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Description
Practical communication systems are subject to errors due to imperfect time alignment among the communicating nodes. Timing errors can occur in different forms depending on the underlying communication scenario. This doctoral study considers two different classes of asynchronous systems; point-to-point (P2P) communication systems with synchronization errors, and asynchronous cooperative systems.

Practical communication systems are subject to errors due to imperfect time alignment among the communicating nodes. Timing errors can occur in different forms depending on the underlying communication scenario. This doctoral study considers two different classes of asynchronous systems; point-to-point (P2P) communication systems with synchronization errors, and asynchronous cooperative systems. In particular, the focus is on an information theoretic analysis for P2P systems with synchronization errors and developing new signaling solutions for several asynchronous cooperative communication systems. The first part of the dissertation presents several bounds on the capacity of the P2P systems with synchronization errors. First, binary insertion and deletion channels are considered where lower bounds on the mutual information between the input and output sequences are computed for independent uniformly distributed (i.u.d.) inputs. Then, a channel suffering from both synchronization errors and additive noise is considered as a serial concatenation of a synchronization error-only channel and an additive noise channel. It is proved that the capacity of the original channel is lower bounded in terms of the synchronization error-only channel capacity and the parameters of both channels. On a different front, to better characterize the deletion channel capacity, the capacity of three independent deletion channels with different deletion probabilities are related through an inequality resulting in the tightest upper bound on the deletion channel capacity for deletion probabilities larger than 0.65. Furthermore, the first non-trivial upper bound on the 2K-ary input deletion channel capacity is provided by relating the 2K-ary input deletion channel capacity with the binary deletion channel capacity through an inequality. The second part of the dissertation develops two new relaying schemes to alleviate asynchronism issues in cooperative communications. The first one is a single carrier (SC)-based scheme providing a spectrally efficient Alamouti code structure at the receiver under flat fading channel conditions by reducing the overhead needed to overcome the asynchronism and obtain spatial diversity. The second one is an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based approach useful for asynchronous cooperative systems experiencing excessive relative delays among the relays under frequency-selective channel conditions to achieve a delay diversity structure at the receiver and extract spatial diversity.
ContributorsRahmati, Mojtaba (Author) / Duman, Tolga M. (Thesis advisor) / Zhang, Junshan (Committee member) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Reisslein, Martin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Continuous monitoring in the adequate temporal and spatial scale is necessary for a better understanding of environmental variations. But field deployments of molecular biological analysis platforms in that scale are currently hindered because of issues with power, throughput and automation. Currently, such analysis is performed by the collection of large

Continuous monitoring in the adequate temporal and spatial scale is necessary for a better understanding of environmental variations. But field deployments of molecular biological analysis platforms in that scale are currently hindered because of issues with power, throughput and automation. Currently, such analysis is performed by the collection of large sample volumes from over a wide area and transporting them to laboratory testing facilities, which fail to provide any real-time information. This dissertation evaluates the systems currently utilized for in-situ field analyses and the issues hampering the successful deployment of such bioanalytial instruments for environmental applications. The design and development of high throughput, low power, and autonomous Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) instruments, amenable for portable field operations capable of providing quantitative results is presented here as part of this dissertation. A number of novel innovations have been reported here as part of this work in microfluidic design, PCR thermocycler design, optical design and systems integration. Emulsion microfluidics in conjunction with fluorinated oils and Teflon tubing have been used for the fluidic module that reduces cross-contamination eliminating the need for disposable components or constant cleaning. A cylindrical heater has been designed with the tubing wrapped around fixed temperature zones enabling continuous operation. Fluorescence excitation and detection have been achieved by using a light emitting diode (LED) as the excitation source and a photomultiplier tube (PMT) as the detector. Real-time quantitative PCR results were obtained by using multi-channel fluorescence excitation and detection using LED, optical fibers and a 64-channel multi-anode PMT for measuring continuous real-time fluorescence. The instrument was evaluated by comparing the results obtained with those obtained from a commercial instrument and found to be comparable. To further improve the design and enhance its field portability, this dissertation also presents a framework for the instrumentation necessary for a portable digital PCR platform to achieve higher throughputs with lower power. Both systems were designed such that it can easily couple with any upstream platform capable of providing nucleic acid for analysis using standard fluidic connections. Consequently, these instruments can be used not only in environmental applications, but portable diagnostics applications as well.
ContributorsRay, Tathagata (Author) / Youngbull, Cody (Thesis advisor) / Goryll, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Blain Christen, Jennifer (Committee member) / Yu, Hongyu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Global Positioning System (GPS) is a navigation system widely used in civilian and military application, but its accuracy is highly impacted with consequential fading, and possible loss of communication due to multipath propagation and high power interferences. This dissertation proposes alternatives to improve the performance of the GPS receivers to

Global Positioning System (GPS) is a navigation system widely used in civilian and military application, but its accuracy is highly impacted with consequential fading, and possible loss of communication due to multipath propagation and high power interferences. This dissertation proposes alternatives to improve the performance of the GPS receivers to obtain a system that can be reliable in critical situations. The basic performance of the GPS receiver consists of receiving the signal with an antenna array, delaying the signal at each antenna element, weighting the delayed replicas, and finally, combining the weighted replicas to estimate the desired signal. Based on these, three modifications are proposed to improve the performance of the system. The first proposed modification is the use of the Least Mean Squares (LMS) algorithm with two variations to decrease the convergence time of the classic LMS while achieving good system stability. The results obtained by the proposed LMS demonstrate that the algorithm can achieve the same stability as the classic LMS using a small step size, and its convergence rate is better than the classic LMS using a large step size. The second proposed modification is to replace the uniform distribution of the time delays (or taps) by an exponential distribution that decreases the bit-error rate (BER) of the system without impacting the computational efficiency of the uniform taps. The results show that, for a BER of 0.001, the system can operate with a 1 to 2 dB lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) when an exponential distribution is used rather than a uniform distribution. Finally, the third modification is implemented in the design of the antenna array. In this case, the gain of each microstrip element is enhanced by embedding ferrite rings in the substrate, creating a hybrid substrate. The ferrite rings generates constructive interference between the incident and reflected fields; consequently, the gain of a single microstrip element is enhanced by up to 4 dB. When hybrid substrates are used in microstrip element arrays, a significant enhancement in angle range is achieved for a given reflection coefficient compared to using a conventional substrate.
ContributorsRivera-Albino, Alix (Author) / Balanis, Constantine A (Thesis advisor) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Committee member) / Aberle, James T (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
The processing power and storage capacity of portable devices have improved considerably over the past decade. This has motivated the implementation of sophisticated audio and other signal processing algorithms on such mobile devices. Of particular interest in this thesis is audio/speech processing based on perceptual criteria. Specifically, estimation of parameters

The processing power and storage capacity of portable devices have improved considerably over the past decade. This has motivated the implementation of sophisticated audio and other signal processing algorithms on such mobile devices. Of particular interest in this thesis is audio/speech processing based on perceptual criteria. Specifically, estimation of parameters from human auditory models, such as auditory patterns and loudness, involves computationally intensive operations which can strain device resources. Hence, strategies for implementing computationally efficient human auditory models for loudness estimation have been studied in this thesis. Existing algorithms for reducing computations in auditory pattern and loudness estimation have been examined and improved algorithms have been proposed to overcome limitations of these methods. In addition, real-time applications such as perceptual loudness estimation and loudness equalization using auditory models have also been implemented. A software implementation of loudness estimation on iOS devices is also reported in this thesis. In addition to the loudness estimation algorithms and software, in this thesis project we also created new illustrations of speech and audio processing concepts for research and education. As a result, a new suite of speech/audio DSP functions was developed and integrated as part of the award-winning educational iOS App 'iJDSP." These functions are described in detail in this thesis. Several enhancements in the architecture of the application have also been introduced for providing the supporting framework for speech/audio processing. Frame-by-frame processing and visualization functionalities have been developed to facilitate speech/audio processing. In addition, facilities for easy sound recording, processing and audio rendering have also been developed to provide students, practitioners and researchers with an enriched DSP simulation tool. Simulations and assessments have been also developed for use in classes and training of practitioners and students.
ContributorsKalyanasundaram, Girish (Author) / Spanias, Andreas S (Thesis advisor) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Berisha, Visar (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Autonomous vehicle control systems utilize real-time kinematic Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers to provide a position within two-centimeter of truth. GNSS receivers utilize the satellite signal time of arrival estimates to solve for position; and multipath corrupts the time of arrival estimates with a time-varying bias. Time of arrival

Autonomous vehicle control systems utilize real-time kinematic Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers to provide a position within two-centimeter of truth. GNSS receivers utilize the satellite signal time of arrival estimates to solve for position; and multipath corrupts the time of arrival estimates with a time-varying bias. Time of arrival estimates are based upon accurate direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) code and carrier phase tracking. Current multipath mitigating GNSS solutions include fixed radiation pattern antennas and windowed delay-lock loop code phase discriminators. A new multipath mitigating code tracking algorithm is introduced that utilizes a non-symmetric correlation kernel to reject multipath. Independent parameters provide a means to trade-off code tracking discriminant gain against multipath mitigation performance. The algorithm performance is characterized in terms of multipath phase error bias, phase error estimation variance, tracking range, tracking ambiguity and implementation complexity. The algorithm is suitable for modernized GNSS signals including Binary Phase Shift Keyed (BPSK) and a variety of Binary Offset Keyed (BOC) signals. The algorithm compensates for unbalanced code sequences to ensure a code tracking bias does not result from the use of asymmetric correlation kernels. The algorithm does not require explicit knowledge of the propagation channel model. Design recommendations for selecting the algorithm parameters to mitigate precorrelation filter distortion are also provided.
ContributorsMiller, Steven (Author) / Spanias, Andreas (Thesis advisor) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Tsakalis, Konstantinos (Committee member) / Zhang, Junshan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) based on the III-V nitride material system have been under extensive investigation because of their superb performance as high power RF devices. Two dimensional electron gas(2-DEG) with charge density ten times higher than that of GaAs-based HEMT and mobility much higher than Si enables

GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) based on the III-V nitride material system have been under extensive investigation because of their superb performance as high power RF devices. Two dimensional electron gas(2-DEG) with charge density ten times higher than that of GaAs-based HEMT and mobility much higher than Si enables a low on-resistance required for RF devices. Self-heating issues with GaN HEMT and lack of understanding of various phenomena are hindering their widespread commercial development. There is a need to understand device operation by developing a model which could be used to optimize electrical and thermal characteristics of GaN HEMT design for high power and high frequency operation. In this thesis work a physical simulation model of AlGaN/GaN HEMT is developed using commercially available software ATLAS from SILVACO Int. based on the energy balance/hydrodynamic carrier transport equations. The model is calibrated against experimental data. Transfer and output characteristics are the key focus in the analysis along with saturation drain current. The resultant IV curves showed a close correspondence with experimental results. Various combinations of electron mobility, velocity saturation, momentum and energy relaxation times and gate work functions were attempted to improve IV curve correlation. Thermal effects were also investigated to get a better understanding on the role of self-heating effects on the electrical characteristics of GaN HEMTs. The temperature profiles across the device were observed. Hot spots were found along the channel in the gate-drain spacing. These preliminary results indicate that the thermal effects do have an impact on the electrical device characteristics at large biases even though the amount of self-heating is underestimated with respect to thermal particle-based simulations that solve the energy balance equations for acoustic and optical phonons as well (thus take proper account of the formation of the hot-spot). The decrease in drain current is due to decrease in saturation carrier velocity. The necessity of including hydrodynamic/energy balance transport models for accurate simulations is demonstrated. Possible ways for improving model accuracy are discussed in conjunction with future research.
ContributorsChowdhury, Towhid (Author) / Vasileska, Dragica (Thesis advisor) / Goodnick, Stephen (Committee member) / Goryll, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Distributed inference has applications in a wide range of fields such as source localization, target detection, environment monitoring, and healthcare. In this dissertation, distributed inference schemes which use bounded transmit power are considered. The performance of the proposed schemes are studied for a variety of inference problems. In the first

Distributed inference has applications in a wide range of fields such as source localization, target detection, environment monitoring, and healthcare. In this dissertation, distributed inference schemes which use bounded transmit power are considered. The performance of the proposed schemes are studied for a variety of inference problems. In the first part of the dissertation, a distributed detection scheme where the sensors transmit with constant modulus signals over a Gaussian multiple access channel is considered. The deflection coefficient of the proposed scheme is shown to depend on the characteristic function of the sensing noise, and the error exponent for the system is derived using large deviation theory. Optimization of the deflection coefficient and error exponent are considered with respect to a transmission phase parameter for a variety of sensing noise distributions including impulsive ones. The proposed scheme is also favorably compared with existing amplify-and-forward (AF) and detect-and-forward (DF) schemes. The effect of fading is shown to be detrimental to the detection performance and simulations are provided to corroborate the analytical results. The second part of the dissertation studies a distributed inference scheme which uses bounded transmission functions over a Gaussian multiple access channel. The conditions on the transmission functions under which consistent estimation and reliable detection are possible is characterized. For the distributed estimation problem, an estimation scheme that uses bounded transmission functions is proved to be strongly consistent provided that the variance of the noise samples are bounded and that the transmission function is one-to-one. The proposed estimation scheme is compared with the amplify and forward technique and its robustness to impulsive sensing noise distributions is highlighted. It is also shown that bounded transmissions suffer from inconsistent estimates if the sensing noise variance goes to infinity. For the distributed detection problem, similar results are obtained by studying the deflection coefficient. Simulations corroborate our analytical results. In the third part of this dissertation, the problem of estimating the average of samples distributed at the nodes of a sensor network is considered. A distributed average consensus algorithm in which every sensor transmits with bounded peak power is proposed. In the presence of communication noise, it is shown that the nodes reach consensus asymptotically to a finite random variable whose expectation is the desired sample average of the initial observations with a variance that depends on the step size of the algorithm and the variance of the communication noise. The asymptotic performance is characterized by deriving the asymptotic covariance matrix using results from stochastic approximation theory. It is shown that using bounded transmissions results in slower convergence compared to the linear consensus algorithm based on the Laplacian heuristic. Simulations corroborate our analytical findings. Finally, a robust distributed average consensus algorithm in which every sensor performs a nonlinear processing at the receiver is proposed. It is shown that non-linearity at the receiver nodes makes the algorithm robust to a wide range of channel noise distributions including the impulsive ones. It is shown that the nodes reach consensus asymptotically and similar results are obtained as in the case of transmit non-linearity. Simulations corroborate our analytical findings and highlight the robustness of the proposed algorithm.
ContributorsDasarathan, Sivaraman (Author) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Thesis advisor) / Papandreou-Suppappola, Antonia (Committee member) / Reisslein, Martin (Committee member) / Goryll, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
This research emphasizes the use of low energy and low temperature post processing to improve the performance and lifetime of thin films and thin film transistors, by applying the fundamentals of interaction of materials with conductive heating and electromagnetic radiation. Single frequency microwave anneal is used to rapidly recrystallize the

This research emphasizes the use of low energy and low temperature post processing to improve the performance and lifetime of thin films and thin film transistors, by applying the fundamentals of interaction of materials with conductive heating and electromagnetic radiation. Single frequency microwave anneal is used to rapidly recrystallize the damage induced during ion implantation in Si substrates. Volumetric heating of the sample in the presence of the microwave field facilitates quick absorption of radiation to promote recrystallization at the amorphous-crystalline interface, apart from electrical activation of the dopants due to relocation to the substitutional sites. Structural and electrical characterization confirm recrystallization of heavily implanted Si within 40 seconds anneal time with minimum dopant diffusion compared to rapid thermal annealed samples. The use of microwave anneal to improve performance of multilayer thin film devices, e.g. thin film transistors (TFTs) requires extensive study of interaction of individual layers with electromagnetic radiation. This issue has been addressed by developing detail understanding of thin films and interfaces in TFTs by studying reliability and failure mechanisms upon extensive stress test. Electrical and ambient stresses such as illumination, thermal, and mechanical stresses are inflicted on the mixed oxide based thin film transistors, which are explored due to high mobilities of the mixed oxide (indium zinc oxide, indium gallium zinc oxide) channel layer material. Semiconductor parameter analyzer is employed to extract transfer characteristics, useful to derive mobility, subthreshold, and threshold voltage parameters of the transistors. Low temperature post processing anneals compatible with polymer substrates are performed in several ambients (oxygen, forming gas and vacuum) at 150 °C as a preliminary step. The analysis of the results pre and post low temperature anneals using device physics fundamentals assists in categorizing defects leading to failure/degradation as: oxygen vacancies, thermally activated defects within the bandgap, channel-dielectric interface defects, and acceptor-like or donor-like trap states. Microwave anneal has been confirmed to enhance the quality of thin films, however future work entails extending the use of electromagnetic radiation in controlled ambient to facilitate quick post fabrication anneal to improve the functionality and lifetime of these low temperature fabricated TFTs.
ContributorsVemuri, Rajitha (Author) / Alford, Terry L. (Thesis advisor) / Theodore, N David (Committee member) / Goryll, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
The field of education has been immensely benefited by major breakthroughs in technology. The arrival of computers and the internet made student-teacher interaction from different parts of the world viable, increasing the reach of the educator to hitherto remote corners of the world. The arrival of mobile phones in the

The field of education has been immensely benefited by major breakthroughs in technology. The arrival of computers and the internet made student-teacher interaction from different parts of the world viable, increasing the reach of the educator to hitherto remote corners of the world. The arrival of mobile phones in the recent past has the potential to provide the next paradigm shift in the way education is conducted. It combines the universal reach and powerful visualization capabilities of the computer with intimacy and portability. Engineering education is a field which can exploit the benefits of mobile devices to enhance learning and spread essential technical know-how to different parts of the world. In this thesis, I present AJDSP, an Android application evolved from JDSP, providing an intuitive and a easy to use environment for signal processing education. AJDSP is a graphical programming laboratory for digital signal processing developed for the Android platform. It is designed to provide utility; both as a supplement to traditional classroom learning and as a tool for self-learning. The architecture of AJDSP is based on the Model-View-Controller paradigm optimized for the Android platform. The extensive set of function modules cover a wide range of basic signal processing areas such as convolution, fast Fourier transform, z transform and filter design. The simple and intuitive user interface inspired from iJDSP is designed to facilitate ease of navigation and to provide the user with an intimate learning environment. Rich visualizations necessary to understand mathematically intensive signal processing algorithms have been incorporated into the software. Interactive demonstrations boosting student understanding of concepts like convolution and the relation between different signal domains have also been developed. A set of detailed assessments to evaluate the application has been conducted for graduate and senior-level undergraduate students.
ContributorsRanganath, Suhas (Author) / Spanias, Andreas (Thesis advisor) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Tsakalis, Konstantinos (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
A principal goal of this dissertation is to study stochastic optimization and real-time scheduling in cyber-physical systems (CPSs) ranging from real-time wireless systems to energy systems to distributed control systems. Under this common theme, this dissertation can be broadly organized into three parts based on the system environments. The first

A principal goal of this dissertation is to study stochastic optimization and real-time scheduling in cyber-physical systems (CPSs) ranging from real-time wireless systems to energy systems to distributed control systems. Under this common theme, this dissertation can be broadly organized into three parts based on the system environments. The first part investigates stochastic optimization in real-time wireless systems, with the focus on the deadline-aware scheduling for real-time traffic. The optimal solution to such scheduling problems requires to explicitly taking into account the coupling in the deadline-aware transmissions and stochastic characteristics of the traffic, which involves a dynamic program that is traditionally known to be intractable or computationally expensive to implement. First, real-time scheduling with adaptive network coding over memoryless channels is studied, and a polynomial-time complexity algorithm is developed to characterize the optimal real-time scheduling. Then, real-time scheduling over Markovian channels is investigated, where channel conditions are time-varying and online channel learning is necessary, and the optimal scheduling policies in different traffic regimes are studied. The second part focuses on the stochastic optimization and real-time scheduling involved in energy systems. First, risk-aware scheduling and dispatch for plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) are studied, aiming to jointly optimize the EV charging cost and the risk of the load mismatch between the forecasted and the actual EV loads, due to the random driving activities of EVs. Then, the integration of wind generation at high penetration levels into bulk power grids is considered. Joint optimization of economic dispatch and interruptible load management is investigated using short-term wind farm generation forecast. The third part studies stochastic optimization in distributed control systems under different network environments. First, distributed spectrum access in cognitive radio networks is investigated by using pricing approach, where primary users (PUs) sell the temporarily unused spectrum and secondary users compete via random access for such spectrum opportunities. The optimal pricing strategy for PUs and the corresponding distributed implementation of spectrum access control are developed to maximize the PU's revenue. Then, a systematic study of the nonconvex utility-based power control problem is presented under the physical interference model in ad-hoc networks. Distributed power control schemes are devised to maximize the system utility, by leveraging the extended duality theory and simulated annealing.
ContributorsYang, Lei (Author) / Zhang, Junshan (Thesis advisor) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Ying, Lei (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012