Systems Engineering Commons^™

Mob-Air: Sensing Package Development For Maritime Search And Rescue Uav, Rachel Jacobsen, Liam Abraham, Ethan Thomas, Madeline Thomson, Nikolaos Triantafilloy

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Man-overboard (MOB) search and rescue (SAR) operations present a persistent maritime challenge, where rapid and reliable detection of a person in the water is critical to mission success. MOB-Air is developing a modular sensing package for an unmanned aerial system (UAS) to enhance SAR missions through autonomous human detection in maritime environments. This capability directly supports Navy maritime operations by improving overboard recovery, reducing search timelines, and enabling persistent aerial monitoring in contested or resource-constrained environments. The system evaluates thermal and visual imaging sensors using a custom horizontal-rail testing frame with a mobile payload. A ROS 2–based software architecture supports …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Ai-Scm Cmm: A Capability Maturity Model For Artificial Intelligence Integration In Supply Chain Management, Lordt Becklines, Omar F. El-Gayar, Patti Brooks, Insu Park

Annual Research Symposium

Artificial intelligence is increasingly deployed in supply chain management, yet many organizations struggle to align adoption efforts with process readiness, data quality, governance, and workforce capabilities, and they still lack validated supply chain specific roadmap for assessing readiness, sequencing investments, and reducing implementation risk. This study develops and evaluates a Capability Maturity Model for Artificial Intelligence Integration in Supply Chain Management to address that gap. Using a design science research approach, the study synthesizes prior literature and practitioner knowledge to define maturity dimensions, capability indicators, and staged progression levels for AI integration in supply chain contexts. The artifact and assessment …

How’S It Growing? Tools For Observing Snow And Sea Ice In A Changing Arctic Ocean, Ian Alexander Raphael

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

September Arctic sea ice extent has diminished by roughly 50% in the 45 years since satellite observations began. The Arctic Ocean may experience ice-free summers within the next decade, with implications for habitat, resource extraction, geopolitics, and local and global climate change. To predict how Arctic sea ice will change in the future, we need to understand its behavior in the present. In situ sea ice mass balance measurements (snow accumulation, ice growth, snow and ice surface melt, and bottom melt) are essential for studying the processes driving rapid changes in the ice pack, and for validating remote sensing measurements …

Graphtreemed: A Hybrid Graph-Tree Rag Architecture For Mission-Critical Medical Applications, Joshit Mohanty, Sandeep Kumar Nayak, Sumit Lahiri

Graduate Student Government Association Research Conference

Studies within engineering management indicate that decision-making is often based on the cognitive processing of grouped and pictographic information clusters entangled with high-level pattern recognition. Similarly, graph-based retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures substantially improve diagnostic accuracy and interpretability, while tree-structured systems reduce critical misses through hierarchical reasoning. However, existing solutions often lack a unified framework that seamlessly integrates these two paradigms to address the multifaceted demands of mission-critical healthcare settings. This proposal introduces GraphTreeMed, a novel hybrid RAG architecture designed to harness the complementary strengths of graph-based and tree-based retrieval mechanisms, thereby advancing the safety and efficacy of clinical decision support …

Motivating Sustainability Through The State Of Biologically Inspired Design, Bryan Watson

Sustainability Conference

There are multiple arguements for sustainability, but one that resonates with environmentalists and the public alike is the need for preservation to all us to discovery natural solutions to our problems. Common examples often given include medical discoveries, unique mechanisms, and new materials. This presentation focuses on two ideas to motivate sustainability. First, what is the current state of biologically inspired design? Is there more to learn from nature? To answer these questions, recent research is presented which examined 660 Biologically Inspired Design samples from three data sources: Google Scholar, Google News, and the Asknature.org “Innovations” database. The data were …

Optimization Of Human Interactions In The College Campus Model Via Simio Integration, Benjamin E. Chaback

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

College campuses are a significant part of life in some cities. Many students each year attend university, pursuing additional knowledge from faculty members. Both staff and faculty members rely on these students to have successful jobs and to ensure the university functions. Yet recently, more and more students are attending, leading to overcrowding, lower admission rates, and difficulty getting into good programs. Previous work exists on qualitative student affairs and quantitative retention data, yet little on using simulations to model this problem. This work aimed to (a) Determine the ability to successfully model human interactions/people flow on a college campus, …

Kwad - Ksu All Weather Autonomous Drone, Nick Farinacci, Sebastian Gomez, Stewart Baker, Ed Sheridan

Symposium of Student Scholars

"KWAD" or "KSU all-Weather Autonomous Drone" project was sponsored by Ultool, LLC to the KSU Research and Service Foundation to create a lightweight drone capable of capturing HD video during all-weather operations. The conditions of all-weather operation include rainfall of one inch per hour and wind speeds of up to twenty miles per hour. In addition, a global minimum structural safety factor of two is required to ensure the system's integrity in extreme weather conditions. Potential mission profiles include autonomous aerial delivery, topological mapping in high moisture areas, security surveillance, search and rescue operations, emergency transportation of medical supplies, and …

Resilience Model For Teams Of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uav) Executing Surveillance Missions, Robert Koeneke

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Teams of low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have gained acceptance as an alternative for cooperatively searching and surveilling terrains. These UAVs are assembled with low-reliability components, so unit failures are possible. Losing UAVs to failures decreases the team's coverage efficiency and impacts communication, given that UAVs are also communication nodes. Such is the case of a Flying Ad Hoc Network (FANET), where the failure of a communication node may isolate segments of the network covering several nodes. The main goal of this study is to develop a resilience model that would allow us to analyze the effects of individual UAV …

Tank Level Controller Plc Lab, Siddhi Upadhyaya, Teghvir Grewal

Electrical Engineering

The California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo’s Electrical Engineering Department is currently developing lab experiments for the new EE435 (Industrial Power Control and Automation) class. In order to support these efforts, fourth year Cal Poly students are expected to develop laboratory experiments that will be conducted during this new class for the semester system. The lab experiment focused on in this project is called the Tank Level Controller. This experiment will introduce EE 435 students to Schneider Electric Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) hardware and software, which is prominent in the automation industry.
This experiment will require students to develop …

Cybersecurity In Industrial Automation Lab Design For Ee 435, Jules Khalil Emile Hajjar, Emily Zhou

Electrical Engineering

This project involves the creation of an instructional laboratory aimed at teaching cybersecurity for industrial automation applications. Specifically tailored for Electrical Engineering students at Cal Poly, the experiment focuses on configuring the Modicon M580, a PLC from Schneider Electric, and serves to introduce students to relevant cybersecurity protocols and techniques. This project will be implemented into the EE435 (Industrial Power Control and Automation) course curriculum upon Cal Poly’s transition to the semester system.

Framework For Data Acquisition And Fusion Of Camera And Radar For Autonomous Vehicle Systems, Clay Edward Vincent

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The primary contribution is the development of the data collection testing methodology for autonomous driving systems of a hybrid electric passenger vehicle. As automotive manufacturers begin to develop adaptive cruise control technology in vehicles, progress is being made toward the development of fully-autonomous vehicles. Adaptive cruise control capability is classified into five levels defined by the Society of Automotive Engineering. Some vehicles under development have attained higher levels of autonomy, but the focus of most commercial development is Level 2 autonomy. As the level of autonomy increases, the sensor technology becomes more advanced with a sensor suite which includes radar, …

Efficiently Estimating Survival Signature And Two-Terminal Reliability Of Heterogeneous Networks Through Multi-Objective Optimization, Daniel Bruno Lopes Da Silva

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The two-terminal reliability problem is a classical reliability problem with applications in wired and wireless communication networks, electronic circuit design, computer networks, and electrical power distribution, among other systems. However, the two-terminal reliability problem is among the hardest combinatorial problems and is intractable for large, complex networks. Several exact methods to solve the two-terminal reliability problem have been proposed since the 1960s, but they have exponential time complexity in general. Hence, practical studies involving large network-type systems resort to approximation methods to estimate the system's reliability. One attractive approach for quantifying the reliability of complex systems is to use signatures, …

Integrated Cyberattack Detection And Handling For Nonlinear Systems With Evolving Process Dynamics Under Lyapunov-Based Economic Model Predictive Control, Keshav Kasturi Rangan, Henrique Oyama, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

Safety-critical processes are becoming increasingly automated and connected. While automation can increase effciency, it brings new challenges associated with guaranteeing safety in the presence of uncertainty especially in the presence of control system cyberattacks. One of the challenges for developing control strategies with guaranteed safety and cybersecurity properties under suffcient conditions is the development of appropriate detection strategies that work with control laws to prevent undetected attacks that have immediate closed-loop stability consequences. Achieving this, in the presence of uncertainty brought about by plant/model mismatch and process dynamics that can change with time, requires a fundamental understanding of the characteristics …

Continuity Of Chen-Fliess Series For Applications In System Identification And Machine Learning, Rafael Dahmen, W. Steven Gray, Alexander Schmeding

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Model continuity plays an important role in applications like system identification, adaptive control, and machine learning. This paper provides sufficient conditions under which input-output systems represented by locally convergent Chen-Fliess series are jointly continuous with respect to their generating series and as operators mapping a ball in an Lp-space to a ball in an Lq-space, where p and q are conjugate exponents. The starting point is to introduce a class of topological vector spaces known as Silva spaces to frame the problem and then to employ the concept of a direct limit to describe convergence. The proof of the main …

Low Latency Anomaly Detection With Imperfect Models, Samrat Nath

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The problem of anomaly detection deals with detecting abrupt changes/anomalies in the distribution of sequentially observed data in a stochastic system. This problem applies to many applications, such as signal processing, intrusion detection, quality control, medical diagnosis, etc. A low latency anomaly detection algorithm, which is based on the framework of quickest change detection (QCD), aims at minimizing the detection delay of anomalies in the sequentially observed data while ensuring satisfactory detection accuracy. Moreover, in many practical applications, complete knowledge of the post-change distribution model might not be available due to the unexpected nature of the change. Hence, the objective …

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 …

Resource Allocation And Task Scheduling Optimization In Cloud-Based Content Delivery Networks With Edge Computing, Yang Peng

Operations Research and Engineering Management Theses and Dissertations

The extensive growth in adoption of mobile devices pushes global Internet protocol (IP) traffic to grow and content delivery network (CDN) will carry 72 percent of total Internet traffic by 2022, up from 56 percent in 2017. In this praxis, Interconnected Cache Edge (ICE) based on different public cloud infrastructures with multiple edge computing sites is considered to help CDN service providers (SPs) to maximize their operational profit. The problem of resource allocation and performance optimization is studied in order to maximize the cache hit ratio with available CDN capacity.

The considered problem is formulated as a multi-stage stochastic linear …

Development Of A Myoelectric Detection Circuit Platform For Computer Interface Applications, Nickolas Andrew Butler

Master's Theses

Personal computers and portable electronics continue to rapidly advance and integrate into our lives as tools that facilitate efficient communication and interaction with the outside world. Now with a multitude of different devices available, personal computers are accessible to a wider audience than ever before. To continue to expand and reach new users, novel user interface technologies have been developed, such as touch input and gyroscopic motion, in which enhanced control fidelity can be achieved. For users with limited-to-no use of their hands, or for those who seek additional means to intuitively use and command a computer, novel sensory systems …

Applications Of Complex Network Analysis In Electric Power Systems, Mahmoud Saleh, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

This paper provides a review of the research conducted on complex network analysis (CNA) in electric power systems. Moreover, a new approach is presented to find optimal locations for microgrids (MGs) in electric distribution systems (EDS) utilizing complex network analysis. The optimal placement in this paper points to the location that will result in enhanced grid resilience, reduced power losses and line loading, better voltage stability, and a supply to critical loads during a blackout. The criteria used to point out the optimal placement of the MGs were predicated on the centrality analysis selected from the complex network theory, the …

Collaborative Appearance-Based Place Recognition And Improving Place Recognition Using Detection Of Dynamic Objects, Juan Pablo Munoz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation makes contributions to the problem of Long-Term Appearance-Based Place Recognition. We present a framework for place recognition in a collaborative scheme and a method to reduce the impact of dynamic objects on place representations. We demonstrate our findings using a state-of-the-art place recognition approach.

We begin in Part I by describing the general problem of place recognition and its importance in applications where accurate localization is crucial. We discuss feature detection and description and also explain the functioning of several place recognition frameworks.

In Part II, we present a novel framework for collaboration between agents from a pure …

Communication Based Control For Dc Microgrids, Mahmoud S. Saleh, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

Centralized communication-based control is one of the main methods that can be implemented to achieve autonomous advanced energy management capabilities in DC microgrids. However, its major limitation is the fact that communication bandwidth and computation resources are limited in practical applications. This can be often improved by avoiding redundant communications and complex computations. In this paper, an autonomous communication-based hybrid state/event driven control scheme is proposed. This control scheme is hierarchical and heuristic, such that on the primary control level, it encompasses state-driven local controllers, and on the secondary control level, an event-driven MG centralized controller (MGCC) is used. This …

Quantitative Analysis Of Regenerative Energy In Electric Rail Traction Systems, Mahmoud Saleh, Oindrilla Dutta, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

This paper aims at determining the influential factors affecting regenerative braking energy in DC rail transit systems. This has been achieved by quantitatively evaluating the dependence of regenerative energy on various parameters, such as vehicle dynamics, train scheduling, ground inclination and efficiency of the electrical devices. The recuperated power and energy have been presented by a mathematical model, comprising of a set of empirical forms, which allows for thorough analysis. A detailed simulation model of a typical DC-traction system has been developed to validate the developed empirical forms. The results verified the validity of the proposed mathematical model, and demonstrated …

An Exact Analysis For Four-Order Acousto-Optic Bragg Diffraction Which Incorporates Both Incident Light Angle And Sound Frequency Dependencies, Adeyinka Sunday Ademola

Electrical Engineering Theses

This thesis extends the prior work which produced an exact solution to the four-order acousto-optic (AO) Bragg cell with assumed fixed center frequency and with exact Bragg angle incident light. The extension predicts the model that incorporates the dependencies of both the input angle of light and the sound frequency. Specifically, a generalized 4^th order linear differential equation (DE), is developed from a simultaneous analysis of four coupled AO system of DEs. Through standard methods, the characteristic roots, which requires solving a quartic equation, is produced. Subsequently, a derived system of homogeneous solutions, which absorbs the roots obtained using …

Target Read Operation Of Passive Ultra High Frequency Rfid Tag In A Multiple Tags Environment, Zi Qin Phua

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency Identification (RFID) has emerged as a promising solution for many industrial applications. Passive UHF systems are relatively inexpensive to implement and monitor, as no line of sight is required for the communication. There are several advantages to using a passive RFID system. For example, no internal power source is required to activate the tags, and lower labor costs and efficient multitasking operations are expected in a long term scenario. However, due to factors such as tag-to-tag interference and inaccurate localization, RFID tags that are closely spaced together are difficult to detect and program accurately …

Experimental Investigation Of Reading Passive Uhf Tags In A Multi-Tag Environment, Yi Zhou

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Recently, the Internet of things (IoT) has emerged as a promising solution for several industrial applications. One of the key components in IoT is passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tags which do not require a power source for operations. Specifically, ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags are studied in this paper. However, due to factors such as tag-to-tag interference and inaccurate localization, RFID tags that are closely spaced together are difficult to detect and program accurately with unique identifiers. This thesis investigates several factors that affect the ability to encode a specific tag with unique information in the presence of other tags, …

Impact Of Clustering Microgrids On Their Stability And Resilience During Blackouts, Mahmoud S. Saleh, Ammar Althaibani, Yusef Esa, Yassine Mhandi, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

In this paper, the impact of clustering multiple microgrids during blackouts, on their stability and supply availability, will be investigated. Microgrids have the capability of satisfying their emergency loads during blackouts. However, distributed energy resources (DERs)-dominated microgrids are affected by the uncertainty of their input energy supply, e.g. impact of solar irradiance on photovoltaic (PV) output. Moreover, an individual islanded microgrid is prone to instability issues due to large sudden load/generation changes. In order to increase the supply security, and enhance system stability, we propose to use the existing distribution grid infrastructure, if applicable, during blackouts to form microgrid clusters. …