Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (Cat. No.02EX540)

In the software industry one of the most central business factors is programmer productivity. While there is a major advantage in being able to measure and thus manage this most important factor, there is no widely accepted framework to measure software productivity. This document outlines a proposal for a study to attempt to measure software programmer productivity. The document proposes an outline for a basic measure of software productivity.

The objective of this project is to create a realistic, real-time, electrical engineering virtual laboratory for the use of disabled students. This project targets individuals who do not have adequate mobility of their upper bodies to perform laboratory experiments. To provide a more realistic and enhanced learning experience, the users of the virtual laboratory are allowed the freedom to build and test a wide variety of realistic electrical circuits, and be able to perform curriculum-based experiments. The main goal is to create an environment similar to a real electrical engineering laboratory, and to offer the user a way to learn the different aspects of instrumentation and circuitry.

Power efficient video signal processing is very important in the fields of intelligent robots, self guided vehicles and security systems. We have developed a low power intelligent video imaging sensor (IVIS), based on the Kodak CMOS Digital Image Sensor KAC-0311 with a resolution of 640/spl times/480 pixels. The image sensor is controlled by the low power Texas Instruments MSP430F149 microcontroller. The IVIS sensor can be integrated into distributed or hierarchical systems using a wireless interface or a standard RS-232 serial link. The sensor has a low typical power consumption and a processing power of 8 MIPS. This paper presents prototype development and basic features of the IVIS video processing sensor.

The problem of force control is addressed for a type of three-phase linear variable reluctance motor that exhibits strong magnetic coupling between its phases. The force produced is a quadratic function of phase currents with coefficient matrix proportional to the spatial derivatives of inductance. The magnetic coupling leads to a non-diagonal inductance matrix, so all possible products of phase currents are involved in the production of force. Constrained optimization is used to determine phase currents that produce a desired force with minimum power dissipation. The new optimal force controller is shown to be related to an existing force controller that applies to classical synchronous reluctance motors.

An adjusted step size LMS (least mean squares) algorithm is proposed for possible improvements in the performance of adaptive FIR filters in nonstationary environments. Nonstationary signals means that the statistical properties of the noise changes in time such as the high frequency channel time variations. In the paper, an adaptive noise canceller is proposed which is based on signal to noise ratio number to adjust the step size. In addition the same algorithm can be used for line enhancement and tracking high frequency channels which is used to provide high data rate in communications.

In this paper, a dynamic model of a microturbine, used as distributed generator, is developed. The model is suitable for transient analysis and simulation of an unbalanced three-phase power system. A microturbine unit consists of four parts: a gas turbine engine, a permanent magnet generator, a three-phase bridge AC to DC rectifier, and a power DC to AC inverter. The proposed model is built from the dynamics of each part and their interconnections. To illustrate the proposed model, an unbalanced 3-phase system that consists of a microturbine generator connected to a load is simulated using the Matlab Simulink Toolbox and power system blockset.

Disturbances in most of the systems makes their performance mitigating. So in order to comply with the situation, a controller should be developed which could adapt to these disturbances and get the best out of the system. This paper gives a comparison of the results of a disturbance accommodating control based adaptive controller (or better known as linear adaptive controller) and a neural networks model reference controller. The aim of the control algorithm is to control the movement of a robot arm, which is freely suspended. The input to the plant is the torque from the controller. The input to the controller is the difference between the reference angle and the output "angle" from the plant. In comparison, the results prove that the linear adaptive controller adapted in a much wider sense to the disturbances and changes in the system than the neural network model reference controller. The simulation figures support the results that were put forth.

This paper deals with the design and implementation of the Bluetooth protocol stack. It also describes a functional overview and applications of Bluetooth. We have explained industrial automation via Bluetooth using IISS (Intelligent Informative Switching System). Bluetooth is a method for data communication that uses short-range radio links to replace cables between computers and their connected units. IISS is a controlling device that monitors the devices in the industry. It basically communicates through the interface card in the PC. The hardware is connected in parallel across the device and is interfaced with the PC through the transceiver. The device can be accessed both manually via switches and remotely via the PC. A simulation of remote monitoring, connecting the PC and the control room was performed and we obtained results in the form of graphs and alerts for various conditions of working.

A prototype personal static VAr compensator (PSVC) has been designed and implemented for load power factor correction for both residential and commercial applications. The PSVC demonstrates the two key benefits of power factor correction, which include decreased power costs and increased system capacity. The PSVC also demonstrates conventional static VAr compensator (SVC) principles that are routinely applied by power utilities. The designed PSVC prototype consists of two main branches-a TSC (thyristor switched capacitor) branch and a TCR (thyristor controlled reactor) branch. A microcontroller is responsible for calculating the displacement power factor and for executing the fuzzy logic control scheme for the two branches. The PSVC is being evaluated using an inductive load and an AC motor. Test results are presented in this paper.

Narrow bursts of laser pulses have many applications. OFID is one of the techniques used to shorten the pulsewidth of a CO2 laser after it passes through a gas such as Dymel. Present work is an extension of earlier studies in Dymel gas. Controlled mixtures of Dymel with Helium, Argon, and Nitrogen gas affect the original OFID effect in pure Dymel gas in different ways.