Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Diverse Impacts Of Commercial Ev Charging Load Infrastructure On Electric Power Grid, Antonio Avila

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the rising prominence of electric vehicles (EVs) in the transportation sector, this thesis delves into the critical nexus between commercial EVs, charging infrastructure, and their consequential impacts on the power grid. As commercial EVs, particularly medium and heavy-duty variants, gain traction as viable alternatives in the commercial transportation landscape, understanding the intricacies of their charging requirements becomes paramount. This thesis critically examines the technological and logistical dimensions of the charging infrastructure for supporting commercial EVs, evaluating the consequential implications on the power grid and proposing strategies for mitigation through the utilization of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). In tandem with …

Inkjet-Printed Electrochemical Sensors For Lead Detection, Annatoma Arif

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This PhD dissertation research has developed a simple, miniaturized, sensitive, selective, reproducible, and disposable 3D (inkjet printed – additive manufacturing technology) gold (Au) plated electrochemical sensor (ECS) on shape memory polymer (SMP) for aqueous lead detection. This technology has shown promising performance in the application of electrochemical sensing (lead (II) detection) due to increased effective electrode surface area (7.25 mm^2 ± 0.15 mm^2) despite miniaturizing lateral surface area (4.19 mm^2). The design, fabrication processes, optimization including bismuth functionalization, evaluation, uncertainty analysis, and cost analysis of the novel SMP based inkjet printed Au plated sensor have been delineated in this manuscript …

Addressing The Challenged Of Dcop Based Decision-Making Algorithms In Modern Power Systems, Luis Daniel Ramirez Burgueno

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Natural disasters have been determined as the leading cause of power outages, causing not only huge economic losses, but also the interruption of crucial welfare activities and the arise of security concerns. Because of the later, decision-making considering grid modernization, power system economics, and system resiliency has been a crucial theme in power systemsâ?? research. The need to better withstand catastrophic events and reducing the dependency of bulky generating units has propelled the development and better management of behind-the-meter generation or distributed energy resources (DERs). DERs can assist in the grid in different manners, not only by meeting energy demand …

Diverse Effects Of Ev Charging Infrastructure On Electric Power Distribution Systems, Travis Michael Moore Newbolt

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The advanced technology of today has allowed for an avenue into cleaner forms of energy that will not only protect our environment but also continue to advance our society. Among the many forms of clean energy, electric vehicles (EV) have the potential to mitigate our consumption of fossil fuels in vehicle transportation industries. In the U.S. for 2021, EVs account for approximately 700,000 registrations. That number is projected to increase to 2 million by 2030. Although EVs do reduce the number of emissions when compared to an internal combustion engine, they do however shift the responsibility to utility companies to …

An Unmanned Surface Vehicle: Autonomous Sensor Integration System For Bathymetric Surveys, Fernando Sotelo Torres

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) have been applied to earth sciences, with only a few studies conducted in water environments, as these systems provide autonomous measurement capabilities and transferability to other environmental settings. In this thesis, a reliable, yet economical, USV has been developed for bathymetric surveying of lakes. The system combines an autonomous navigation framework, environmental sensors and a multibeam echosounder to collect submerged topography, temperature, windspeed and monitor the vehicle status during prescribed path planning missions.

The main objective of this study is to provide a methodological framework to build a USV, with independent decision-making, efficient control, and long-range …

Grid-Connected Renewable Energy Systems For Residential Hvac Load Management, Oscar Samuel Acosta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With an ongoing mission of utility operators to maintain a resilient and reliable power grid in the face of continuously increasing load demand, it is essential that advancements be made in developing both technology and methodology to help account for the increasing energy requirements. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Energy Information Administration (EIA), the residential end-use sector alone counted for 22% of all electricity used in the U.S. in 2020. Of this, approximately 32% of household electricity load is the direct result of air conditioning and space heating units (HVAC). One way to account for this …

Goes-16 Level 2 Land Surface Temperature Product-Filling For Cloud Masked Data, Guadalupe Ortega

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The GOES-16 satellite ground segment team develops different levels of environmental products and makes them readily available to the public. The level 2 Land Surface Temperature (LST) product aims to provide a remote measurement of the Earth’s surface temperature every hour. LST is of fundamental importance to many aspects of the geosciences, for example, to study the Urban Heat Islands (UHI) effect. The product however, does not provide values for pixels where the satellite imager’s view is obstructed by clouds, as determined by a cloud mask intermediate product. The objective of this thesis is to estimate LST in the cloud …

Non-Invasive In-Vitro Glucose Monitoring Using Optical Sensor And Machine Learning Techniques For Diabetes Applications, Maryamsadat Shokrekhodaei

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Diabetes is a major public health challenge affecting more than 451 million people. Physiological and experimental factors influence the accuracy of non-invasive glucose monitoring, and these need to be addressed before replacing the finger prick method with a non-invasive glucose measurement technique. Also, the suitable employment of machine learning techniques on experimental data can significantly improve the accuracy of glucose predictions.

This work includes the design, development, testing and data analysis of an optical based sensor for glucose measurements. The feasibility of non-invasive measurement of glucose within aqueous solutions that assimilate the composition of human blood plasma is investigated. The …

Fast Magnetic Resonance Image Reconstruction With Deep Learning Using An Efficientnet Encoder, Tahsin Rahman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis aims to develop an efficient, deep network based method for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) acceleration through undersampled MR image reconstruction. Deep Neural Networks, particularly Deep Convolutional Networks, have been demonstrated to be highly effective in a wide variety of computer vision tasks, including MRI reconstruction. However, modern highly efficient encoder structures, such as the EfficientNet can potentially reduce reconstruction times further while improving reconstruction quality. To that end, we have developed a multi-channel U-Net MRI reconstruction network which uses an EfficientNet encoder and a custom asymmetric. The network was trained and tested using 5x undersampled multi-channel brain MR …

Hardware For Quantized Mixed-Precision Deep Neural Networks, Andres Rios

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Recently, there has been a push to perform deep learning (DL) computations on the edge rather than the cloud due to latency, network connectivity, energy consumption, and privacy issues. However, state-of-the-art deep neural networks (DNNs) require vast amounts of computational power, data, and energyâ??resources that are limited on edge devices. This limitation has brought the need to design domain-specific architectures (DSAs) that implement DL-specific hardware optimizations. Traditionally DNNs have run on 32-bit floating-point numbers; however, a body of research has shown that DNNs are surprisingly robust and do not require all 32 bits. Instead, using quantization, networks can run on …

Discrepancy-Based Analysis Of Measurement Sampling Points In Compressive Sensing, Felipe Batista Da Silva

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Compressive sensing (CS) is a technique in signal processing that under certain conditions allows someone to reconstruct sparse signals from fewer linear measurements. A problem in CS is modeled in terms of an underdetermined linear system, whose associated matrix is previously designed. Then, it is of interest in CS to know what a good sampling defined by the sensing matrix is and how to measure it. In this work, we provided analytical proofs of properties of the metric discrepancy that allow us to propose a fast algorithm for discrepancy calculation. Such metric measures the quality of the sampling measurement points …

Photovoltage Enhancement For Stable Perovskite Solar Cells With A Temperature-Controlled Grain Growth Technique, Luis Eduardo Valerio

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

By performing strong characterizations methods, one can begin to fully understand the chemistry and composition behind a great performing perovskite solar cell. Understanding how the interaction between layers inside a solar cell is driven by the temperature and overall environment is a key element to improve the fabrication process and overall efficiency of such cells. This Thesis will present a study of the hybrid organic-inorganic, mixed-cation, mixed-halide, temperature and thickness-controlled perovskite solar cell. A constant power conversion efficiency (PCE) ranging between 15-17% and an open circuit voltage V¬oc above 1.05 V for a wide-band gap perovskite cell is presented.

Improving Time-Of-Flight And Other Depth Images: Super-Resolution And Denoising Using Variational Methods, Salvador Canales Andrade

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Depth information is a new important source of perception for machines, which allow them to have a better representation of the surroundings. The depth information provides a more precise map of the location of every object and surfaces in a space of interest in comparison with conventional cameras. Time of flight (ToF) cameras provide one of the techniques to acquire depth maps, however they produce low spatial resolution and noisy maps. This research proposes a framework to enhance and up-scale depth maps by using two different regularization terms: Total Generalized Variation (TGV) and Total Generalized Variation with a Structure Tensor …

Analysis Of High Performance Scientific Programming Workflows, Withana Kankanamalage Umayanganie Klaassen

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Substantial time is spent on building, optimizing and maintaining large-scale software that is run on supercomputers. However, little has been done to utilize overall resources efficiently when it comes to including expensive human resources. The community is beginning to acknowledge that optimizing the hardware performance such as speed and memory bottlenecks contributes less to the overall productivity than does the development lifecycle of high-performance scientific applications. Researchers are beginning to look at overall scientific workflows for high performance computing. Scientific programming productivity is measured by time and effort required to develop, configure, and maintain a simulation experiment and its constituent …

Parallelization And Scalability Analysis Of The \\[1pc] 3d Spatially Variant Lattice Algorithm, Henry Roger Moncada Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to design a faster implementation of an algorithm to generate 3D spatially variant lattices (SVL) and improve its performance when it is running on a parallel computer system. The algorithm is used to synthesize a SVL for a periodic structure. The algorithm has the ability to spatially vary the unit cell, the orientation of the unit cells, lattice spacing, fill fraction, material composition, and lattice symmetry. The algorithm produces a lattice that is smooth, continuous and free of defects. The lattice spacing remains strikingly uniform even when the lattice is spatially varied. This is …

Bragg Gratings In Polarization Maintaining Optical Fiber As Three Dimensional Strain Sensor, Joel Quintana

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Fiber-Bragg Gratings (FBG) for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) have been studied extensively as they offer electrically passive operation, electromagnetic interference (EMI) immunity, high sensitivity and multiplexing as compared to conventional electric strain sensors. FBG sensors written within polarization maintaining (PM) optical fiber offer ad- ditional dimensions of strain measurement, greatly reducing the number of sensors needed to properly monitor a structure. This reduction however, adds complexity to the dis- crimination of the sensorâ??s optical response to its corresponding applied strains. This Dissertation defines the set of algorithms needed to measure planar strain using PM-FBGs exclusively. It defines the minimum number …

Compressive Vector Reconstruction: Hypothesis For Blind Image Deconvolution, Alonso Orea Amador

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Alternative imaging devices propose to acquire and compress images simultaneously. These devices are based on the compressive sensing (CS) theory. A reduction in the measurement required for reconstruction without a post-compression sub-system allows imaging devices to become simpler, smaller, and cheaper. In this research, we propose a new algorithm to compress and reconstruct blurred images for CS imaging devices. Blur effect in images is common due to relative motion, lens, limited aperture dimensions, lack of focus, and/or atmospheric turbulence. Our intention is to compress a blurred image with CS techniques and then reconstruct a blur-free version using the proposed algorithm. …

Optimization Of Neural Network Architecture For Classification Of Radar Jamming Fm Signals, Alberto Soto

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Radar jamming signal classification is valuable when situational awareness of radar systems is sought out for timely deployment of electronic support measures. Our Thesis shows that artificial neural networks can be utilized for effective and efficient signal classification. The goal is to optimize an artificial Neural Network (NN) approach capable of distinguishing between two common radar waveforms, namely bandlimited white Gaussian jamming noise (BWGN) and the ubiquitous linearly frequency modulated (LFM) signal. This is made possible by creating a theoretical framework for NN architecture testing that leads to a high probability of detection (PD) and a low probability of false …

Classification Of Radar Jammer Fm Signals Using A Neural Network Approach, Ariadna Estefania Mendoza

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A Neural Network (NN) used to classify radar signals is proposed for the purpose of military survivability and lethality analysis. The goal of the NN is to correctly differentiate Frequency-Modulated (FM) signals from Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) using limited signal pre-processing. The FM signals used to test the NN approach are the linear or chirp FM and the power-law FM. Preliminary simulations using the moments of the signals in the time and frequency domain yielded better results in the frequency domain, suggesting that time domain training would not be as effective frequency domain training. To test this hypoThesis, we …

Adaptive Switched Capacitor Voltage Boost For Thermoelectric Generation, Rene A. Brito

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Thermoelectric generators (TEG) and other forms of energy harvesting often provide voltages that are not directly usable by traditional electronics as levels are too low from the TEG. While increasing the number of thermoelectric elements can ultimately increase the power output, there is a tradeoff between size and power. By implementing charge pumps, a proposed circuit technique is described that can boost the TEG output to levels that can be used for energy harvesting applications. Current voltage boost circuits for TEGs simply boost a voltage by a set amount. The proposed circuit consists of an analog chip, to provide several …

Touch And Step Potential Analysis At 23.9kv To 4.16kv & 13.8kv To 4.16kv Distribution Substations With Pad-Mounted Transformers, Floating Grounds, And Other Exposed Ungrounded Metal Bodies Using Winigs, David Guillermo Guzman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

An electrical substation is composed of various subsystems that allow for the effective and safe operation of the power grid. One of the subsystems integrating a conventional substation is defined as the ground grid system. This system allows for the effective operation of the power grid and all the electrical equipment connected to it by providing a ground potential reference, commonly known as the system ground. In addition, the ground grid system provides safety to the workers and the public transiting inside or living nearby a substation by reducing the step and touch potential (or voltage) levels present during a …

Reliable And Secure Scada Framework For Residential Microgrid Communications, Goutham Krishna Chalamasetty

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Cyber security is one of the major needs for electric power industry like many other industries and organizations. The advancements in technology provide numerous benefits to power industry as well as benefits cyber attackers to perform different cyber-attacks on the industry. Power system is a complex physical entity that deals with power generation, distribution, and transmission. In general, no individual or company or an organization can bear a one hour power cut, which shows the need for reliability in electric power industry.

In order to develop a reliable and secure Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) communication network, this Thesis …

Design And Evaluation Of The Impact Of A Multi-Agent Control System (Framework) Applied To A Social Setting, Perez Antonio Perez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this research is to design and analyze the performance of a new mechanism to improve the advising of students in a nontraditional environment. This nontraditional environment includes: a minority serving, commuter campus with a high percentage of transfer students. Specifically, these demographics are unable to keep a tightly controlled cohort of students flowing through to the completion of the curriculum. Students in these circumstances usually have varied course loads and competing priorities due to family and financial needs or other societal responsibilities. Therefore, there is a need for an individualized approach to advising.

University administrations face challenges …

Creating Multi-Functional G-Code For Multi-Process Additive Manufacturing, Efrain Aguilera Jr

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) started over thirty years ago and with it a manufacturing revolution that moves industrial production into the personal home. With recent interest shifting into multi-functional parts fabricated through AM technologies, unified systems are being developed. Merging different manufacturing technologies into one single machine is a challenge but undergoing research has shown promise in the development of multi-functional systems. Concurrent work is being done in the software, automation, and hardware aspect of multi-functional systems. An effort to use industry compatible Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to design multi-functional parts including circuits, micro-machining, and foil embedding then exporting and …

Modeling Of Piezoelectric Traveling Wave Rotary Ultrasonic Motors With The Finite Volume Method, Ivan Arturo Renteria Marquez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In 1983 Toshiiku Sashida developed a new motor concept called Piezoelectric Traveling Wave Rotary Ultrasonic Motor (PTRUSM). The advantages of these motors include high torque at low speed, absence of a generated magnetic field, and high potential for miniaturization. Unfortunately PTRUSMs have some disadvantages that limit the areas of applications for these types of motors. The disadvantages are a short operating life (about 1000 hours), small output power, and the need of a complex motor controller.

On one hand, these motors have been used in satellites, mobile phones, photocopiers, robotic arms, telescopes, automobiles, and camera autofocusing. On the other hand, …

Synchronization Of Bistatic Radar Using Chaotic Amplitude And Frequency Modulated Signals, Chandra Sekhar Pappu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this work is to develop a synchronization scheme for bistatic radar that uses a 3-D chaotic system to generate and process wideband AM and FM signals, which allows for the extraction of high range-resolution information from targets. For AM bistatic radar, the setup includes a drive oscillator at the transmitter and a response oscillator at the receiver. The challenge is synchronizing the response oscillator to the drive oscillator with a scaled version of the transmitted signal sr(t, x) = αs t(t, x), where x is a chaotic state variable and α is a scaling factor. Here, α …

Novel Classification Of Slow Movement Objects In Urban Traffic Environments Using Wideband Pulse Doppler Radar, Berta Rodriguez Hervas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Every year thousands of people are involved in traffic accidents, some of which are fatal. An important percentage of these fatalities are caused by human error, which could be prevented by increasing the awareness of drivers and the autonomy of vehicles. Since driver assistance systems have the potential to positively impact tens of millions of people, the purpose of this research is to study the micro-Doppler characteristics of vulnerable urban traffic components, i.e. pedestrians and bicyclists, based on information obtained from radar backscatter, and to develop a classification technique that allows automatic target recognition with a vehicle integrated system. For …

Computation Offloading Decisions For Reducing Completion Time, Salvador Melendez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Mobile devices are being widely used in many applications such as image processing, computer vision (e.g. face detection and recognition), wearable computing, language translation, and battlefield operations. However, mobile devices are constrained in terms of their battery life, processor performance, storage capacity, and network bandwidth. To overcome these issues, there is an approach called Computation Offloading, also known as cyber-foraging and surrogate computing. Computation offloading consists of migrating computational jobs from a mobile device to more powerful remote computing resources. Upon completion of the job, the results are sent back to the mobile device. However, a decision must be made; …

Molecular Dynamics Study On Defect Reduction Strategies Towards The Fabrication Of High Performance Cd1-Xznxte/Cds Solar Cells, Jose Juan Chavez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Cadmium Telluride is a material widely used in terrestrial thin film photovoltaic applications due to its nearly ideal band gap (~1.5 eV) and high absorption coefficient. Due to its low manufacturing cost, this technology has the potential to become a significant energy resource if higher energy conversion efficiencies are achieved. However, the module efficiencies (~14%) are still far from the theoretical maximum (~30%) for this material in a single junction configuration. The reason behind this low performance is attributed to the high number of defects that are present within the device materials. The physics behind the formation mechanisms of these …

Digitally Manufactured Spatially Variant Photonic Crystals, Javier Jair Pazos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Metamaterials and photonic crystals are engineered composites that exhibit electromagnetic properties superior to those found in nature. They have been shown to produce novel and useful phenomena that allow extraordinary control over the electromagnetic field. One of these phenomena is self-collimation, an effect observed in photonic crystals in which a beam of light propagates without diffraction and is forced to flow in the direction of the crystal. Self-collimation however, like many of the mechanisms enabled through dispersion engineering, is effective in directions only along the principal axes of the lattice. To this effect, a general purpose synThesis procedure was developed …