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- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
This study was designed to create a more user-friendly experience in utilizing the M-Sorter package for spike sorting and detection. This was achieved through the creation of a Graphical User Interface or GUI. The GUI was created for the spike detection portion of sorting. Through the creation of the M-Sorter detection GUI, now novice programmers can run the detector process. Additionally, the parameters are easily altered which will greatly decrease the time it takes to enter data and eliminate mistakes users may make in data entry.
ContributorsMarkley, Harry Tre (Author) / Si, Jennie (Thesis director) / Wang, Sijia (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This thesis addresses control design for fixed-wing air-breathing aircraft. Four aircraft with distinct dynamical properties are considered: a scram-jet powered hypersonic (100foot long, X-43 like, wedge shaped) aircraft with flexible modes operating near Mach 8, 85k ft, a NASA HiMAT (Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technology) F-18 aircraft,
a McDonnell Douglas AV-8A Harrier aircraft, and a Vought F-8 Crusader aircraft. A two-input two-output (TITO) longitudinal LTI (linear time invariant) dynamical model is used for each aircraft. Control design trade studies are conducted for each of the aircraft. Emphasis is placed on the hypersonic vehicle because of its complex nonlinear (unstable, non-minimum phase, flexible) dynamics and uncertainty associated with hypersonic flight (Mach $>$ 5, shocks and high temperatures on leading edges). Two plume models are used for the hypersonic vehicle – an old plume model and a new plume model. The old plume model is simple and assumes a typical decaying pressure distribution for aft nozzle. The new plume model uses Newtonian impact theory and a nonlinear solver to compute the aft nozzle pressure distribution. Multivariable controllers were generated using standard weighted $H_{\inf}$ mixed-sensitivity optimization as well as a new input disturbance weighted mixed-sensitivity framework that attempts to achieve good multivariable properties at both the controls (plant inputs) as well as the errors (plant outputs). Classical inner-outer (PD-PI) structures (partially centralized and decentralized) were also used. It is shown that while these classical (sometimes partially centralized PD-PI) structures could be used to generate comparable results to the multivariable controllers (e.g. for the hypersonic vehicle, Harrier, F-8), considerable tuning (iterative optimization) is often essential. This is especially true for the highly coupled hypersonic vehicle – thus justifying the need for a good multivariable control design tool. Fundamental control design tradeoffs for each aircraft are presented – comprehensively for the hypersonic aircraft. In short, the thesis attempts to shed light on when complex controllers are essential and when simple structures are sufficient for achieving control designs with good multivariable loop properties at both the errors (plant outputs) and the controls (plant inputs).
a McDonnell Douglas AV-8A Harrier aircraft, and a Vought F-8 Crusader aircraft. A two-input two-output (TITO) longitudinal LTI (linear time invariant) dynamical model is used for each aircraft. Control design trade studies are conducted for each of the aircraft. Emphasis is placed on the hypersonic vehicle because of its complex nonlinear (unstable, non-minimum phase, flexible) dynamics and uncertainty associated with hypersonic flight (Mach $>$ 5, shocks and high temperatures on leading edges). Two plume models are used for the hypersonic vehicle – an old plume model and a new plume model. The old plume model is simple and assumes a typical decaying pressure distribution for aft nozzle. The new plume model uses Newtonian impact theory and a nonlinear solver to compute the aft nozzle pressure distribution. Multivariable controllers were generated using standard weighted $H_{\inf}$ mixed-sensitivity optimization as well as a new input disturbance weighted mixed-sensitivity framework that attempts to achieve good multivariable properties at both the controls (plant inputs) as well as the errors (plant outputs). Classical inner-outer (PD-PI) structures (partially centralized and decentralized) were also used. It is shown that while these classical (sometimes partially centralized PD-PI) structures could be used to generate comparable results to the multivariable controllers (e.g. for the hypersonic vehicle, Harrier, F-8), considerable tuning (iterative optimization) is often essential. This is especially true for the highly coupled hypersonic vehicle – thus justifying the need for a good multivariable control design tool. Fundamental control design tradeoffs for each aircraft are presented – comprehensively for the hypersonic aircraft. In short, the thesis attempts to shed light on when complex controllers are essential and when simple structures are sufficient for achieving control designs with good multivariable loop properties at both the errors (plant outputs) and the controls (plant inputs).
ContributorsMondal, Kaustav (Author) / Rodriguez, Armando Antonio (Thesis advisor) / Tsakalis, Kostas (Committee member) / Si, Jennie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Mechanical properties of cells are important in maintaining physiological functions of biological systems. Quantitative measurement and analysis of mechanical properties can help understand cellular mechanics and its functional relevance and discover physical biomarkers for diseases monitoring and therapeutics.
This dissertation presents a work to develop optical methods for studying cell mechanics which encompasses four applications. Surface plasmon resonance microscopy based optical method has been applied to image intracellular motions and cell mechanical motion. This label-free technique enables ultrafast imaging with extremely high sensitivity in detecting cell deformation. The technique was first applied to study intracellular transportation. Organelle transportation process and displacement steps of motor protein can be tracked using this method. The second application is to study heterogeneous subcellular membrane displacement induced by membrane potential (de)polarization. The application can map the amplitude and direction of cell deformation. The electromechanical coupling of mammalian cells was also observed. The third application is for imaging electrical activity in single cells with sub-millisecond resolution. This technique can fast record actions potentials and also resolve the fast initiation and propagation of electromechanical signals within single neurons. Bright-field optical imaging approach has been applied to the mechanical wave visualization that associated with action potential in the fourth application. Neuron-to-neuron viability of membrane displacement was revealed and heterogeneous subcellular response was observed.
All these works shed light on the possibility of using optical approaches to study millisecond-scale and sub-nanometer-scale mechanical motions. These studies revealed ultrafast and ultra-small mechanical motions at the cellular level, including motor protein-driven motions and electromechanical coupled motions. The observations will help understand cell mechanics and its biological functions. These optical approaches will also become powerful tools for elucidating the interplay between biological and physical functions.
This dissertation presents a work to develop optical methods for studying cell mechanics which encompasses four applications. Surface plasmon resonance microscopy based optical method has been applied to image intracellular motions and cell mechanical motion. This label-free technique enables ultrafast imaging with extremely high sensitivity in detecting cell deformation. The technique was first applied to study intracellular transportation. Organelle transportation process and displacement steps of motor protein can be tracked using this method. The second application is to study heterogeneous subcellular membrane displacement induced by membrane potential (de)polarization. The application can map the amplitude and direction of cell deformation. The electromechanical coupling of mammalian cells was also observed. The third application is for imaging electrical activity in single cells with sub-millisecond resolution. This technique can fast record actions potentials and also resolve the fast initiation and propagation of electromechanical signals within single neurons. Bright-field optical imaging approach has been applied to the mechanical wave visualization that associated with action potential in the fourth application. Neuron-to-neuron viability of membrane displacement was revealed and heterogeneous subcellular response was observed.
All these works shed light on the possibility of using optical approaches to study millisecond-scale and sub-nanometer-scale mechanical motions. These studies revealed ultrafast and ultra-small mechanical motions at the cellular level, including motor protein-driven motions and electromechanical coupled motions. The observations will help understand cell mechanics and its biological functions. These optical approaches will also become powerful tools for elucidating the interplay between biological and physical functions.
ContributorsYang, Yunze (Author) / Tao, Nongjian (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Shaopeng (Committee member) / Goryll, Michael (Committee member) / Si, Jennie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) were first imagined as a technology that would allow subjects to have direct communication with prosthetics and external devices (e.g. control over a computer cursor or robotic arm movement). Operation of these devices was not automatic, and subjects needed calibration and training in order to master this control. In short, learning became a key component in controlling these systems. As a result, BMIs have become ideal tools to probe and explore brain activity, since they allow the isolation of neural inputs and systematic altering of the relationships between the neural signals and output. I have used BMIs to explore the process of brain adaptability in a motor-like task. To this end, I trained non-human primates to control a 3D cursor and adapt to two different perturbations: a visuomotor rotation, uniform across the neural ensemble, and a decorrelation task, which non-uniformly altered the relationship between the activity of particular neurons in an ensemble and movement output. I measured individual and population level changes in the neural ensemble as subjects honed their skills over the span of several days. I found some similarities in the adaptation process elicited by these two tasks. On one hand, individual neurons displayed tuning changes across the entire ensemble after task adaptation: most neurons displayed transient changes in their preferred directions, and most neuron pairs showed changes in their cross-correlations during the learning process. On the other hand, I also measured population level adaptation in the neural ensemble: the underlying neural manifolds that control these neural signals also had dynamic changes during adaptation. I have found that the neural circuits seem to apply an exploratory strategy when adapting to new tasks. Our results suggest that information and trajectories in the neural space increase after initially introducing the perturbations, and before the subject settles into workable solutions. These results provide new insights into both the underlying population level processes in motor learning, and the changes in neural coding which are necessary for subjects to learn to control neuroprosthetics. Understanding of these mechanisms can help us create better control algorithms, and design training paradigms that will take advantage of these processes.
ContributorsArmenta Salas, Michelle (Author) / Helms Tillery, Stephen I (Thesis advisor) / Si, Jennie (Committee member) / Buneo, Christopher (Committee member) / Santello, Marco (Committee member) / Kleim, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Recent new experiments showed that wide-field imaging at millimeter scale is capable of recording hundreds of neurons in behaving mice brain. Monitoring hundreds of individual neurons at a high frame rate provides a promising tool for discovering spatiotemporal features of large neural networks. However, processing the massive data sets is impossible without automated procedures. Thus, this thesis aims at developing a new tool to automatically segment and track individual neuron cells. The new method used in this study employs two major ideas including feature extraction based on power spectral density of single neuron temporal activity and clustering tree to separate overlapping cells. To address issues associated with high-resolution imaging of a large recording area, focused areas and out-of-focus areas were analyzed separately. A static segmentation with a fixed PSD thresholding method is applied to within focus visual field. A dynamic segmentation by comparing maximum PSD with surrounding pixels is applied to out-of-focus area. Both approaches helped remove irrelevant pixels in the background. After detection of potential single cells, some of which appeared in groups due to overlapping cells in the image, a hierarchical clustering algorithm is applied to separate them. The hierarchical clustering uses correlation coefficient as a distance measurement to group similar pixels into single cells. As such, overlapping cells can be separated. We tested the entire algorithm using two real recordings with the respective truth carefully determined by manual inspections. The results show high accuracy on tested datasets while false positive error is controlled within an acceptable range. Furthermore, results indicate robustness of the algorithm when applied to different image sequences.
ContributorsWu, Ruofan (Author) / Si, Jennie (Thesis advisor) / Sadleir, Rosalind (Committee member) / Crook, Sharon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
An advantage of doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs) as compared to conventional fixed speed wind turbine generators is higher efficiency. This higher efficiency is achieved due to the ability of the DFIG to operate near its optimal turbine efficiency over a wider range of wind speeds through variable speed operation. This is achieved through the application of a back-to-back converter that tightly controls the rotor current and allows for asynchronous operation. In doing so, however, the power electronic converter effectively decouples the inertia of the turbine from the system. Hence, with the increase in penetration of DFIG based wind farms, the effective inertia of the system will be reduced. With this assertion, the present study is aimed at identifying the systematic approach to pinpoint the impact of increased penetration of DFIGs on a large realistic system. The techniques proposed in this work are tested on a large test system representing the Midwestern portion of the U.S. Interconnection. The electromechanical modes that are both detrimentally and beneficially affected by the change in inertia are identified. The combination of small-signal stability analysis coupled with the large disturbance analysis of exciting the mode identified is found to provide a detailed picture of the impact on the system. The work is extended to develop suitable control strategies to mitigate the impact of significant DFIG penetration on a large power system. Supplementary control is developed for the DFIG power converters such that the effective inertia contributed by these wind generators to the system is increased. Results obtained on the large realistic power system indicate that the frequency nadir following a large power impact is effectively improved with the proposed control strategy. The proposed control is also validated against sudden wind speed changes in the form of wind gusts and wind ramps. The beneficial impact in terms of damping power system oscillations is observed, which is validated by eigenvalue analysis. Another control mechanism is developed aiming at designing the power system stabilizer (PSS) for a DFIG similar to the PSS of synchronous machines. Although both the supplementary control strategies serve the purpose of improving the damping of the mode with detrimental impact, better damping performance is observed when the DFIG is equipped with both the controllers.
ContributorsGautam, Durga (Author) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Farmer, Richard (Committee member) / Si, Jennie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
A systematic top down approach to minimize risk and maximize the profits of an investment over a given period of time is proposed. Macroeconomic factors such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Consumer Price Index (CPI), Outstanding Consumer Credit, Industrial Production Index, Money Supply (MS), Unemployment Rate, and Ten-Year Treasury are used to predict/estimate asset (sector ETF`s) returns. Fundamental ratios of individual stocks are used to predict the stock returns. An a priori known cash-flow sequence is assumed available for investment. Given the importance of sector performance on stock performance, sector based Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) for the S&P; and Dow Jones are considered and wealth is allocated. Mean variance optimization with risk and return constraints are used to distribute the wealth in individual sectors among the selected stocks. The results presented should be viewed as providing an outer control/decision loop generating sector target allocations that will ultimately drive an inner control/decision loop focusing on stock selection. Receding horizon control (RHC) ideas are exploited to pose and solve two relevant constrained optimization problems. First, the classic problem of wealth maximization subject to risk constraints (as measured by a metric on the covariance matrices) is considered. Special consideration is given to an optimization problem that attempts to minimize the peak risk over the prediction horizon, while trying to track a wealth objective. It is concluded that this approach may be particularly beneficial during downturns - appreciably limiting downside during downturns while providing most of the upside during upturns. Investment in stocks during upturns and in sector ETF`s during downturns is profitable.
ContributorsChitturi, Divakar (Author) / Rodriguez, Armando (Thesis advisor) / Tsakalis, Konstantinos S (Committee member) / Si, Jennie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
This thesis presents a multi-modal motion tracking system for stroke patient rehabilitation. This system deploys two sensor modules: marker-based motion capture system and inertial measurement unit (IMU). The integrated system provides real-time measurement of the right arm and trunk movement, even in the presence of marker occlusion. The information from the two sensors is fused through quaternion-based recursive filters to promise robust detection of torso compensation (undesired body motion). Since this algorithm allows flexible sensor configurations, it presents a framework for fusing the IMU data and vision data that can adapt to various sensor selection scenarios. The proposed system consequently has the potential to improve both the robustness and flexibility of the sensing process. Through comparison between the complementary filter, the extended Kalman filter (EKF), the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) and the particle filter (PF), the experimental part evaluated the performance of the quaternion-based complementary filter for 10 sensor combination scenarios. Experimental results demonstrate the favorable performance of the proposed system in case of occlusion. Such investigation also provides valuable information for filtering algorithm and strategy selection in specific sensor applications.
ContributorsLiu, Yangzi (Author) / Qian, Gang (Thesis advisor) / Olson, Loren (Committee member) / Si, Jennie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
Soft continuum robots with the ability to bend, twist, elongate, and shorten, similar to octopus arms, have many potential applications, such as dexterous manipulation and navigation through unstructured, dynamic environments. Novel soft materials such as smart hydrogels, which change volume and other properties in response to stimuli such as temperature, pH, and chemicals, can potentially be used to construct soft robots that achieve self-regulated adaptive reconfiguration through on-demand dynamic control of local properties. However, the design of controllers for soft continuum robots is challenging due to their high-dimensional configuration space and the complexity of modeling soft actuator dynamics. To address these challenges, this dissertation presents two different model-based control approaches for robots with distributed soft actuators and sensors and validates the approaches in simulations and physical experiments. It is demonstrated that by choosing an appropriate dynamical model and designing a decentralized controller based on this model, such robots can be controlled to achieve diverse types of complex configurations. The first approach consists of approximating the dynamics of the system, including its actuators, as a linear state-space model in order to apply optimal robust control techniques such as H∞ state-feedback and H∞ output-feedback methods. These techniques are designed to utilize the decentralized control structure of the robot and its distributed sensing and actuation to achieve vibration control and trajectory tracking. The approach is validated in simulation on an Euler-Bernoulli dynamic model of a hydrogel based cantilevered robotic arm and in experiments with a hydrogel-actuated miniature 2-DOF manipulator. The second approach is developed for soft continuum robots with dynamics that can be modeled using Cosserat rod theory. An inverse dynamics control approach is implemented on the Cosserat model of the robot for tracking configurations that include bending, torsion, shear, and extension deformations. The decentralized controller structure facilitates its implementation on robot arms composed of independently-controllable segments that have local sensing and actuation. This approach is validated on simulated 3D robot arms and on an actual silicone robot arm with distributed pneumatic actuation, for which the inverse dynamics problem is solved in simulation and the computed control outputs are applied to the robot in real-time.
ContributorsDoroudchi, Azadeh (Author) / Berman, Spring (Thesis advisor) / Tsakalis, Konstantinos (Committee member) / Si, Jennie (Committee member) / Marvi, Hamid (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This dissertation examines modeling, design and control challenges associatedwith two classes of power converters: a direct current-direct current (DC-DC) step-down (buck)
regulator and a 3-phase (3-ϕ) 4-wire direct current-alternating current
(DC-AC) inverter. These are widely used for power transfer in a variety of industrial
and personal applications. This motivates the precise quantification of conditions
under which existing modeling and design methods yield satisfactory designs, and
the study of alternatives when they don’t. This dissertation describes a method
utilizing Fourier components of the input square wave and the inductor-capacitor (LC)
filter transfer function, which doesn’t require the small ripple approximation. Then,
trade-offs associated with the choice of the filter order are analyzed for integrated buck
converters with a constraint on their chip area. Design specifications which would
justify using a fourth or sixth order filter instead of the widely used second order
one are examined. Next, sampled-data (SD) control of a buck converter is analyzed.
Three methods for the digital controller design are studied: analog design followed
by discretization, direct digital design of a discretized plant, and a “lifting” based
method wherein the sampling time is incorporated in the design process by lifting
the continuous-time design plant before doing the controller design. Specifically,
controller performance is quantified by studying the induced-L2 norm of the closed
loop system for a range of switching/sampling frequencies. In the final segment of
this dissertation, the inner-outer control loop, employed in inverters with an
inductor-capacitor-inductor (LCL) output filter, is studied. Closed loop sensitivities for the
loop broken at the error and the control are examined, demonstrating that traditional
methods only address these properties for one loop-breaking point. New controllers
are then provided for improving both sets of properties.
ContributorsSarkar, Aratrik (Author) / Rodriguez, Armando A (Thesis advisor) / Si, Jennie (Committee member) / Mittelmann, Hans D (Committee member) / Tsakalis, Konstantinos (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021