Computer Sciences Commons^™

Video Stabilization Based On Speeded-Up Robust Features, Minqi Zhou

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

With the advancement of science and technology, portable devices using video cameras are becoming more popular. Videos captured by ordinary commercial cameras always suffer from undesired motion which results from human hand shaking and mobile platform vibration. The undesired motion would not only blur the image degrading the image quality leading to inaccurate results in automatic object recognition and tracking, but also make it difficult for people to focus on specific object regions. It is also a possibility that one may feel dizzy while watching shaky video for a long time. Many hardware and software methodologies have been developed by …

Electronic Warfare By Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Aydin Meric

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Technology continues to evolve rapidly by the day. Developments in technology should be followed closely if a country wants to become more powerful. Nowadays nobody can afford to ignore the importance of Electronic Warfare and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in military applications. Both of them play a crucial role in military operations that they can change the course of a war.

There are different kinds of Electronic Warfare methods that can be applied according to the situations and any evolving circumstances. In the beginning Electronic Warfare was used mainly for defensive purposes, but these days Electronic Warfare is used for …

Solving The Vehicle Re-Identification Problem By Using Neural Networks, Tanweer Rashid

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Vehicle re-identification is the process by which vehicle attributes measured at one point on a road network are compared to vehicle attributes measured at another point in an effort to match vehicles without using any unique identifiers such as license plate numbers. A match is made if the two measurements are estimated to belong to the same vehicle. Vehicle attributes can be sensor readings such as loop induction signatures, or they can also be actual vehicle characteristics such as length, weight, number of axles, etc. This research makes use of vehicle length, travel time, axle spacing and axle weights for …

A Framework For Incident Detection And Notification In Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks, Mahmoud Abuelela

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The US Department of Transportation (US-DOT) estimates that over half of all congestion events are caused by highway incidents rather than by rush-hour traffic in big cities. The US-DOT also notes that in a single year, congested highways due to traffic incidents cost over $75 billion in lost worker productivity and over 8.4 billion gallons of fuel. Further, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicates that congested roads are one of the leading causes of traffic accidents, and in 2005 an average of 119 persons died each day in motor vehicle accidents.

Recently, Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANET) employing a …

Learning Local Features Using Boosted Trees For Face Recognition, Rajkiran Gottumukkal

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Face recognition is fundamental to a number of significant applications that include but not limited to video surveillance and content based image retrieval. Some of the challenges which make this task difficult are variations in faces due to changes in pose, illumination and deformation. This dissertation proposes a face recognition system to overcome these difficulties. We propose methods for different stages of face recognition which will make the system more robust to these variations. We propose a novel method to perform skin segmentation which is fast and able to perform well under different illumination conditions. We also propose a method …

Malicious And Malfunctioning Node Detection Via Observed Physical Layer Data, Tyler J. Hardy

Theses and Dissertations

There are many mechanisms that can cause inadequate or unreliable information in sensor networks. A user of the network might be interested in detecting and classifying specific sensors nodes causing these problems. Several network layer based trust methods have been developed in previous research to assess these issues; in contrast this work develops a trust protocol based on observations of physical layer data collected by the sensors. Observations of physical layer data are used for decisions and calculations, and are based on just the measurements collected by the sensors. Although this information is packaged and distributed on the network layer, …

Evaluating Information Assurance Control Effectiveness On An Air Force Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (Scada) System, Jason R. Nielsen

Theses and Dissertations

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are increasingly being connected to corporate networks which has dramatically expanded their attack surface to remote cyber attack. Adversaries are targeting these systems with increasing frequency and sophistication. This thesis seeks to answer the research question addressing which Information Assurance (IA) controls are most significant for network defenders and SCADA system managers/operators to focus on in order to increase the security of critical infrastructure systems against a Stuxnet-like cyber attack. This research applies the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) IA controls to an attack tree modeled on a remote Stuxnet-like cyber …

Software And Critical Technology Protection Against Side Channel Analysis Through Dynamic Hardware Obfuscation, John R. Bochert

Theses and Dissertations

Side Channel Analysis (SCA) is a method by which an adversary can gather information about a processor by examining the activity being done on a microchip though the environment surrounding the chip. Side Channel Analysis attacks use SCA to attack a microcontroller when it is processing cryptographic code, and can allow an attacker to gain secret information, like a crypto-algorithm's key. The purpose of this thesis is to test proposed dynamic hardware methods to increase the hardware security of a microprocessor such that the software code being run on the microprocessor can be made more secure without having to change …

Detecting Software Attacks By Monitoring Electric Power Consumption Patterns, Grant A. Jacoby, Nathaniel J. Davis Iv, Randolph C. Marchany

AFIT Patents

Software attacks such as worms and viruses are detected in an electronic device by monitoring power consumption patterns. In a first embodiment, software attacks are detected by an increase in power consumption. The increased power consumption can be caused by increased network traffic, or by increased activity in the microprocessor. Monitoring power consumption is particularly effective for detecting DOS/flooding attacks when the electronic device is in an idle state. In a second embodiment, a power consumption signal is converted to the frequency domain (e.g., by fast Fourier transform). The highest amplitude frequencies are identified. Specific software attacks produce characteristic frequencies …

Simulation, Application, And Resilience Of An Organic Neuromorphic Architecture, Made With Organic Bistable Devices And Organic Field Effect Transistors, Robert A. Nawrocki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents work done simulating a type of organic neuromorphic architecture, modeled after Artificial Neural Network, and termed Synthetic Neural Network, or SNN. The first major contribution of this thesis is development of a single-transistor-single-organic-bistable-device-per-input circuit that approximates behavior of an artificial neuron. The efficacy of this design is validated by comparing the behavior of a single synthetic neuron to that of an artificial neuron as well as two examples involving a network of synthetic neurons. The analysis utilizes electrical characteristics of polymer electronic elements, namely Organic Bistable Device and Organic Field Effect Transistor, created in the laboratory at …

Reference Set Metrics For Multi-Objective Algorithms, Chilukuri K. Mohan, Kishan Mehrotra

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

Several metrics and indicators have been suggested in the past to evaluate multi-objective evolutionary and non-evolutionary algo- rithms. However, these metrics are known to have many problems that make their application sometimes unsound, and sometimes infeasible. This paper proposes a new approach, in which metrics are parameter- ized with respect to a reference set, on which depend the properties of any metric.

An Empirical Study Of Open Source Software Usability: The Industrial Perspective, Arif Raza, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the use of open source projects by common novice users; Open Source Software (OSS) is thus no longer a reserved arena for software developers and computer gurus. Although user-centered designs are gaining popularity in OSS, usability is still not considered as one of the prime objectives in many design scenarios. In this paper, we analyze industry users’ perception of usability factors, including understandability, learnability, operability and attractiveness, on OSS usability. The research model of this empirical study establishes the relationship between the key usability factors and OSS usability from industrial perspective. In …

Kindle Forensics: Acquisition & Analysis, Peter Hannay

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Amazon Kindle eBook reader supports a wide range of capabilities beyond reading books. This functionality includes an inbuilt cellular data connection known as Whispernet. The Kindle provides web browsing, an application framework, eBook delivery and other services over this connection. The historic data left by user interaction with this device may be of forensic interest. Analysis of the Amazon Kindle device has resulted in a method to reliably extract and interpret data from these devices in a forensically complete manner.

Column: The Consortium Of Digital Forensics Specialists (Cdfs), Christopher Kelly

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital forensic practitioners are faced with an extraordinary opportunity. In fact, we may never again be faced with such an opportunity, and this opportunity will challenge us in ways we may never again be challenged. At this point in the history of the Digital Forensics profession, digital forensic specialists have the unique opportunity to help this profession emerge from its infancy. But for this profession to mature -- and to flourish -- individuals and organizations integral to the practice must assemble and shape its future. This is our opportunity. In fact, this is our mandate.

Judges’ Awareness, Understanding, And Application Of Digital Evidence, Gary C. Kessler

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As digital evidence grows in both volume and importance in criminal and civil courts, judges need to fairly and justly evaluate the merits of the offered evidence. To do so, judges need a general understanding of the underlying technologies and applications from which digital evidence is derived. Due to the relative newness of the computer forensics field, there have been few studies on the use of digital forensic evidence and none about judges’ relationship with digital evidence. This paper describes a recent study, using grounded theory methods, into judges’ awareness, knowledge, and perceptions of digital evidence. This study is the …

Technology Corner: Analysing E-Mail Headers For Forensic Investigation, M. T. Banday

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Electronic Mail (E-Mail), which is one of the most widely used applications of Internet, has become a global communication infrastructure service. However, security loopholes in it enable cybercriminals to misuse it by forging its headers or by sending it anonymously for illegitimate purposes, leading to e-mail forgeries. E-mail messages include transit handling envelope and trace information in the form of structured fields which are not stripped after messages are delivered, leaving a detailed record of e-mail transactions. A detailed header analysis can be used to map the networks traversed by messages, including information on the messaging software and patching policies …

A Unified Model-Based Fault Diagnosis Scheme For Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems With Additive And Multiplicative Faults, Hasan Ferdowsi, Sarangapani Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a novel model-Based fault diagnosis scheme is proposed for a class of uncertain nonlinear discrete-time systems which can be subjected to both additive and multiplicative faults. Faults are detected by using a novel (FD) observer consisting of two online approximators in discrete-time (OLAD) and a robust adaptive term. Upon detection, a fault diagnosis scheme is introduced to determine the fault type by monitoring the input residual generated via the first OLAD output. Then the appropriate OLAD is included in the observer while the other OLAD is switched off. Next, by using both the parameter update law of …

Stochastic Optimal Control Design For Nonlinear Networked Control System Via Neuro Dynamic Programming Using Input-Output Measurements, Hao Xu, Sarangapani Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Neuro dynamic programming (NDP) techniques for optimal control of nonlinear network control system (NNCS) are not addressed in the literature. Therefore, in this paper, a novel NNCS representation incorporating the unknown system uncertainties and network imperfections is introduced first by using input and output measurements. Then, an online neural network (NN) identifier is introduced to estimate the control coefficient matrix. Subsequently, the critic NN and action NN are employed along with the NN identifier to determine the forward-in-time, time-Based stochastic optimal control of NNCS without using value and policy iterations. Instead, value function and control inputs are updated at every …

Survey On Cloud Forensics And Critical Criteria For Cloud Forensic Capability: A Preliminary Analysis, Keyun Ruan, Ibrahim Baggili, Joe Carthy, Tahar Kechadi

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this paper we present the current results and analysis of the survey “Cloud forensics and critical criteria for cloud forensic capability” carried out towards digital forensic experts and practitioners. This survey was created in order to gain a better understanding on some of the key questions of the new field - cloud forensics - before further research and development. We aim to understand concepts such as its definition, the most challenging issues, most valuable research directions, and the critical criteria for cloud forensic capability.

Cat Detect (Computer Activity Timeline Detection): A Tool For Detecting Inconsistency In Computer Activity Timelines, Andrew Marrington, Ibrahim Baggili, George Mohay, Andrew Clark

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The construction of timelines of computer activity is a part of many digital investigations. These timelines of events are composed of traces of historical activity drawn from system logs and potentially from evidence of events found in the computer file system. A potential problem with the use of such information is that some of it may be inconsistent and contradictory thus compromising its value. This work introduces a software tool (CAT Detect) for the detection of inconsistency within timelines of computer activity. We examine the impact of deliberate tampering through experiments conducted with our prototype software tool. Based on the …

Robust Integral Of Neural Network And Sign Of Tracking Error Control Of Uncertain Nonlinear Affine Systems Using State And Output Feedback, Qinmin Yang, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Youxian Sun

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a novel state and output feedback control law for the tracking control of a class of multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) continuous time nonlinear systems with unknown dynamics and disturbance input. First the state feedback-based control law is designed which consists of the robust integral of a neural network (NN) output plus the sign of the tracking error signal multiplied with an adaptive gain. the two-layer NN learns the system dynamics in an online manner while the NN residual reconstruction errors and the bounded system disturbances are overcome by the error sign signal. Both of the NN output and error …

Obtaining The Secondary Impedance Of Single-Sided Linear Induction Motor With A Double Layer Reaction Rail: A New Approach, Ali̇ Suat Gerçek, Vedat Mehmet Karsli

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In the performance calculations of single-sided linear induction motor (SLIM),the equivalent circuit technique (ECT) is used. In this paper, a new approach is proposed for obtaining the secondary impedance of single-sided linear induction motor (SLIM) with a double layer reaction rail by using the layered secondary model. The proposed method improves the ECT technique by considering the saturation effect and the non-linear complex equivalent relative permeability. This study also examines the contributions of other electromagnetic effects, such as longitudinal end effect and transverse edge effect as well. Our method is applied to the SLIM and computed results of the method …

A Logic Method For Efficient Reduction Of The Space Complexity Of The Attribute Reduction Problem, Mehmet Hacibeyoğlu, Fati̇h Başçi̇ftçi̇, Şi̇rzat Kahramanli

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

The goal of attribute reduction is to find a minimal subset (MS) R of the condition attribute set C of a dataset such that R has the same classification power as C. It was proved that the number of MSs for a dataset with n attributes may be as large as (_{n/2}^n) and the generation of all of them is an NP-hard problem. The main reason for this is the intractable space complexity of the conversion of the discernibility function (DF) of a dataset to the disjunctive normal form (DNF). Our analysis of many DF-to-DNF conversion processes showed that approximately …

Performance Evaluation Of Nonparametric Ica Algorithm For Fetal Ecg Extraction, Yusuf Sevi̇m, Ayten Atasoy

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Fetal electrocardiograms (FECG) contain important indications about the health and condition of the fetus. In this respect, it is crucial to apply a robust algorithm to ECG data for extraction of the FECG signal. Most of the independent component analysis (ICA) algorithms used for this purpose rely on simple statistical models. Such algorithms can fail to separate desired signals when the assumed statistical model is inaccurate. Statistical models can be estimated accurately using kernel density estimation methods. Therefore, the kernel density estimation method was used in this paper for building an ICA algorithm (nonparametric ICA: NpICA) and the algorithm was …

A Vision Based Feedback Mechanism For 6-Dof Stewart Platform, Utku Büyükşahi̇n

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Eyes are the most ubiquitous sensors of humankind. However, ``Vision Based Sensors" are not as common as what this fact would suggest. A survey of the previous work on image processing would reveal that the bulk of the research in this area have been conducted since the year 2000. These facts clearly show that image processing is the technology of our century, and is very open to further development. In this work, a system that combines a classical mechanism of the 20th century with the recent technology of the 21st century is presented and the design, theoretical background, the software …

Experimental Analysis Of An Alternator Excited With Photovoltaic Cells For Small Power Plants, Kami̇l Ri̇fat İrfan Güney, Nevzat Onat

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this study, an automatic voltage regulator fed by photovoltaic (PV) cells was designed for use in small power alternators. The design aimed to increase the energy output of the alternator and to ensure necessary current output from the PV cells to support the synchronous generator excitation system. For energy transformation from small renewable energy sources, designers have favored the use of alternators that produce higher quality electric power, rather than asynchronous generators. We also address the designed system's suitability for real-life application, examining the steady-state performance of the photovoltaic cell excited alternator (PVCEA) with various loads and its behavior …

Diagnosis Of Multiple Scan-Chain Faults In The Presence Of System Logic Defects, Zhen Chen, Sharad C. Seth, Dong Xiang, Bhargab B. Bhattacharya

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

We present a combined hardware-software based approach to scan-chain diagnosis, when the outcome of a test may be affected by system faults occurring in the logic outside of the scan chain. For the hardware component we adopt the double-tree scan (DTS) chain architecture, which has previously been shown to be effective in reducing power, volume, and application time of tests for stuck-at and delay faults. We develop a version of flush test which can resolve a multiple fault in a DTS chain to a small number of suspect candidates. Further resolution to a unique multiple fault is enabled by the …

Neural Network-Based Optimal Control For Trajectory Tracking Of A Helicopter Uav, David Nodland, H. Zargarzadeh, S. Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Helicopter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may be widely used for both military and civilian operations. Because these helicopters are underactuated nonlinear mechanical systems, high-performance controller design for them presents a challenge. This paper presents an optimal controller design for trajectory tracking of a helicopter UAV using a neural network (NN). the state-feedback control system utilizes the backstepping methodology, employing kinematic and dynamic controllers. the online approximator-Based dynamic controller learns the infinite-horizon Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation in continuous time and calculates the corresponding optimal control input to minimize the HJB equation forward-in-time. Optimal tracking is accomplished with a single NN utilized for …

Column: File Cabinet Forensics, Simson Garfinkel

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Researchers can spend their time reverse engineering, performing reverse analysis, or making substantive contributions to digital forensics science. Although work in all of these areas is important, it is the scientific breakthroughs that are the most critical for addressing the challenges that we face. Reverse Engineering is the traditional bread-and-butter of digital forensics research. Companies like Microsoft and Apple deliver computational artifacts (operating systems, applications and phones) to the commercial market. These artifacts are bought and used by billions. Some have evil intent, and (if society is lucky), the computers end up in the hands of law enforcement. Unfortunately the …

Column: Putting The Science In Digital Forensics, Fred Cohen

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In a recent study, digital forensics was found to lack a consensus around even the most basis notions and terminology of the field. To quote: “These two preliminary studies individually suggest that (1) scientific consensus in the area of digital forensic evidence examination is lacking in the broad sense, but that different groups within that overall community may have limited consensus around areas in which they have special expertise, and (2) that the current peerreviewed publication process is not acting to bring about the sorts of elements typically found in the advancement of a science toward such a consensus. ... …