Other Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Design And Analysis Of Asymmetric “String-Of-Pearls” Common Repeating-Ground-Track Satellite Constellations For Missions Requiring Regional Coverage, Nathaniel Choo

Theses and Dissertations

Satellite constellation design must balance many factors that emerge from multiple sources, including environmental hazards and competing mission objectives. The dynamic nature of space systems makes the problem of ‘optimal’ satellite constellation design even more challenging. Restricting satellite constellation designs to predefined geometric frameworks can alleviate many challenges associated with the design problem; however, it raises an important question: which geometric framework performs best for each mission set? This research leverages simulations, metaheuristics, and mathematical programming techniques to address this question for missions focusing on Earth-observation of one or more regions.

First, this research captures the current state of satellite …

Portfolio Optimization Using Value Focused Thinking, Tyler Martin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the application of Value Focused Thinking (VFT) and multi-objective portfolio optimization to create a well-aligned portfolio for an organization faced with over 50 alternatives and limited funding. A novel technique is proposed to develop an optimized portfolio based on VFT scores, utilizing heuristic approaches like evolutionary algorithms. The research outcomes include an optimized portfolio, the total value evaluation of alternatives, and a sensitivity analysis. The new approach outperforms the organization’s previous method, resulting in a portfolio that better addresses the organization’s core values and objectives, scoring 21.21% higher.

Developing Systems Engineering And Machine Learning Frameworks For The Improvement Of Aviation Maintenance, Fatine Elakramine

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops systems engineering and machine learning models for aviation maintenance support. With the constant increase in demand for air travel, aviation organizations compete to maintain airworthy aircraft to ensure the safety of passengers. Given the importance of aircraft safety, the aviation sector constantly needs technologies to enhance the maintenance experience, ensure system safety, and limit aircraft downtime. Based on the current literature, the aviation maintenance sector still relies on outdated technologies to maintain aircraft maintenance documentation, including paper-based technical orders. Aviation maintenance documentation contains a mixture of structured and unstructured technical text, mainly inputted by operators, making them …

Human Factors Engineering, Robert S. Keyser

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

Human Factors Engineering is a comprehensive survey of human factors theory, research, and applications which are of particular relevance to Quality and Engineering Management. Emphasis will be placed on operator constraints in the design of work processes, workplaces, and instrumentation.

Development Of A Smart Waste Management System For City Application, Lawrence D. Fraction

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Elmer R. Smith College of Business and Technology Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Lawrence D. Fraction on April 14, 2023.

Rate Effects In Aircraft Learning Curves, Caleb J. Ahern

Theses and Dissertations

Across the Department of Defense (DoD), a wide variety of analytical tools are employed by cost analysts to estimate weapon system costs. One of the techniques widely employed by practitioners is the learning curve (LC). Although learning curves have been widely studied, using rate-adjustments or production rate effects (PRE), their usage have only intermittently been evaluated in place of using the traditional learning curve. Previous studies analyzing production rate found mixed results. This research aims to examine aircraft production data to determine if production rate model is preferrable in United States Air Force programs. Additionally, this PRE research seeks to …

Team And Skill Matching For Disaster Recovery Operations, Emily B. Frahm

Theses and Dissertations

United States Air Force (USAF) bases are key power projection platforms that ensure mission readiness and help bring humanitarian aid to locations in need. Recovering airfields after attack or natural disaster is a key mission of USAF civil engineers, and accomplishing this repair as swiftly as possible is key to maintaining our position in the global order. Accomplishing a disaster recovery project is a set of teams, each assigned to a specific task, and made up of a series of personnel. The question answered within this paper is: how do we match the right person with the appropriate skills to …

Pattern Of Life Modeling On Maritime Vessels With Bayesian Inferencing, Miles A. Kelly

Theses and Dissertations

Despite decades of research, maritime traffic models’ limited predictive power continues to constrain their operational utility. We build on previous pattern of life modeling algorithms and contribute a Bayesian inferencing model for anomaly detection. Our probabilistic approach provides decision makers the capability to tailor the belief threshold for identifying anomalies and to enact a measured response based on the degree of abnormality. We perform a case study to evaluate the results, verifying that our Bayesian inferencing method accurately refines its probability when given the location and time of a ship of interest, and serving as a proof of concept for …

Uncertainty Quantification In Federated Learning For Persistent Post-Traumatic Headache, Byungmoo Brian Kim

Theses and Dissertations

A post-traumatic headache (PTH), resulting from a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), potentially develops into persistent post-traumatic headache (PPTH). Although no known cure for PPTH exists, research has shown that receiving treatment at earlier stages of PTH lowers the risk of patients developing PPTH. Previous studies have shown machine learning (ML) models capable of predicting a patient’s PTH progression, but none have considered the issue of protecting patient privacy. Due to patient privacy, ML models only have access to data within the institution. Federated learning (FL) harnesses data from separate institutions without sacrificing patient privacy as institutions can run ML …

Long-Term Asset Prioritization To Support District Planning, Melissa R. Sallberg

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force (USAF) relies on its installations to project military power across the globe. However, due to the deferred infrastructure maintenance and recapitalization backlog of $33 billion as of 2019 (Wilson & Goldfein, 2019), it is more critical than ever for base-level community planners to focus their attention to the projects that will achieve each installation’s long-term goals. The recent incorporation of asset management principles into the USAF District Planning Process allows a unique opportunity to improve the existing scoring model for a holistic look at what matters to enterprise leaders and community planners making the plans …

Investigation Of Rhine Pointing As A Solution To The Aircraft Human Machine Interface Problem, Alexandra C. Dobranski, Samuel J. Medvec

Theses and Dissertations

The human machine interface in 5th generation aircraft has not evolved proportionally with advances in display size and data density. The traditional cursor slew method fails to rapidly relocate the cursor, especially on large displays. Previous studies at the Air Force Test Pilot School and Air Force Institute of Technology identified methods that have the potential to improve the human machine interface. This research expanded upon those studies by providing an assessment of head tracking technology as a secondary method of cursor manipulation. Specifically, this study examined the effects that visual feedback (visible and invisible head tracking cursors) and cursor …

A Transformer Based Architecture For Indonesian Sentiment Analysis - Exploring Indobert Variations, Training Size, And Self-Supervised Model Training, Connor F. Shaw

Theses and Dissertations

There is strong motivation in both civilian and military circles to understand the attitudes, motivations, feelings, and emotions of a population of interest. Social media is a rich source of self-disclosed information by individuals from all walks of life about virtually every domain of the human experience, but the vast quantity of data is impossible to effectively analyze without advanced natural language processing algorithms. This research creates a transfer learning based emotion classification model for Indonesian language Twitter data. Transfer learning consists of two steps: pre-training and fine tuning. Three variations of Indonesian Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (IndoBERT) are …

A Reinforcement Learning Approach To A Beyond Visual Range Air Combat Maneuvering Problem, Caleb A. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

A one-versus-one air combat maneuvering problem is considered wherein a friendly autonomous aircraft must engage and defeat an adversary autonomous aircraft in a beyond visual range environment. The Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration, and Modeling (AFSIM) is leveraged to model the complex and interdependent operations of aircraft, sensors, and weapons utilized in beyond visual range air combat. We formulate a Markov decision process to obtain high-quality decision policies wherein our autonomous aircraft makes maneuvering and missile firing decisions. We utilize a reinforcement learning solution procedure that implements a linear value function approximation to represent state-decision pairs due to the high …

Operationalizing A Culture For Successful Lean Transformations: A Framework And Model-Based Tools, Amir Najarzadeh Dr.

Theses and Dissertations--Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Lean manufacturing has been embraced by many companies as a business model to promote operational excellence. However, a high percentage of lean implementation attempts have failed; many organizations have not been able to sustain continuous improvements to achieve lean transformations. This failure is often attributed to the sole focus on the hard-side (tools) of lean, at the expense of the soft side (culture). The majority of research exploring the cultural dimensions of lean either aims to increase awareness about culture or addresses it only in a cursory manner. To bridge this gap this study aims to identify and assess the …

Accuracy Assessment Of The Ebee Using Rtk And Ppk Corrections Methods As A Function Of Distance To A Gnss Base Station, Joseph Cerreta, David Thirtyacre, Peter Miller, Scott S. Burgess, William J. Austin

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The use of unmanned aircraft systems to collect data for photogrammetry models has grown significantly in recent years. The accuracy of a photogrammetric model can depend on image georeferencing. The distance from a reference base station can affect the accuracy of the results. Positioning corrections data relies on precise timing measurements of satellite signals. The signals travel through the Earth's atmosphere, which introduces errors due to ionospheric and tropospheric delays. The aim of this research was to examine the eBee X and its global GNSS accuracy by comparing the RTK and PPK methods at different base station distances in photogrammetry …

Machine Learning Prediction Of Dod Personal Property Shipment Costs, Tiffany Tucker, Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personal property moves account for 15% of all domestic and international moves - accurate prediction of their cost could draw attention to outlier shipments and improve budget planning. In this work 136,140 shipments between 13 personal property shipment hubs from April 2022 through March 2023 with a total cost of $1.6B were analyzed. Shipment cost was predicted using recursive feature elimination on linear regression and XGBoost algorithms, as well as through neural network hyperparameter sweeps. Modeling was repeated after removing 28 features related to shipment hub location and branch of service to examine their influence …

Accelerating Manufacturing Decisions Using Bayesian Optimization: An Optimization And Prediction Perspective, Taofeeq Olajire

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Manufacturing is a promising technique for producing complex and custom-made parts with a high degree of precision. It can also provide us with desired materials and products with specified properties. To achieve that, it is crucial to find out the optimum point of process parameters that have a significant impact on the properties and quality of the final product. Unfortunately, optimizing these parameters can be challenging due to the complex and nonlinear nature of the underlying process, which becomes more complicated when there are conflicting objectives, sometimes with multiple goals. Furthermore, experiments are usually costly, time-consuming, and require expensive materials, …

Improving The Health And Safety Of Manufacturing Workers By Detecting And Addressing Personal Protective Equipment (Ppe) Violations In Real-Time With The Use Of Automated Ppe Detection Technology, Joseph Olufemi Fasinu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emphasized that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) can significantly reduce the risk of occupational injuries and illnesses. However, improper use, failure to use, and other PPE-related violations can still result in injuries and fatalities. Eye and face protection violation has been one of the top 10 most frequently violated OSHA standards in fiscal years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 consecutively. A common practice among safety professionals to ensure PPE compliance has been to physically inspect or monitor PPE usage among workers, which has been found to be unsustainable on a continuous real-time …

Practical Requirements Elicitation In Modern Product Development: A Multi-Case Study In Discontinuous Innovation, Michael King

Theses and Dissertations

Practical modern product development, specifically rapid, lean efforts to create new disrupting or specialized products, face constraints that require modified requirements elicitation (RE) techniques. Requirements elicitation conventions have not been updated to address the challenges of these approaches, and industry practitioners lack the tools to select the most efficient techniques. This study examines the RE approaches performed by three resource-limited teams conducting discontinuous new product development through a multi-case study to identify gaps between the literature and practice, with suggestions to fill them. Our findings suggest modern RE practices and challenges closely reflect those found by studies on RE in …

Towards Structured Planning And Learning At The State Fisheries Agency Scale, Caleb A. Aldridge

Theses and Dissertations

Inland recreational fisheries has grown philosophically and scientifically to consider economic and sociopolitical aspects (non-biological) in addition to the biological. However, integrating biological and non-biological aspects of inland fisheries has been challenging. Thus, an opportunity exists to develop approaches and tools which operationalize planning and decision-making processes which include biological and non-biological aspects of a fishery. This dissertation expands the idea that a core set of goals and objectives is shared among and within inland fisheries agencies; that many routine operations of inland fisheries managers can be regimented or standardized; and the novel concept that current information and operations can …

Cooperative Wide Area Search Algorithm Analysis Using Sub-Region Techniques, Shawn Whitney

Theses and Dissertations

Recent advances in small Unmmaned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology reinvigorates the need for additional research into Wide Area Search (WAS) algorithms for civilian and military applications. But due to the extremely large variability in UAV environments and design, Digital Engineering (DE) is utilized to reduce the time, cost, and energy required to advance this technology. DE also allows rapid design and evaluation of autonomous systems which utilize and support WAS algorithms. Modern WAS algorithms can be broadly classified into decision-based algorithms, statistical algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. This research continues on the work by Hatzinger and Gertsman …

Operational And Cost Analysis Of A Leo Radar-Based Satellite Constellation, Kyle O. Norbert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a methodology to assess the ability of a Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to successfully accomplish the GMTI mission in a cost-effective fashion. A simulation model was developed to test the coverage performance of 512 unique constellation designs. Significant factors were revealed by developing regression models that revealed the most critical constellation trade-offs on measures of performance. A Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) approach was applied to assign weights to a broad range of measures of performance from which the Pareto distribution on a cost-capability plot revealed cost-effectiveness. A novel measure of performance was developed and analyzed that accounted …

Essays On Perioperative Services Problems In Healthcare, Amogh S. Bhosekar

All Dissertations

One of the critical challenges in healthcare operations management is to efficiently utilize the expensive resources needed while maintaining the quality of care provided. Simulation and optimization methods can be effectively used to provide better healthcare services. This can be achieved by developing models to minimize patient waiting times, minimize healthcare supply chain and logistics costs, and maximize access. In this proposal, we study some of the important problems in healthcare operations management. More specifically, we focus on perioperative services and study scheduling of operating rooms (ORs) and management of necessary resources such as staff, equipment, and surgical instruments. We …

Novel Hitch Cargo Cart, Cesilio Sanchez Ramirez, Lance Haidet, Richard Lontoc, Tyler Selinka

Mechanical Engineering

This document presents the engineering design process used to develop, manufacture, and test a new and improved iteration of a hitch cart prototype. This process was performed by a team of four mechanical engineering seniors as part of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo’s senior design pathway. The goal of this project was to develop a sturdy and reliable iteration of our sponsor’s hitch cart prototype, that integrated the functionality of a vehicle hitch cargo platform and that of a height adjustable cargo cart into a single streamlined and easy to use product. This design could be used by …

Project Selection In Facility And Infrastructure Maintenance Organizations, Bayram M. Kurbanov

Theses and Dissertations

The current Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) built infrastructure Facility Sustainment Restoration and Modernization (FSRM) portfolio management methodology results in an unbalanced project portfolio. The consequence of this unbalance is that majority of the funding goes towards buildings on the flightline and Facility Support Services activities do not get adequate funding which leads to further deterioration of those facilities. This research investigates whether decision support framework based on Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) process yields better project selection outcomes for facility and infrastructure maintenance organizations. To accomplish that, the investigation focuses on understanding current AFCEC decision support methodology, building an alternative …

Evaluating Performance Competencies In The Royal Saudi Air Force Engineering Directorate And Squadrons, Faisal A. Al Dawood

Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of tasks performed by the directorate of aeronautical engineering and squadrons in RSAF directly impacts flight safety, which in turn influences the organization either positively or negatively. Therefore, improving engineers' competencies will improve the overall performance of the organization. The study refined and reconstructed a model, namely a T-shape competency model, to assess the engineers' competencies which revealed some management and competency-related deficiencies and concluded with managerial recommendations.

Root-Cause Analysis Of Rsaf Maintenance-Related Flight Safety Mishaps, Heaf H. Alqahtani

Theses and Dissertations

Poor maintenance is a major factor in many aviation mishaps. This is due to the fact that some maintenance activities are carried out improperly or overlooked as a result of human error. It is important to acknowledge that maintenance mistakes are a visible sign of deeper organizational issues. Therefore, adequate solutions to maintenance issues must consider organizational influences. Despite efforts to reduce the accident rate within the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF), the RSAF suffers from an increasing trend in mishaps attributed to maintenance. Therefore, safety data was analyzed to examine trends. Additionally, the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System …

Evaluating Safety And Productivity Relationship In Human-Robot Collaboration, Aayush Jain, Shakra Mehak, Philip Long, John D. Kelleher, Michael Guilfoyle, Maria Chiara Leva

Conference papers

Collaborative robots can improve ergonomics on factory floors while allowing a higher level of flexibility in production. The evolution of robotics and cyber-physical systems in size and functionality has enabled new applications which were never foreseen in traditional industrial robots. However, the current human-robot collaboration (HRC) technologies are limited in reliability and safety, which are vital in risk-critical scenarios. Certainly, confusion about European safety regulations has led to situations where collaborative robots operate behind security barriers, thus negating their advantages while reducing overall application productivity. Despite recent advances, developing a safe collaborative robotic system for performing complex industrial or daily …

Manufacturing & Service Systems, Robert S. Keyser

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

An analysis of decision making in the current production environment and the tools and optimization models needed for finding solutions to problems relating to production planning and scheduling, inventory, and warehouse design.

Improving Patient Safety, Patient Flow And Physician Well-Being In Emergency Departments, Vishnunarayan Girishan Prabhu

All Dissertations

Over 151 million people visit US Emergency Departments (EDs) annually. The diverse nature and overwhelming volume of patient visits make the ED one of the most complicated settings in healthcare to study. ED overcrowding is a recognized worldwide public health problem, and its negative impacts include patient safety concerns, increased patient length of stay, medical errors, patients left without being seen, ambulance diversions, and increased health system expenditure. Additionally, ED crowding has been identified as a leading contributor to patient morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, this chaotic working environment affects the well-being of all ED staff through increased frustration, workload, stress, …