This diploma thesis solves the analysis of the influence of calibration and the method of strips alignment on the geometric accuracy of a point cloud acquired by UAV lidar scanning. The aim was to find out the influence of individual used methods, respectively various combinations. The effect of the design of the cross-flights has also been added. The evaluation was performed using standard deviations of the distances corresponding to the areas scanned in different point bands. Furthermore, verification was performed by comparing checkpoints. The results show that there is no dependence between the individual combinations. The only case was a larger displacement of the point cloud at the edge of the scanned strip in the case of cross-flights.

No description available.

The cost of health care continues to increase. Based on the biopsychosocial model of heath care, it has been shown that the treatment of psychological and social problems can have a cost offset effect on the cost of medical care. While this offset effect has been shown in an MFT population, there are no known studies that have looked at predictors of the change in medical use by those that receive marital and family therapy. This study looked at psychological and social measures of individuals who received marital and family therapy. These measures were evaluated based on the change from intake to one year post intake using best subsets multiple regression. The model for males showed variables that could be affected using a cognitive or cognitive-behavioral model of therapy. The model for females showed variables that could be affected using the emotionally focused model of therapy. The implications of this study are that a therapist could be the most effective in conjoint therapy if they apply concepts from both cognitive and emotionally focused therapeutic models.

In a video there are certain regions in the image that viewers focus on more than others, which are called the salient regions or Regions­Of-Interest (ROI). This thesis aims to improve the perceived quality of videos by improving the quality of these ROis while degrading the quality of the other non-ROI regions of a frame to keep the same bitrate as would have been the case otherwise. This improvement is achieved by using saliency maps generated using an eye tracker or a deep neural network and providing this information to a modified video encoder. In this thesis the open source x264 encoder was chosen to make use of this information. The effects of ROI encoding are studied for high quality 720p videos by encoding them at low bitrates. The results indicate that ROI encoding can improve subjective video quality when carefully applied. / I en video £inns <let vissa delar av bilden som tittarna fokuserar mer pa an andra, och dessa kallas Region of Interest". Malet med den har upp­satsen ar att hoja den av tittaren upplevda videokvaliteten genom att minska kompressionsgraden ( och darmed hoja kvaliteten) i de iogon­fallande delarna av bilden, samtid som man hojer kompressionsgra­den i ovriga delar sa att bitraten blir den samma som innan andring­en. Den har forbattringen gors genom att anvanda Saliency Mapsss­om visar de iogonfallande delarna for varje bildruta. Dessa Saliency Maps"har antingen detekterats med hjalp av en Eye Tracker eller sa har de raknats fram av ett Neuralt Natverk. Informationen anvands sedan i en modifierad version av den oppna codecen x264 enligt en egen­designad algoritm. Effekten av forandringen har studerats genom att koda hogkvalitativa kallfiler vid lag bitrate. Resultaten indikerar att denna metod kan forbattra den upplevda kvaliteten av en video om den appliceras med ratt styrka.

In digital signal processing in general, and wireless communications in particular, the increased usage of complex signal representations, and spectrally efficient complex modulation schemes such as QPSK and QAM has necessitated the need for efficient and fast-converging complex digital signal processing techniques. In this research, novel complex adaptive digital signal processing techniques are presented, which derive optimal convergence factors or step sizes for adjusting the adaptive system coefficients at each iteration. In addition, the real and imaginary components of the complex signal and complex adaptive filter coefficients are treated as separate entities, and are independently updated. As a result, the developed methods efficiently utilize the degrees of freedom of the adaptive system, thereby exhibiting improved convergence characteristics, even in dynamic environments. In wireless communications, acceptable co-channel, adjacent channel, and image interference rejection is often one of the most critical requirements for a receiver. In this regard, the fixed-point complex Independent Component Analysis (ICA) algorithm, called Complex FastICA, has been previously applied to realize digital blind interference suppression in stationary or slow fading environments. However, under dynamic flat fading channel conditions frequently encountered in practice, the performance of the Complex FastICA is significantly degraded. In this dissertation, novel complex block adaptive ICA algorithms employing optimal convergence factors are presented, which exhibit superior convergence speed and accuracy in time-varying flat fading channels, as compared to the Complex FastICA algorithm. The proposed algorithms are called Complex IA-ICA, Complex OBA-ICA, and Complex CBC-ICA. For adaptive filtering applications, the Complex Least Mean Square algorithm (Complex LMS) has been widely used in both block and sequential form, due to its computational simplicity. However, the main drawback of the Complex LMS algorithm is its slow convergence and dependence on the choice of the convergence factor. In this research, novel block and sequential based algorithms for complex adaptive digital filtering are presented, which overcome the inherent limitations of the existing Complex LMS. The block adaptive algorithms are called Complex OBA-LMS and Complex OBAI-LMS, and their sequential versions are named Complex HA-LMS and Complex IA-LMS, respectively. The performance of the developed techniques is tested in various adaptive filtering applications, such as channel estimation, and adaptive beamforming. The combination of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and the Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) technique is being increasingly employed for broadband wireless systems operating in frequency selective channels. However, MIMO-OFDM systems are extremely sensitive to Intercarrier Interference (ICI), caused by Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) between local oscillators in the transmitter and the receiver. This results in crosstalk between the various OFDM subcarriers resulting in severe deterioration in performance. In order to mitigate this problem, the previously proposed Complex OBA-ICA algorithm is employed to recover user signals in the presence of ICI and channel induced mixing. The effectiveness of the Complex OBA-ICA method in performing ICI mitigation and signal separation is tested for various values of CFO, rate of channel variation, and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR).

This thesis considers the problem of control of nonlinear systems subject to limited availability of measurements and uncertainty in model parameters. To address this problem, first a linear offset free MPC is designed. Subsequently, a Lyapunov-based offset free MPC design is presented to handle structured uncertainty subject to constant disturbances. The controller's ability to handle unstructured uncertainty and measurement noise is demonstrated through simulation examples. Next, the problem of handling lack of state measurements as well as uncertainty is considered. To achieve simultaneous state and disturbance parameter estimation, a Lyapunov-based model predictive controller (MPC) is integrated with a moving horizon based mechanism, to achieve (where possible) offset elimination in the unmeasured states as well. A chemical reaction process example is presented to illustrate the key points. Finally its efficacy is demonstrated through a polymerization process example. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis considers the problem of implementation of Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategies in the general area of Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning (HVAC). Specifically, the contributions utilize the constraint handling and optimality properties of MPC to achieve energy efficient control of many different HVAC systems. First, the thesis focuses on a linear offset-free MPC design for a vapor compression cycle. The key contributions include a a sequential tuning method and application to a detailed simulation test-bed, demonstrating superior closed-loop results to that of traditional control strategies in the presence of both disturbances and measurement noise. Next, a modified linear offset-free MPC formulation is implemented on a heat pump. The key contribution is the formulation of an optimization problem that recognizes the tradeoff between energy conservation and tracking performance. Simulation results illustrate superior performances as measured through three separate metrics: safety, energy efficiency and tracking. The implementation of MPC formulations to these realistic problems also pointed to a lack of MPC formulations with explicit performance considerations in the control design. Thus, in the final part of the thesis, these observed shortcomings in the standard offset-free linear MPC design are addressed via a new performance specification-based MPC. Desired closed-loop output response is specified and achieved through a tiered optimization formulation that can handle plant model mismatch. Superior closed-loop response, in terms of desired transient behavior and disturbance rejection, relative to standard linear-based and offset-free MPC designs is achieved. Finally, directions for future work are discussed. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No description available.

No description available.

The Eppley Precision Pyranometer (PSP) is a radiometer used in networks around the world to measure downwelling and upwelling diffuse and total hemispherical broadband solar irradiances. PSP's present an offset in the signal, called thermal offset, produced by a radiation heat exchange between the glass dome, which defines the spectral throughput and the detector. This offset can reach up to 15\% of the total value of the signal when measuring diffuse irradiance under clear sky conditions. The thermal offset is characterized by monitoring the temperature gradient between the dome and detector using thermistors at key locations. The temperatures are acquired by using thermistors. Relationships between the thermal offset and the temperature gradient are established using nighttime data and subsequently used to estimate the offset during daytime. To correct historical data the thermal offset is related to other variables such as the output of a Precision Infrared Pyrgeometer (PIR) or the fraction of cloud cover in the sky. The use of thermistors is a very reliable method to estimate and correct the thermal offset. The relationships between the offset and the IR output and between the offset and the cloud cover fraction provide good estimates of the thermal offset in historical data sets, reducing it 60% to 100% depending on the instrument and the relationship used. / Master of Science