VLSI and Circuits, Embedded and Hardware Systems Commons^™

Dual-Interface Wifi Packet Sniffer System Using Esp32-Cam With Real-Time Pcap Generation For Iot Network Analysis, Boy Setiawan Boy, Maghfiroh Maulani, Zico Pratama Putra, Muhammad Senoyodha Brennaf

Makara Journal of Technology

This study focuses on designing and implementing a cost-effective and energy-efficient WiFi packet sniffer system using the ESP32. The ESP32-CAM module, which combines WiFi, Bluetooth, and microSD support, is used to capture IEEE 802.11 frames in real-time via promiscuous mode. Packets are stored in packet capture format, which is compatible with tools such as Wireshark and Scapy. Developed using the official ESP-IDF, it offers low-level control and high performance. Two user interfaces were implemented: a UART-based text menu and a web-based HTTPS menu hosted on the ESP32 itself. Functional and performance evaluations were conducted with a focus on capturing broadcast …

Fpga-Accelerated Computational Photon Counting, Chibueze Onyeador

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) is a powerful tool for biomedical re- search. It leverages fluorescence of biological samples to visualize and characterize biological dynamics and molecular interactions. FLIM utilizes fluorescence lifetime, the average time a molecule stays in its excited state after absorbing a photon, to investigate the dynamics of biological samples.

Ultra-fast and precise (ps-ns) timing fluorescence acquisition techniques suffer from different trade-offs. Some methods suffer from high dead times, decreased accuracy in fluorescence lifetime calculations, and high data volumes and transfers. Finding a new method that can provide the best performance while experiencing low dead times, adequate …

Pseudo-Soft-Switching Switched-Capacitor Drive Circuits For Small-Scale Dielectric Actuators, Yanqiao Li

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Applications including micro-robotics and haptics have motivated extensive exploration of dielectric actuators due to their high bandwidth and high efficiency at cm and mm scales. To maximize their benefits, dielectric actuators, including piezoelectric and electrostatic actuators, typically require high driving voltages, ranging from 100V to several kV. Generating such high driving voltages presents a challenge for drive circuits, particularly when powered by a small battery. Dielectric actuators are predominantly capacitive in most circumstances, necessitating the drive circuits to deliver and recover reactive energy for efficient operation. In some applications, such as micro-robotics, the drive circuits may need to have a …

Optimization And Acceleration Of Puf Design Through Reduced Order Standard Cell Modeling, Ian Z. Wilcox

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) designs continue to scale with ever increasing complexity and device counts in the billions. Demand for scalable high-fidelity simulations of these systems drives the need for the development of novel modeling capabilities. This research formulates a non-intrusive model order reduc-tion (MOR) framework, called PUF-ROMS, to accelerate and optimize the design and analysis of physical unclonable functions (PUFs) on ASICs. The primary goals of PUF-ROMS are to estimate entropy and temperature-voltage noise (TV-noise) of circuit structures used in the design in an accelerated evaluation environment to enable designers to explore architecture options with the goal of …

Statistical Monitoring Of Hard Faults In Digital Systems, Dany Akshay Deep Isukapalli

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Achieving a high test coverage is crucial for helping to ensure that integrated circuits are working correctly and are non-defective. Although scan-based structural tests are used throughout the industry, high-level functional tests may be needed to detect some defects— especially those that are environmentally sensitive. Unfortunately, the character of functional test makes it difficult to obtain high coverage, and it is even hard to estimate coverage because fault simulation times of large circuits are long. As a result, some method is required for predicting the ability of a functional test that has not been fault simulated to detect defects. In …

Development Of An Embedded Iot Board For Real-Time Floor Estimation Of Autonomous Robots, Carter J. Sorensen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As service robots become more prevalent in multi-story environments such as hospitals, hotels, and laboratories, accurate floor-level detection is critical to ensuring operational reliability. Consider a robot tasked with delivering medical samples in a multi-story laboratory. Without accurate feedback, a robot exiting on the wrong floor could introduce delays, disrupt workflows, or compromise sample integrity. Internet of Things (IoT) technologies offer a way to address these risks by providing real-time error detection and corrective capability. However, current IoT-based floor estimation systems often require invasive modifications to building infrastructure—particularly elevator control panels. These approaches introduce challenges related to cost, liability, backward …

Reverse Engineering Bring Up And Profiling Of Multi-Fpga Systems, Henry A. Evans

Master's Theses

FPGAs have long been used for prototyping and verifying high-speed digital designs in industry and in academic research. As ASIC designs have grown in complexity and size, prototyping those designs on FPGAs has required multiple FPGAs that sometimes span multiple servers. Western Digital donated multiple FPGA-based systems to Cal Poly in 2023. These servers contain multiple high-end AMD FPGAs that are ideal for prototyping large high-speed digital designs, however the full documentation on how to use the servers and how the servers work was not provided. The servers did not come with any information on how to program the FPGAs, …

Analog Hardware Implementation Of A Linearly Constrained Quadratic Program Real-Time Solver, Claire E. Tylutki, Claire Tylutki

Master's Theses

This thesis presents the design, implementation, and analysis of a hardware system for solving Linearly Constrained Quadratic Programs (LCQPs) in real time. The architecture follows a generalized feedback structure composed of three key elements: gradient descent on the quadratic cost function, saturation-based nonlinearity to enforce inequality constraints, and an integral controller with an anti-windup mechanism to regulate dynamic behavior and determine steady-state error. This majority analog system converges with equilibria that satisfy the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) optimality conditions. Using a representative LCQP, this work presents simulation of the circuit in PLECS and LT Spice to confirm the feasibility of the novel …

Open Source Asic Design Curriculum, Francisco Wilken

Master's Theses

The ever-growing importance of Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) in a high-compute world necessitates that college graduates entering the workforce are well prepared to design them. This thesis details the design of novel ASIC curriculum, using open source tools to teach at the undergraduate level. By moving to a higher level of abstraction than classical transistor-focused coursework, chip design material can be made accessible earlier in an undergraduate degree. Additionally, open source tools provide a powerful, free, and portable platform for students to create their own designs, solving assignments focused on industry readiness. Finally, this thesis studies the results and challenges …

Design Of A Subthreshold Cmos Inverter-Based Amplifier For Low-Noise And Low-Power Applications, Landon Alexander Schmucker

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Amplification is a fundamental function in most analog circuits. There is a fast-growing demand for low-power, low-noise, and high-gain amplifiers. Modern semiconductor processes are increasingly optimized for digital applications, which has introduced new challenges in analog design. To address these challenges, analog designers have investigated replacing conventional analog circuits with digital implementations. One promising application is the typical CMOS inverter as an amplifier.

This research presents a CMOS inverter-based amplifier with feedback designed to achieve low power consumption, low input noise, and high gain. Unlike typical CMOS inverter-based amplifiers, this topology has two distinctive features: (1) it uses a MOSFET …

Development Of Interactive Games On An Affordable Braille Display, Daniel Tsivkovski, Dylan Ravel, Maryam Etezad

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Developing an affordable and STEM learning-focused Braille display addresses a significant disparity in the market for Braille displays, where most fail to provide a cost-effective, accessible, and education-oriented solution. This research aims to bridge this gap through innovative hardware and software development, offering a comprehensive learning experience to elementary school children (K-6) who are blind/visually impaired. The hardware features a piezo-electric tactile display that displays up to six Braille characters at once or a shape in an 8x8 pin array configuration. The educational software includes a user-friendly website packed with engaging STEM activities specifically designed for blind/visually impaired children. The …

Breaking New Ground: Division Directly In Memory, M. Hassan Najafi, Mehran Shoushtari Moghadam

Faculty Scholarship

In-memory computing (IMC) has emerged as a promising paradigm for overcoming the limitations of traditional von Neumann architectures by reducing data movement and enhancing computational efficiency. Despite significant advancements in this area, implementing complex arithmetic operations, such as division, directly within memory has remained an elusive challenge. This paper introduces a pioneering technique for performing division operations directly in memory, representing the first successful integration of such functionality into the IMC framework. Our approach leverages an innovative circuit based on an unconventional model of computing–stochastic computing (SC). Our technique extends the computational capabilities of IMC systems and paves the way …

Development Of A Cost-Effective Daq For Measuring Brake Performance In Race Cars, Adrin Alias

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This project explores the feasibility of creating a cost-effective data acquisition (DAQ) system for high-speed, real-time brake performance testing of Formula SAE racecars. The research addresses the limitations of the current MoTeC DAQ system currently employed by the team, which is costly and time-consuming to set up for on-car testing. The team will use a brake dynamometer for steady-state comparisons of different brake pad compounds (senior design project), but evaluating real-world performance requires on-car testing. By systematically comparing various hardware platforms, sensors, communication protocols, and storage solutions, this project aims to balance cost-efficiency with reliability and performance. The research evaluates …

Design Considerations Of A Gpu, Nicholas M. Devilliers

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

With the current era of AI technology, the era of single instruction multiple data has become an increasingly viable solution to accelerate training. The problem is that while software to use GPUs and other hardware accelerators, designing GPUs and ASIC devices has become increasingly more expensive and there aren’t great examples of generic GPUs that anyone can use and modify. In this thesis, there are four design considerations that will be discussed and how they affect the result of a generic GPU. The four considerations that were talked about in the thesis are, word width, arithmetic type, number of stages, …

Lightlink: Visible Light Communication For Batteryless Devices With Variable Computational Load, Charles Phillips

All Theses

Visible Light Communication (VLC) devices have been experimentally proven to work as a suitable communication medium for batteryless devices. However, the effects of practical load have yet to be fully explored. To that end, we have developed LightLink, a new MAC and PHY layer protocol for VLC within batteryless devices, and have studied various ways that computational load can affect transmission accuracy in realistic scenarios. Our key findings point us towards an adaptive VLC reception system based on inferred environmental variables.

Blockchain-Integrated Version Control For Secure And Transparent Software Supply Chains, Iwinosa W. Aideyan

All Theses

The software supply chain encompasses all stages of software development and delivery from initial coding and version control to integration and deployment. As development environments become increasingly distributed and reliant on external dependencies, ensuring the integrity, auditability, and consistency of code changes has become a pressing challenge. Traditional version control systems like Git, while effective for collaboration and tracking revisions, do not inherently provide tamper-evident commit histories. Features such as history rewriting (e.g., git rebase, git push --force) can be exploited to manipulate commit logs without detection, posing risks in security-sensitive domains. This thesis proposes a blockchain-integrated version control framework …

Hybrid Dc-Dc Converters For Soft Charging Capacitive Actuators: Modeling, Analysis And Design, Bahlakoana Mabetha

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Recent trends in haptics, microrobotics and ultrasound technology have shown an increasing use of piezoelectric and other electrostatic actuators. These actuators are suited for miniaturized applications due to their high power density and favorable scalability at a small size. Their electrical impedance at lower frequency (their typical operating range) is capacitive, therefore, they can be modeled as capacitive loads.

The driving circuits for capacitive actuators need to deliver and recover (bidirectional) dominantly reactive power, unlike typical power electronics converters for resistive loads which deliver (unidirectional) real power to the load. Therefore, the circuits, operation, and optimization required to drive these …

Artificial Intelligence Applications For Grid-Connected Solar Inverters, Utkirjon Ubaydullaev, Sarvinoz Mirzaeva, Hasan Mustafoev

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

The increasing global demand for renewable energy has highlighted the importance of grid-connected solar inverters in ensuring efficient and stable power conversion. However, challenges such as fluctuations in solar energy generation, grid disturbances, and power quality issues necessitate advanced control strategies. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into solar inverters presents a transformative solution, enhancing performance, adaptability, and reliability in real-world applications.

This review explores the role of AI techniques, including machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), fuzzy logic, and reinforcement learning (RL), in optimizing key inverter functionalities such as maximum power point tracking (MPPT), fault detection, power quality enhancement, …

Amplification In Mems Rlc Circuits For Enhanced Sensitivity And Mems Applications, Mutaz Mohd Hamdi Al Fayad

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) have garnered significant attention due to their unique characteristics, including small size, high sensitivity, and cost-effective mass production. While electrostatic actuation offers low power consumption, it requires high voltage to move the MEMS structure, posing a challenge for applications such as RF switches and MEMS resonator-based sensors. Reducing the required input voltage for electrostatic MEMS remains a key research focus.

This thesis investigates voltage amplification in electrostatic MEMS through integration with resonant RLC circuits. By leveraging resonance, optimized configurations are designed to maximize voltage gain and enhance the signal-to-noise ratio. Through theoretical modeling and simulations using MATLAB …

Automatic Cat Caretaker, Connor Mcclenathan, Ryan Anderson, Andrew Tate

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will involve developing and constructing a self-cleaning litter box with feeding and watering functions attached. The machine will have a user interface for setting both the feeding and watering times, as well as how much to fill the food and water bowls at the same time. The project will involve the use of motors for the cleaning, feeding, and watering functions, sensors to detect when to perform those functions, and a microcontroller to process all the data and to tell the motors when to perform their respective functions. This project's goal is to make the task of caring …

Trace Flight Computer, Zachary Stratton, Vandad Mossavand Varkaneh, Nicholas Ely

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In the world of collegiate rocketry, there are currently no commercial-off-the-shelf flight computers capable of being fitted to liquid engine rockets with thrust vectoring control. Currently, amateur rocketeers utilize unreliable Arduino-based systems or expensive drone computers. The objective of this project is to design a flight computer capable of data collection and filtering, telemetry transmission, and real-time controls of critical safety systems using readily available commercial-off-the-shelf components to allow rocketeers to complete their designs within a reasonable budget. The system will collect data from two IMUs, a barometric altimeter, and a magnetometer, then filter the collected data using custom Kalman …

Autonomous Landscape Exploration Rover Using Imaging Surface Navigation (Alexis), Noah Jones, Dominic Salupo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective is to develop a small-form-factor rover prototype that can be used to prove out a novel traversal method for use on extraterrestrial surfaces. The novel traversal method being proposed is LIDAR/CV-enhanced navigation, provided by a detachable flight vehicle that can communicate with the rover. On planets with thin atmospheres, cold gas thrusters or similar may be needed, but for the scope of this project more traditional flight/propulsion methods will be used.

From Tpu To Qpu: Bridging Fidelity Gaps Across Next-Generation Computing Systems, Mohammad Walid M. Charrwi

Dissertations and Theses

Modern computing systems continue to advance rapidly, enabling unprecedented computational capabilities across diverse domains. Among these powerful architectures are AI accelerators such as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and quantum computing systems utilizing Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) stand out as trans-formative technologies. Despite their potential, these systems share significant challenges related to hardware infidelity, manifested as error-induced degradation in computational accuracy and reliability. This thesis explicitly addresses cost-effective methods to screen-out defective AI accelerators across next-generation computing architectures and boost quantum circuit output fidelity through hierarchical circuit optimization using advanced machine learning methodologies.

This thesis first proposes a cost-effective testing methodology …

Batteryless Nfc-Enabled Wireless Sensor Node: Design, Optimization, And Implementation, Rishin Patra

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis presents the design, construction, and testing of a batteryless Near-field communication (NFC) powered wireless sensor node intended for maintenance free, short range Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The work focuses on harvesting energy from a 13.56 MHz NFC field to power a very low-power sensing platform capa- ble of measuring temperature, pressure, and humidity without the use of batteries or wired power. The motivation behind this approach is the growing need for reliable, sustainable, and low-maintenance sensing systems that can operate in environments where battery replacement is impractical, undesirable, or environmentally costly. The prototype is built around a …