Robust localization is essential for successful navigation of autonomous mobile robots in any environment. Advanced techniques such as simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) also consider reliable localization as a critical component. The major existing localization algorithms like Particle Filtering, however, are, based on the assumption that the environment is static which does not hold true in some practical applications of mobile robots. In this thesis, we explore a rather fledgling area of wireless robotic capsule endoscopy where dynamism is an inherent feature of the environment. Since the last decade, intense research has spurred in the field of capsule robots used for inspecting the entire gastrointestinal (GI) tract for various diseases, such as obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB), tumors, cancer, Crohns disease, and celiac disease. It is envisioned that the next generation of these micro-robots will traverse the GI tract with greater autonomy. In such self-propelling tiny robots, the incorporation of mini-surgical tools and artificial intelligence is anticipated. Capsule robot localization and mapping of the environment inside the human body will be a key essential for successful autonomous navigation.

The terminal impedance of a full-wave dipole as a function of centre spacing has been measured for dipoles with the ratio of wave length to diameter (λ/D) equal to : 188, 94.3, 75.7, 62.9, 47.2, and 23.6 for centre spacings (S/λ)of .0212, .0423, .074, and .105. All measurements were made at 1000 megacycles using a standing wave measuring method with the half dipole above an image plane. The variation of resistance and reactance of the terminal impedance with centre spacing is shown in a series of graphs. A considerable increase in anti-resonant resistance and in antenna length for anti-resonance is observed to occur with increased gap length. The results are shown to agree well with existing literature.

The response of electronic devices to ionizing radiation is a reliability concern for commercial and space applications. An ionizing particle can cause charge to be generated and collected at the node of a circuit. If the charge is collected in the memory element, a single event upset (SEU) can occur. Since the discovery of single event effects, circuit designers have faced the challenge of creating radiation hardened by design (RHBD) flip-flops that decrease the memory elements susceptibility to SEUs. Test structures of unhardened and hardened flip-flop designs are fabricated and irradiated in order to understand the relative error rates due to single event upsets. Each test structure is irradiated using heavy-ion particle accelerators to simulate the radiation in a space environment. In the past only particles with a relatively high linear energy transfer (LET) were capable of generating enough charge to flip the state of a memory element. However, as technology has scaled, the critical charge necessary to cause an SEU has decreased. Radiation effects must now be considered in calculating the error rate for commercial applications as well. Irradiating circuits using isotropic button sources simulates terrestrial radiation such as alpha particles emitted from packaging material. The continued improvement of RHBD techniques relies on the ability to thoroughly test circuits at each new technology node over all radiation environments and understand how the cells upset. In this thesis, SEU data for hardened and unhardened flip-flop designs from a variety of radiation sources are presented. The combination of data from heavy-ion beam, alpha particle beam, and isotropic alpha particle sources provides the critical parameters for calculating error rate for a given flip-flop design in a specific environment. Heavy-ion data also reveals the robust design of DICE, DICE Guard Gate, and Stacked flip-flops in comparison with unhardened flip-flop designs in 32 nm SOI technology.

<p> Field oriented control (FOC) and direct torque control (DTC) are the two most important control strategies for modern advanced machine drives. Field oriented control (FOC) has been widely used as the industrial motor drives. The direct torque control has been recently developed by Takashi and has shown great potential in machine drive applications. This thesis discusses the performances of direct torque control on AC machine drives including the industrial workhorse induction machines (IM) and permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM). Both of the IM and PMSM dynamics models are derived in details in the thesis. By applying nonlinear filtering techniques, the sensorless direct torque control of AC machine drives are studied. MATLAB simulations have shown the efficacy and superior performance of the resilient extended Kalman filter over the traditional extended Kalman filter for direct torque control applications.</p>

Traditional upper extremity prostheses are comprised of an elbow joint and a terminal device (often either a split-hook or a hand) and have typically been limited to a single control input. In the case of a myoelectric prosthesis, a single pair of electromyograms (EMG) inputs from the biceps and triceps muscles, respectively, is typically used to control both the elbow and terminal device. Dependence on a single input forces the prosthesis to be controlled in a sequential manner, where either the hand or elbow is controlled at any given time. With fewer inputs to control more joints, new control strategies are required to provide a transhumeral amputee with control of a limb that feels intuitive and natural. The objective of this work is the development of highly functional and intuitive coordinated controller for an arm prosthesis that exhibits improved functionality relative to existing prostheses. This work leverages recent advances in MEMS in order develop a controller that enables the simultaneous movement of the anatomical shoulder joint and prosthetic elbow joint, and also enables switching between control of a hand and elbow, and is used in conjunction with EMG input to provide enhanced whole arm (hand and elbow) control, relative to the traditional conventional control approach. This work involves implementing the control methods on a prosthesis prototype and conducting studies on amputee subject to assess the effectiveness of the coordinated controller in performing different reaching tasks relative to traditional sequential control devices.

<p> Memory and learning in the brain are realized by a collection of mechanisms that interact, resulting in learning and subsequent recognition of input patterns. While these mechanisms are complex and span different areas of the brain, we hypothesize that we can construct electronic circuits that mimic these mechanisms, demonstrating some aspects of pattern recognition that mimic the brains ability to learn and recognize patterns.</p><p>

<p> Precise frequency and phase estimation are important aspects of a telecommunication system. They are the important sub-system of communication, navigation, radar, and various other engineering systems. Systems and methods provide fast and precise frequency estimation by keeping minimal sampling and a high tolerance to noise. Methods used to estimate the frequency include multiple phase shift keying and multiple quadrature amplitude modulation scheme. This project utilizes a frequency estimation technique to keep sampling minimal and to have a high endurance to noise for better performance. Recently, fast and precise frequency estimation have become increasingly important in the evolution of the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing. Previous techniques of frequency estimation are based on the Extended Kalman Filter and Fast Fourier Transform. This project has developed a fast and precise carrier frequency estimation scheme. The Kalman Filter approach, Classen approach, and Moose approach are used for the carrier frequency estimation.</p>

<p> In Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) systems, the technique of Flip-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (Flip-OFDM) is applied, where the positive segment and negative segment of the signal are transmitted on two continuous OFDM sub-frames. Conventionally in Flip-OFDM, data is recovered by simply subtracting the negative sub-frame from the positive sub-frame. But the signal survey confirms that the information in both sub-frames gets disrupted during signal propagation and an incorrect detection of the received values takes place at the detector. </p><p> An iterative receiver is proposed that utilizes the input signal values along with the received signals sub-frames to improve the efficacy of the Flip-OFDM. The Matlab software is used to design the transmitter and iterative receiver. Features such as cyclic prefixing, frame multiplexing, and channel characterization are included in the design. </p><p> The results of the simulation depict that the suggested receiver delivers a superior Bit Error Rate (BER) and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) gain when compared to the conservative receiver.</p>

This thesis studies the feasibility of developing a smart shipboard sensor network. The objective of the thesis is to prove that sensors can be made smart by keeping calibration constants and other relevant data such as network information stored on the sensor and a server computer. Study will focus on the design and implementation of an Ipsil IP(micro)8930 microcontroller, which is then connected, by the standard TCP/IP implementation, to a network where the sensor information can be seen using a web page. The information to make the sensor "smart" will be stored on the Ipsil chip and server computer and can by accessed by a HTML based program. By taking pre-computed calibration constants that minimize the measurement errors and writing them through the web page stored in the Ipsil chip's EEPROM, the calibrated sensor reading can be calculated. The expected contribution from the research effort would be a reduction in manpower, increased efficiency, and a greater awareness of plant and equipment operation among naval vessels, specifically the DDX. Hardware is relatively inexpensive, reliable, and COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) available. If implemented, a Smart Shipboard Sensor Network would allow the watch standers, CHENG, OOD, and CO, to all see the same information about the ship.s engineering plant and equipment. A prototype sensor test bed was constructed in the laboratory, which consists of an Ipsil IP(micro)8930 microcontroller, a Linksys LAN router, and a Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop. The newly developed smart sensor was successfully demonstrated.

The realization of today's telecommunication networks is a challenging task. Network architectures are constantly changing to meet new requirements for many new and exciting services and applications. As a result of these added new requirements, new types and mixes of traffic profiles are being introduced into these networks. To facilitate these needs, there are many tools which have been developed to aid in the planning, development, optimization and traffic prediction process. One such tool is PLANITU 3.0. PLANITU is designed to handle many types of circuit network systems and features a powerful graphics capability. The software uses wellestablished, iterative prediction concepts, such as Erlang-B loss equation and the Wilkinson ERT method. Two types of network systems were modeled using real data supplied by Siemens Indonesia. Target networks for study included a fixed switched networks and a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) network. PLANITU 3.0 performed well for the fixed switched network systems demonstrating reasonable results within an acceptable degree of accuracy, but performed poorly for GSM systems yielding inoperable simulation features, numerous bugs and software instability.