Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

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    Robust Automated Airbag Module Calibration
    (2001) Schubert, Peter J.
    Increasing sophistication of electronic safety systems requires more advanced tools for design and optimization. Systems of safety products already being designed are becoming too interdependent to calibrate as stand-alone modules. Compounding this difficulty is the trend towards fewer test crashes and more sophisticated regulatory requirements. This paper presents a unified calibration approach to produce robust performance. First, the set of crash samples are extended using statistical techniques. Then an automated calibration tool using Genetic Algorithms is used to provide robust performance against deployment requirements. Finally, an expert systems is employed to ensure logical behavior. Together, these powerful methods yield calibrations which out-perform manual calibrations and can be completed in far less time.
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    Executable Specs: What Makes One, and How are They Used?
    (2006) Schubert, Peter J.; Vitkin, Lev; Winters, Frank
    Model-based systems development relies upon the concept of an executable specification. A survey of published literature shows a wide range of definitions for executable specifications [1-10]. In this paper, we attempt to codify the essential starting elements for a complete executable specification-based design flow. A complete executable specification that includes a functional model as well as test cases, in addition to a traditional prose document, is needed to transfer requirements from a customer to a supplier, or from a systems engineer to electrical hardware and software engineers. In the complete form demonstrated here, sub-components of a functionally-decomposed system manifest as modular reuse blocks suitable for publication in functional libraries. The overarching definition provided by product architecture and by software architecture must also be harmoniously integrated with design and implementation. Using seven specific automotive examples, we illustrate effective ways in which executable specifications have been used in production-ready applications. Benefits of model-based development are captured, including earlier and more thorough testing, automatic document generation, and autocode generation.
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    Math-Based Design of Sensing Bladders
    (2006-04-03) Schubert, Peter J.; Saxena, Roopesh; Pinagapani, Sachi; Gopal, Madana
    Through the use of finite-element modeling, pressure patterns on the underside of seat foam can be computed for a variety of occupants and seating positions. A design tool has been created which allows an engineer to evaluate different layouts for a pressure-sensing bladder in just minutes.
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    Model-based Development for Event-driven Applications using MATLAB: Audio Playback Case Study
    (2007) Schubert, Peter J.; Vitkin, Lev; Braun, David
    Audio playbacks are mechanisms which read data from a storage medium and produce commands and signals which an audio system turns into music. Playbacks are constantly changed to meet market demands, requiring that the control software be updated quickly and efficiently.
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    Removing Crop Residues Without Hurting Soil
    (2009) Schubert, Peter J.
    Agricultural residue, the organic matter left over after grain harvesting, has the potential to replace a large fraction of our petroleum and coal use, making this a significant national benefit. However, agricultural residues also serve a useful function in farm soils, so it is important to understand the impact of removing some of these residues.
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    A Review of Unsupervised Spectral Target Analysis for Hyperspectral Imagery
    (SpringerOpen, 2010-04-08) Chang, Chein-I; Jiao, Xiaoli; Wu, Chao-Cheng; Du, Yingzi; Chang, Mann-Li; Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
    One of great challenges in unsupervised hyperspectral target analysis is how to obtain desired knowledge in an unsupervised means directly from the data for image analysis. This paper provides a review of unsupervised target analysis by first addressing two fundamental issues, "what are material substances of interest, referred to as targets?" and "how can these targets be extracted from the data?" and then further developing least squares (LS)-based unsupervised algorithms for finding spectral targets for analysis. In order to validate and substantiate the proposed unsupervised hyperspectral target analysis, three applications in endmember extraction, target detection and linear spectral unmixing are considered where custom-designed synthetic images and real image scenes are used to conduct experiments.
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    Iris Recognition: The Consequences of Image Compression
    (SpringerOpen, 2010-04-26) Ives, Robert W.; Bishop, Daniel A.; Du, Yingzi; Belcher, Craig; Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
    Iris recognition for human identification is one of the most accurate biometrics, and its employment is expanding globally. The use of portable iris systems, particularly in law enforcement applications, is growing. In many of these applications, the portable device may be required to transmit an iris image or template over a narrow-bandwidth communication channel. Typically, a full resolution image (e.g., VGA) is desired to ensure sufficient pixels across the iris to be confident of accurate recognition results. To minimize the time to transmit a large amount of data over a narrow-bandwidth communication channel, image compression can be used to reduce the file size of the iris image. In other applications, such as the Registered Traveler program, an entire iris image is stored on a smart card, but only 4 kB is allowed for the iris image. For this type of application, image compression is also the solution. This paper investigates the effects of image compression on recognition system performance using a commercial version of the Daugman iris2pi algorithm along with JPEG-2000 compression, and links these to image quality. Using the ICE 2005 iris database, we find that even in the face of significant compression, recognition performance is minimally affected.
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    Scale Invariant Gabor Descriptor-Based Noncooperative Iris Recognition
    (SpringerOpen, 2010-04-28) Du, Yingzi; Belcher, Craig; Zhou, Zhi; Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
    A new noncooperative iris recognition method is proposed. In this method, the iris features are extracted using a Gabor descriptor. The feature extraction and comparison are scale, deformation, rotation, and contrast-invariant. It works with off-angle and low-resolution iris images. The Gabor wavelet is incorporated with scale-invariant feature transformation (SIFT) for feature extraction to better extract the iris features. Both the phase and magnitude of the Gabor wavelet outputs were used in a novel way for local feature point description. Two feature region maps were designed to locally and globally register the feature points and each subregion in the map is locally adjusted to the dilation/contraction/deformation. We also developed a video-based non-cooperative iris recognition system by integrating video-based non-cooperative segmentation, segmentation evaluation, and score fusion units. The proposed method shows good performance for frontal and off-angle iris matching. Video-based recognition methods can improve non-cooperative iris recognition accuracy.
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    Travel routes estimation in transportation systems modeled by Petri Nets
    (IEEE, 2010-07) Qu, Yizhi; Li, Lingxi; Liu, Yan; Chen, Yaobin; Dai, Yaping
    This paper develops an algorithm for estimating the route(s) with the least total travel time in transportation systems that are modeled as Petri nets. Each transition in the net is associated with a cost that is related to the travel time from a starting point to a destination. This cost can be computed from the traffic flow and vehicle speed information obtained from the traffic data via an approach called Adaptive Gray Threshold Traffic Parameters Measurement (AGTTPM). Given a transportation system modeled as a Petri net that has cost on each transition, we aim at finding the transition firing sequences (traffic routes) from an initial marking (a starting point) to a final marking (a destination) within a certain time period T and have the least total cost (the least total travel time). In this paper we develop an algorithm that is able to systematically obtain these routes with the least total travel time.
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    Advanced Image Processing for Defense and Security Applications
    (SpringerOpen, 2011-03-09) Du, ElizaYingzi; Ives, Robert; Nevel, Alan van; She, Jin-Hua; Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology