Submitted by Sandro Camargo (sandro.camargo@unipampa.edu.br) on 2015-05-09T22:33:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 126110043.pdf: 2117805 bytes, checksum: f107c883cc20c40fff355188fc0e7df6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-09T22:33:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 126110043.pdf: 2117805 bytes, checksum: f107c883cc20c40fff355188fc0e7df6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-20 / Atualmente as técnicas não lineares de modulação de potência aplicadas ao aquecimento resistivo de água, principalmente em redes elétricas mal projetadas, podem gerar vários problemas no ambiente onde estão instaladas. É o caso dos chuveiros eletrônicos que, dependendo da técnica utilizada para executar o processo de modulação de potência, podem ocasionar efeitos indesejáveis na rede elétrica e ambiente. Um exemplo típico é o Controle por Ciclos Inteiros, foco deste trabalho, que apresenta baixa probabilidade de geração de harmônicas e interferência eletromagnética (IEM). Em contrapartida, é praticamente inevitável o surgimento de flicker na rede elétrica decorrente de sua utilização, principalmente devido às altas potências dos equipamentos de aquecimento resistivo, agravadas pelos longos intervalos entre condução e não condução de corrente. Considerando que a geração de flicker é a principal desvantagem proveniente do Controle por Ciclos Inteiros, o presente trabalho tem por objetivo propor outras técnicas a fim de atenuar este efeito indesejável e, ao mesmo tempo, possibilitar a utilização de vários níveis de potência. / Currently the non-linear power modulation techniques applied to resistive water heating, mainly on not properly designed electric installations, can generate various problems in the environment where they are present. This is the case of electronic showers that depending on the power modulation technique may result in undesirable effects in the power grid and environment. A typical example is the zero-crossing AC power control, focus of this work, which has low probability of generating harmonics and electromagnetic interference (EMI). On the other hand, it is almost inevitable the emergence of Flicker on the power grid resulting from its use, mainly due to high electrical power consumed by heating equipment, compounded by long conducting and non-conducting power intervals. Whereas the flicker generated is the main drawback from the zero-crossing power control, this work aims to propose other techniques to reduce this undesirable effect allowing several output power levels.

The smart dust concept is a fairly recent phenomenon to engineering. It assumes monitoring of a real natural environment in which motes or smart dust machines swarm in collective and coordinate information among themselves and/or to a backend control platform. In analog mixed signal field work on such devices is gaining momentum such that it is conceived to be one of the emerging fields in technology, and work was only possible once the technology for fabrication touched the nanoscale regions. Smart dust network involves remote devices connected in a hive sensing burst type datum signals from the environment and relaying information amongst themselves in an energy efficient manner to coordinate an appropriate response to a detected stimulus. The project presumed a RF based communication strategy for coordination amongst the devices through a wireless medium. That is less susceptible to stringent requirements of LOS and a base band processing system that comprised of an environment sensor, an AFE module, an ADC, a DSP and a DAC. Essentially a 10 bit, 2 Mega Hertz MHz pipelined ADC implemented in a STM 65nm technology. The ADC benefits the smart dust device in allowing it to process data in an energy efficient way and also focusing on reduced complexity as itsdesign feature. While it differs in the other ADC of the system by operating at a higher frequency and assuming a different design philosophy assuming a coherent system sensitive to a clock. The thesis work assumes that various features ofenergy harvesting, regulation and power management present in the smart dustmote would enable the system to contain such a diverse ADC. The ADCs output digital datum would be compatible to the rest of the design modules consisting mainly of DSP sections. The ADC novelty is based on the fact that it removes the necessity of employing a high power consuming OpAmp whose design parameters become more complex as technology scales to the nanoscale era and further down. A systematic, bottom up, test driven approach to design is utilized and various behaviours of the system are captured in Cadence design environment with verilogto layout models and MATLAB and Simulink models.

In any power system, fault means abnormal flow of current. Insulation breakdown is the cause of fault generation. Different factors can cause the breakdown: Wires drifting together in the wind, Lightning ionizing air, wires with contacts of animals and plants, Salt spray or pollution on insulators. The common type of faults on a three phase system are single line-to-ground (SLG), Line-to-line faults (LL), double line-to-ground (DLG) faults, and balanced three phase faults. And these faults can be symmetrical (balanced) or Unsymmetrical (imbalanced).In this Study, a technique to predict the zero crossing point has been discussed and simulated. Zero crossing point prediction for reliable transmission and distribution plays a significant role. Electrical power control switching works in zero crossing point when a fault occurs. The precision of measuring zero crossing point for syncing power system control and instrumentation requires a thoughtful approach to minimize noise and external signals from the corrupted waveforms A faulted current waveform with estimated faulted phase/s, the technique is capable of identifying the time of zero crossing point. Proper Simulation has been organized on MATLAB R2012a.

This master’s thesis deals with the detection of QRS complex detection using zero crossing counts. QRS detection is an important part of the analysis of ECG signal. From the point of determining the R wave detection is based on the other waves and intervals necessary for the diagnosis of heart. This method is very effective even for very noisy signals. Implementation of the method in Matlab, and the success of detection is tested on the CSE and MIT-BIH database. The optimization algorithm is an optional value for the detector.

Multi-fold Time Domain Electromagnetics (TDEM) is a novel experimental approach that couples elements of traditional land-based TDEM survey designs to obtain a robust data set. This design inherently accommodates a broad range of possible Earth models through a rich combination of analysis opportunities making it ideally suited for reconnaissance. Kentland Farms, VA was chosen as the test site, for its ease of access and interesting geologic features such as river terraces and karstic landscape. Three independent methods of analyzing the 3-component data set each provided unique insights into the subsurface electrical structure through a complementary interpretation. Synthesis of log-normalized ∂tB_z pseudo-sections provided a first-order analysis of the lateral and vertical heterogeneities of the profile. A Zero-Crossing Moveout (ZCMO) analysis used a brute-force grid-search inversion to estimate the two-layer Earth model that best-fit the observed moveout times for a range of interface depths. By using the ZCMO result as an initial model, regularized 1D Occam inversions determined a 3-layer electrical structure consisting of a 3.5 m – 5 m thick resistive upper layer, over an 12.5 m – 15 m thick conductive layer, overlying a resistive half-space. From correlation of the inverse solutions with ZCMO derived conductivity models and prior resistivity information, the depth to the limestone bedrock was approximated to be 16 – 20 m. The delineation of the bedrock depth provided additional support for the fill-cut terrace formation model (Ward et al., 2005), as well as possible evidence of groundwater drainage on the 40 m terrace at Kentland Farm. / Master of Science

Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar has wide application areas in both civil and military use. The range resolution is a critical concept for these FMCW radars as for the other radar types. There are theoretical restrictions in the range resolution. In addition, the non-ideal properties of the modules used in the systems negatively affects the range resolution. The transmitter leakage, non-linear frequency sweep, FM to AM distortion and measurement errors are some of the critical non-ideal properties. The problems arising from these non-ideal properties further restrict the range resolution of FMCW radars. Another important concept for the range resolution that can be obtained from FMCW radars is the signal processing method. This thesis deals with the non-ideal properties of the system modules and techniques to reduce their effects on the range resolution. Furthermore, the signal processing methods used for FMCW radar signals and the possible improvement techniques for these methods are discussed. Moreover, a simple signal processing unit called zero crossing counter which can be used for short range FMCW radars is implemented and range resolution performance of this zero crossing counter is investigated by carrying out measurements on a prototype FMCW radar at 2200MHz.

Extracting the Electric Network Frequency (ENF) fluctuations from an audio recording and comparing it to a reference database is a new technology intended to perform forensic digital audio authentication. The objective of this thesis is to implement and design a range of programs and algorithms for capturing and extracting ENF signals. The developed C-program combined with a probe can be used to build the reference database. Our implementation of the Short-Time Fourier Transform method is intended for the ENF extraction of longer signals while our novel proposed use of the Autoregressive parametric method and our implementation of the zero-crossing approach tackle the case of shorter recordings. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) was developed to facilitate the process of extracting the ENF fluctuations. The whole process is tested and evaluated for various scenarios ranging from long to short recordings.

Negative cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning flashes transport negative charge from cloud to ground. Negative ground flashes typically involve various processes identified as preliminary breakdown, stepped leader, return stroke, dart leader, dart-stepped leader, subsequent return stroke, and cloud activity between strokes, such as regular pulse trains and chaotic pulse trains. These processes can be identified through their electromagnetic field signatures. The main focus of this thesis is to document the features and understand the origin of electromagnetic fields, especially the chaotic pulse trains, generated by lightning flashes. Electric field measurements have been used to study lightning flashes in Sweden. The equipment was a parallel flat plate antenna with an analog filter buffer circuit, connected to a digital high speed oscilloscope. Four simultaneous measurements were made: wideband measurement of the E-field (the vertical component) and its time derivative dE/dt, and two narrowband measurements of the E-field, centred around 3 MHz and 30 MHz. Fourier and wavelet transforms were used in the analysis of the measured data. The results show that preliminary breakdown pulses are stronger radiators at 3 MHz and 30 MHz than are the return strokes. A comparison of our results with those of previous studies obtained in different geographical regions clearly shows that the strength of preliminary breakdown pulses decreases with decreasing latitude. It is higher in the temperate regions (Sweden, for instance) and lower in the tropical regions. A comparison of the time derivatives of preliminary breakdown pulses and of the narrow bipolar pulses shows that the physical origin of these two types of pulse is different, even though they may have similar appearances in the broadband fields. This thesis introduces a new procedure to estimate the zero-crossing time of the lightning-generated radiation fields. The procedure is based on the fact that the time integral of the radiation fields generated by a discharge event whose duration is finite is equal to zero, and the zero-crossing time corresponds to the time when the peak of the integral is reached. In addition to tabulating the various statistical parameters and features of Chaotic Pulse Trains (CPTs), it is shown that these pulse trains are created by the simultaneous propagation of several dart-stepped leader type discharges in the cloud. Each dart-stepped leader type discharge generates a Regular Pulse Train (RPT), and these pulse trains combine randomly in time to generate CPTs. This conclusion is based on the results obtained by numerical simulations and by analysing the signatures of these pulse trains using Fourier and wavelet transformations. The results presented in this thesis show that electromagnetic fields, even those measured from a single station, can be used to extract information concerning the physical processes that gave rise to these fields.

Extracting the Electric Network Frequency (ENF) fluctuations from an audio recording and comparing it to a reference database is a new technology intended to perform forensic digital audio authentication. The objective of this thesis is to implement and design a range of programs and algorithms for capturing and extracting ENF signals. The developed C-program combined with a probe can be used to build the reference database. Our implementation of the Short-Time Fourier Transform method is intended for the ENF extraction of longer signals while our novel proposed use of the Autoregressive parametric method and our implementation of the zero-crossing approach tackle the case of shorter recordings. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) was developed to facilitate the process of extracting the ENF fluctuations. The whole process is tested and evaluated for various scenarios ranging from long to short recordings.

Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / Synchronous sampling is currently the most widely used analog to digital conversion method, mainly due to its implementation ease, since it employs a constant sampling rate. However, a fixed sampling rate can cause unnecessary activations of the sample and hold circuit, increasing power consumption. Asynchronous analog to digital converters can be used to solve this problem, sampling only when particulars events occur, such as amplitude level crossings. This approach has been intensely studied over the last decades, and arose as an alternative to synchronous sampling. Another asynchronous sampling approach is the one proposed by Voelcker (1966), where sampling instants are the zero crossings of the signal. According to him complex zeros must be sampled for perfect signal reconstruction, in addition to real zeros. Although being physically undetectable, Voelcker proposes that complex zeros can be “transformed” using the real zeros of all nth signal derivatives. Nevertheless this can be unfeasible and this work proposes the use of the Zero Crossing method with a limited number of derivatives. Such approach is justifiable because in consecutive derivatives, real zeros tends to be close or even repeat themselves, thus not aggregating any more information about the original signal. Therefore, this work verifies the applicability of the proposed method for systems that need low power consumption and a good reconstruction of the sampled signal, being suggest from the results of this work as a good solution of compromise between synchronous sampling and Level Crossing. / A amostragem síncrona é o método mais amplamente utilizado na conversão analógica/ digital para sinais do cotidiano, principalmente devido à facilidade de implementálos, pois a taxa de amostragem é constante. Entretanto, a taxa de amostragem fixa pode causar ativações desnecessárias do circuito de Sample and Hold, gerando um alto consumo energético. Os conversores analógicos digitais assíncronos podem ser utilizados para resolver este problema, amostrando somente quando ocorrem eventos particulares, tais como os cruzamentos de níveis de amplitude (em inglês - Level Crossing). Esta abordagem está sendo intensamente estudada nas últimas décadas, e surgiu como alternativa à amostragem síncrona. Outra alternativa de amostragem assíncrona e a abordagem proposta por Voelcker, onde os instantes de amostragem são os cruzamentos por zero do sinal. Segundo ele, para que seja possível obter a perfeita reconstrução do sinal, além dos zeros reais, os zeros complexos devem ser amostrados. Embora eles sejam fisicamente indetectáveis, Voelcker propôs que estes podem ser “transformados” em zeros reais a partir das informações de todos os zeros reais das n-ésimas derivadas do sinal. Contudo isto pode ser impraticável, e neste trabalho é proposto um novo método de Zero Crossing que utiliza somente até a 3a derivada. Tal abordagem é justificada pela possibilidade, aqui apresentada de que ao realizar muitas derivadas do sinal, os zeros reais tendem a ficar muito próximos, ou até se repetir, não agregando mais informação sobre o sinal original. Diante disso, foi verificado neste trabalho a aplicabilidade do método proposto para sistemas que necessitem de um baixo consumo energético e uma boa reconstrução do sinal amostrado, sendo apontado a partir dos resultados deste trabalho como uma boa solução de compromisso entre a amostragem síncrona e o Level Crossing.