tosh, Laurent Njilla

VMASC Publications

The massive scale, heterogeneity and distributed nature of Internet-of-Things (IoT) presents challenges in realizing a practical and effective security solution. Blockchain empowered platforms and technologies have been proposed to address aspects of this challenge. In order to realize a practical Blockchain deployment for IoT, there is a need for a testing and evaluation platform to evaluate performance and security of Blockchain applications and systems. In this paper, we present a Blockchain simulator that evaluates the consensus algorithms in a realistic and configurable network environment. Though, there are several Blockchain evaluation platforms, they are either wedded to a specific consensus protocol …

A Prototype Virginia Ground Station Network, Zach Leffke, Jonathon Black, Kevin Shinpaugh, Ian Harnett, Bryce Clegg, Nick Angle, Chris Goyne, Connor Segal, William 'Trace' Lacour, Mike Mcpherson, Dimitrie Popescu, Samuel Jensen, Jason Harris, Mary Sandy, Mike Miller

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper provides a detailed technical description of a prototype ground station network, the Virginia Ground Station Network (VGSN), developed for the Virginia Cubesat Constellation (VCC) mission. Virginia Tech (VT), University of Virginia (UVA), and Old Dominion University (ODU) have each constructed ground stations to communicate with their respective VCC spacecraft. Initially, each university was responsible for commanding its own spacecraft via its own ground station. As the mission progressed, it was decided to network the ground stations and operations centers together to provide backup communications capability for the overall mission. The NASA Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) UHF smallsat ground …

Anomalous Event Detection And Localization Based On Deep Generative Adversarial Networks For Surveillance Videos, Thittaporn Ganokratanaa

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Anomaly detection is of great significance for intelligent surveillance videos. Current works typically struggle with object detection and localization problems due to crowded scenes and lack of sufficient prior information of the objects of interest during training, resulting in false-positive detection results. Thus, in this thesis, we propose two novel frameworks for video anomaly detection and localization. We first propose a Deep Spatiotemporal Translation Network (DSTN), a novel unsupervised anomaly detection and localization method based on Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) and Edge Wrapping (EW). In this work, we introduce (i) a novel fusion of background removal and real optical flow …

Implementation Of Traffic Engineering With Segment Routing And Opendaylight Controller On Emulated Virtual Environment Next Generation (Eve-Ng), Htain Lynn Aung

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Internet service providers and enterprise networks face rapid changes and rapid growth of the internet, and the networks become complex in operations to support the strict Service-level Agreements (SLAs) needed applications. Segment Routing (SR) is a source routing technology that overcomes the conventional Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks' drawbacks in scalability, flexibility, and applicability in Software-defined Networking (SDN). SR enables the source device to instruct the path using a segment or list of segments to go through the network. SR can be implemented in IPv6 and MPLS. A segment can be defined as information that instructs SR capable nodes to …

Mathematical Models Of Cellular Signaling And Supramolecular Self-Assembly, Pratip Rana

Theses and Dissertations

Synthetic biologists endeavor to predict how the increasing complexity of multi-step signaling cascades impacts the fidelity of molecular signaling, whereby cellular state information is often transmitted with proteins diffusing by a pseudo-one-dimensional stochastic process. We address this problem by using a one-dimensional drift-diffusion model to derive an approximate lower bound on the degree of facilitation needed to achieve single-bit informational efficiency in signaling cascades as a function of their length. We find that a universal curve of the Shannon-Hartley form describes the information transmitted by a signaling chain of arbitrary length and depends upon only a small number of physically …

Ultra-Wideband Power Amplifier Design For Large Signal Application, Ragavan Krishnamoorthy

Student Works (2020-2029)

Broadband power amplifier design has become one of the most critical enabling block in today’s wireless communication technology. Numerous research efforts have been carried out throughout the years to establish high efficiency over wideband RF transmitter. This research work presents two approaches in achieving ultra-broadband power amplifier for RF transmitter. Firstly, a new technique for the design of ultra-broadband RF power amplifier is introduced, in which a combination of the reactance compensation and third-harmonic tuning are adopted. The design goal is to achieve 40 dBm (10W) output power across a wide frequency bandwidth operation. Theoretical design equations were developed to …

Performance Evaluation Of Long Range (Lora) Wireless Rf Technology For The Internet Of Things (Iot) Using Dragino Lora At 915 Mhz, Victor Hugo Lopez Chalacan

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Internet of Things (IoT) is a developing concept that introduces the network of physical sensors that are interconnected to each other. Within this smart environment, smart objects use the interconnectivity to process, communicate, and exchange data among themselves without any human interaction. Some sensors are wirelessly connected among themselves and to the internet. Currently, IoT applications demand substantial requirements in terms of Radio Access Network (RAN) such as long-range outdoor coverage, environmental factors, obstructions, interference, power consumption, and many others. Also, the current wireless technologies are not able to satisfy all these requirements simultaneously. Therefore, there is no single wireless …