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Spacecrafts are extensively used by public and private sectors to support a variety of services. Considering the cost and the strategic importance of these spacecrafts, there has been an increasing demand to utilize strong cryptographic primitives to assure their security. Moreover, it is of utmost importance to consider fault tolerance in their designs due to the harsh environment found in space, while keeping low area and power consumption. The problem of recovering spacecrafts from failures or attacks, and bringing them back to an operational and safe state is crucial for reliability. Despite the recent interest in incorporating on-board security, there is limited research in this area. This research proposes a trusted hardware module approach for recovering the spacecrafts subsystems and their cryptographic capabilities after an attack or a major failure has happened. The proposed fault tolerant trusted modules are capable of performing platform restoration as well as recovering the cryptographic capabilities of the spacecraft. This research also proposes efficient fault tolerant architectures for the secure hash (SHA-2) and message authentication code (HMAC) algorithms. The proposed architectures are the first in the literature to detect and correct errors by using Hamming codes to protect the main registers. Furthermore, a quantitative analysis of the probability of failure of the proposed fault tolerance mechanisms is introduced. Based upon an extensive set of experimental results along with probability of failure analysis, it was possible to show that the proposed fault tolerant scheme based on information redundancy leads to a better implementation and provides better SEU resistance than the traditional Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR). The fault tolerant cryptographic primitives introduced in this research are of crucial importance for the implementation of on-board security in spacecrafts.

Thesis (M.A.)--Edith Cowan University, 2008. / Submitted to the Faculty of Education and Arts. Includes bibliographical references.

The study presents the spatio-temporal assessment of groundwater-surface water (GW-SW) interaction aspects in the Schoonspruit River catchment, North West of South Africa. The research study aimed at improving understanding of groundwater and surface water interaction through assessing its location and time when such interaction occurs. GW-SW interaction sites were identified using principal aquifer type characterization methods. The occurrence of the interaction was established using hydrochemistry methods and the effectiveness of the existing monitoring methods were evaluated in their consideration of GW-SW interaction within the study area. The main results from the study showed that there was GW-SW interaction in the Schoonspruit River catchment which was not affected by seasonal changes. The result further showed that existing monitoring methods in the study catchment were not effective in addressing GW-SW interaction. The study concluded that qualitative methods are essential in studying GW-SW interaction and that monitoring methods for such interactions are required / Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Sciences / M. Sc. (Environmental Management)

<p>This thesis proposes SoPC (System on a Programmable<br />Chip) architectures for efficient embedding of vison-based<br />localization and obstacle detection tasks in a navigational<br />pipeline on autonomous mobile robots. The obtained<br />results are equivalent or better in comparison to state-ofthe-<br />art. For localization, an efficient hardware architecture<br />that supports EKF-SLAM&#39;s local map management with<br />seven-dimensional landmarks in real time is developed.<br />For obstacle detection a novel method of object<br />recognition is proposed - detection by identification<br />framework based on single detection window scale. This<br />framework allows adequate algorithmic precision and<br />execution speeds on embedded hardware platforms.</p> / <p>Ova teza bavi se dizajnom SoPC (engl. System on a<br />Programmable Chip) arhitektura i algoritama za efikasnu<br />implementaciju zadataka lokalizacije i detekcije prepreka<br />baziranih na viziji u kontekstu autonomne robotske<br />navigacije. Za lokalizaciju, razvijena je efikasna<br />računarska arhitektura za EKF-SLAM algoritam, koja<br />podržava skladi&scaron;tenje i obradu sedmodimenzionalnih<br />orijentira lokalne mape u realnom vremenu. Za detekciju<br />prepreka je predložena nova metoda prepoznavanja<br />objekata u slici putem prozora detekcije fiksne<br />dimenzije, koja omogućava veću brzinu izvr&scaron;avanja<br />algoritma detekcije na namenskim računarskim<br />platformama.</p>

The aim and object is to undergo analysis of bicycle trails in terms of their qualifications within time and technical aspects, creation of SWOT analysis, evaluating strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities of bicycle trails, exploration and financing, looks at the development of bicycle trailsin Olomouc because of the focus on practical part of the project of the biking trails located in this area. In the practical part of the project the biking trails are evaluated according to cost-benefit analysis method using CBA SW eCBA where all the necessary characteristics of cycle paths and their identification and quantification in terms of financial and economic analysis of the project is described. The outcome of this project is to evaluate the methodology for dou-term sustainability. Finally, the evaluation of cycle paths as a stimulus for development of area.

The goal of master thesis "CMMI Certification for Software Development in Agile Environment" is CMMI quality model research with focus on software development in agile environment in the Siemens company. In the beginning CMMI model and Scrum methodics are introduced. The core of this thesis is focused on the current state analysis. Output of the analysis is a list of potential areas that are currently not compatible with quality model requirements. These areas are to be improved for the company to achieve the desired CMMI certification level. Possible improvements are introduced to the consultant. During the implementation part a web application is realized helping to remove most of the identified imperfections. Application benefit is objectively evaluated by an internal audit. The work includes discussion of possible further application development and quality model standard evolution in this company.

Un véhicule autonome ou un robot mobile est équipé d'un système de navigation qui doit comporter plusieurs briques fonctionnelles pour traiter de perception, localisation, planification de trajectoires et locomotion. Dès que ce robot ou ce véhicule se déplace dans un environnement humain dense, il exécute en boucle et en temps réel plusieurs fonctions pour envoyer des consignes aux moteurs, pour calculer sa position vis-à-vis d'un repère de référence connu, et pour détecter de potentiels obstacles sur sa trajectoire; du fait de la richesse sémantique des images et du faible coût des caméras, ces fonctions exploitent souvent la vision. Les systèmes embarqués sur ces machines doivent alors intégrer des cartes assez puissantes pour traiter des données visuelles en temps réel. Par ailleurs, les contraintes d'autonomie de ces plateformes imposent de très faibles consommations énergétiques. Cette thèse proposent des architectures de type SOPC (System on Programmable Chip) conçues par une méthodologie de co-design matériel/logiciel pour exécuter de manière efficace les fonctions de localisation et de détection des obstacles à partir de la vision. Les résultats obtenus sont équivalents ou meilleurs que l'état de l'art, concernant la gestion de la carte locale d'amers pour l'odométrie-visuelle par une approche EKF-SLAM, et le rapport vitesse d'exécution sur précision pour ce qui est de la détection d'obstacles par identification dans les images d'objets (piétons, voitures...) sur la base de modèles appris au préalable. / An autonomous mobile platform is endowed with a navigational system which must contain multiple functional bricks: perception, localization, path planning and motion control. As soon as such a robot or vehicle moves in a crowded environment, it continously loops several tasks in real time: sending reference values to motors' actuators, calculating its position in respect to a known reference frame and detection of potential obstacles on its path. Thanks to semantic richness provided by images and to low cost of visual sensors, these tasks often exploit visual cues. Other embedded systems running on these mobile platforms thus demand for an additional integration of high-speed embeddable processing systems capable of treating abundant visual sensorial input in real-time. Moreover, constraints influencing the autonomy of the mobile platform impose low power consumption. This thesis proposes SOPC (System on a Programmable Chip) architectures for efficient embedding of vison-based localization and obstacle detection tasks in a navigational pipeline by making use of the software/hardware co-design methodology. The obtained results are equivalent or better in comparison to state-of-the-art for both EKF-SLAM based visual odometry: regarding the local map size management containing seven-dimensional landmarks and model-based detection-by-identification obstacle detection: algorithmic precision over execution speed metric.

Modern systems fulfil calculation tasks across the hardware- software boundary. Tasks are divided into coarse parallel subtasks that run on distributed resources. These resources are classified into a software (SW) and a hardware (HW) domain. The software domain usually contains processors for general purpose or digital signal calculations. Dedicated co-processors such as encryption or video en-/decoding units belong to the hardware domain. Nowadays, a decision in which domain a certain subtask will be executed in a system is usually taken during system level design. This is done on the basis of certain assumptions about the system requirements that might not hold at runtime. The HW/SW partitioning is static and cannot adapt to dynamically changing system requirements at runtime. Our contribution to tackle this, is to combine a ESL based HW/SW codesign methodology with a coarse grained reconfigurable System on Chip architecture. We propose this as Preemptive HW/SW-Threading.

Even in the 21st century, modern communication technology is still affected by natural disasters and political turmoil which threaten people’s lives and make the internet or mobile phone networks unavailable for use. This work uses systems theory which resulted in a proof of concept system that uses shortwave radio technology to provide a one-way communication system. A message a user writes on their smartphone, which is connected to a small pre-set transmitter, is sent out to a receiver in another part of the world where the message can then be posted on the internet. This system is a cheaper alternative to other shortwave radio transmitters, and has potential for improvement.