DSP-based controller programming for a Flickermeter
This project involves the development and DSP (TMS320C6713 Digital Signal Processor) programming to develop a digital "Flickermeter". A "Flickermeter" is an instrument - like a voltage or current measurement device - but to measure "flicker" in the voltage. Voltage flicker is typically caused by a randomly varying load - such as a constantly operating light dimmer or an arc-furnace used by steel (and other industry) to melt scrap metal. This voltage flicker is irritating to the human eye and there are power electronics based compensating devices to mitigate voltage flicker. The first step in the mitigation of voltage flicker is to be able to measure voltage flicker. We have developed Matlab/Simulink based program for flicker measurement based on IEC standard. This needs to be programmed on the DSP based controller platform for a "flickermeter".

Solar Powered Battery Charging Station
This is part of a bigger project on "Integration study of renewable and distributed energy sources in electric power grid - such as solar PV arrays - simulation study and laboratory experimental prototype".

The objective of this project is to develop a charger for applications such as "solar powered lanterns" or PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles) battery based on solar/PV panels. The student will develop a boost converter and implement MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) and control algorithm on a DSP based control platform. The DSP based control platform and MPPT algorithm will be provided and the student can also work with a graduate student. The student can also simulate and develop the architecture of a solar powered large-scale charging station (or a parking deck) for PHEVs.

Multicore Simulation
As the number of processing cores on a chip increases, so does the complexity of the system. Advanced simulation techniques are needed to evaluate complex computation and communication on systems with tens or hundreds of cores. This project will involve enhancing the performance of existing simulation tools, as well as exploring the use of advanced computing platforms to simulate the next generation of computing platforms.

Exploiting Parallelism in the Network Control Plane
Improvements in network link speeds have led to scalability problems in network control applications. Large, complex routers require updates of routing tables and other management data in the face of thousands of subscribers, millions of connections, and billions of data packets. We plan to characterize these complex applications, and to evaluate the use of parallel architectures to improve the performance and programmability of the router control plane.

Project Description
The ADAC lab at NCSU is currently using and developing the iSpace ("Intelligent Space") concept for mult-robot distributed mechatronics control. This project will incorporate the infrared tracking and Bluetooth connectivity abilities of Wii remotes into the iSpace ("Intelligent Space") platform. The remotes will be used to track the position of multiple robots moving simultaneously within the space.

Cache Coherency Designs in Three-Dimensional Integrated Circuits
Vertical stacking of silicon die with through-silicon vias is a promising new method to improve digital system performance while avoiding the exponentially increasing costs of fabrication in smaller feature sizes. One of the greatest potential areas for power reduction is in the coherency system for distributed caches in multi-processors. This project will involve the experimental design of circuits through Verilog synthesis, place & route, and power analysis to determine the fastest and most power-efficent methods for implementing cache coherency in a predictive 45nm process.

Project Description
The REU student will work with Dr. Dean and two graduate students on the RaPTEX project, which is developing new ways to develop and implement communication protocols for embedded networks using a building-block approach.

A communication system for ultrasonic marine (underwater) biotelemetry is being developed in order to enable the analysis of movement, physiological function and behavior of marine organisms. The REU student will contribute to the team by helping them test the ultrasonic communication system and improve it.

A tool is being developed which offers a collection of commonly used protocol components which the developer tunes and interconnects as needed for the application. The tool then generates an efficient program from these components using various optimizations.

Biography
Dr. Dean's teaching and research focus on embedded systems -- computers contained within other devices. He uses computer architecture, compiler and operating system techniques to make them smarter, cheaper and more reliable.

Enhanced Polarimetry of Midwave Infrared Light Thru Carbon NanoTubes and Liquid Crystals
Much of the most important optical information in astronomy, (military) target detection, and biomedical imaging is 'hiding' within the polarization of photons with non-visible wavelengths known as midwave infrared (2-40 µm). Unfortunately, detecting this polarization with sensors and optics formed from traditional materials (e.g. glass) is extremely challenging due to inherent material absorption. The purpose of this project is to create a material (i.e. in a liquid crystal polymer) that can more effectively enable the detection of polarized infrared light. The technical aim is to develop novel diffraction gratings (called 'polarization gratings') that have higher birefringence and lower absorption for midwave infrared light than current materials. Our method will be to use Carbon NanoTubes (CNTs) as a dopant into a liquid crystal polymer, and we will investigate the optical properties at visible, near infrared, and midwave infrared wavelengths. The student working on this project will work closely with graduate students, and will gain hands-on experience about research, materials, fabrication, and characterization of diffractive optics, polymer thin-films, liquid crystals, carbon nanotubes, and holography.

Biography
This project will would be supervised by Dr. Michael Escuti, within the Opto-electronics and Lightwave Engineering Group (OLEG). His primary research interests include photonics, efficient liquid crystal displays, electro-optic filters and modulators, optical beam steering, electromagnetic numerical simulation, optical trapping, spectral and imaging polarimetry and spectrometry, organic electronics, nanotechnology, functional polymers, and holography.

Process Variability of Nanocrystal Flash Devices
We are pursuing new types of nanocrystal flash devices for a broad range of applications, including non-volatile memory, digital and analog circuitry. One open question is what is the impact of random manufacutiuring variations on the performance of the device. In this project, the student will design a simulation experiment in order to answer this question. The experiment will be done by running a set of 3D models of the device including random variations. The ideal student(s) would be familiar with the operation and governing equations for MOSFETs.

Self-Test of 3DICs
One subject of a lot of interest right now is the use of chip stacking as a means to increase functional density. One open problem, however, is to work out how to self-test chips to be stacked, so that chips that are not good are not stacked on top of good ones. One sub-problem is how to test "feed through vias" - vias that only connect to circuits in another stacked chip. One way to test these is through self test. E.g. Include a circuit to test the leakage current of a via as a test for pinholes. A capacitance bridge could be used as well. These test circuits would then write their results to a scan chain, for external scanning. The ideal student(s) would be comfortable with transistor level design of basic analog circuits, such as simple amplifiers.

Design of switched reluctance drive for propulsion application
With constant performance improvement and cost reduction of power electronics and motor drives, more efficient vehicles such as electric, hybrid electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are becoming a reality. The commonality of all advanced vehicles is the presence of electric propulsion powered by an electric motor. As a result, there has been a lot of effort to reduce the cost and simplify the motor design. Currently a number of ac motors (induction, synchronous permanent magnet and switched reluctance motors) have been considered due to their high power density and low maintenance requirements. Of these, switched reluctance motors (SRM) show greatest promise. With no windings or permanent magnets on the rotor and concentric windings on the stator, SRM is the simplest of all electrical motors. SRM has peak power output over a very wide speed range, and low inertia - both very important parameters for propulsion application. However, due to nonlinear properties of motor, the control of switched reluctance motors is quite complex. In this project the student will be asked to design and build a power electronics converter to covert current from DC to an AC waveform that can be used by the SR motor. In addition, the student will try to optimize this waveform to improve the power output and efficiency of the motor, and minimize the torque ripple.

Design of an electric vehicle battery pack monitoring and control system
It is often said that the largest barrier to that acceptance of electric vehicle is limited battery life. Currently there are a number of hybrid electric vehicles on the market that have a large battery pack that is used for acceleration assistance and regenerative breaking. In the future, electric vehicles and plug in vehicles will be introduced. In these vehicles the battery system will be abused much more than in the hybrids as the battery will be used for much more than just acceleration assistance and regenerative breaking. To ensure that the batteries are not abused in such a system, there is a need to monitor each cell in the battery pack. In fact the capacity of the battery pack is limited by the weakest cell in the system. Therefore to get the most out of the entire system, the batteries have to be in the same condition at all times. For safety, battery voltage, temperature and current have to be monitored. For extending the pack life, the state of charge of each battery has to be the same. In this project, the students will build a battery pack monitoring and control system that will monitor battery condition, and will actively balance the state-of-charge of the batteries. The battery pack will then be installed in a vehicle where the state of the battery will be communicated to the rest of the system.

Light Scattering Studies for Underwater Communications
Point-to-point laser communication links are currently of interest to the scientific and military community for providing high bandwidth wireless data transmission underwater. A variation of these links utilizes a continuous wave (CW) laser transmitter to interrogate a modulating retro-reflector at the opposite end of the link. Data is modulated onto the CW laser, and reflected back towards the transmitter, where a photodetector recovers the modulated optical carrier and processes the information.

This geometry suffers from a large backscattering component because the water contains particulates and as turbidity increases, non-modulated light from the interrogating beam scatters back into the receiver and interferes with the modulated component returning from the retro. By manipulating the optical beam characteristics, the contrast can be improved as well as the effective range of link. After characterizing the polarization dependence of the scattering, a retro link will be constructed, and the performance of circular polarization relative to linear and non-polarized approaches will be compared for different conditions.

The REU student will work closely with a graduate student, under the supervision of Dr. Lunardi, and use the under water tank at NC State. The REU student will also have the opportunity to interact with other graduate students that work on free space communications.

Nanoparticles for Memory Applications
Continued scaling of floating gate memories requires novel architectures to meet the requirements of low voltage and high non-volatility. This requires engineering of the dielectrics and also of the floating gates. In our recent efforts, we have been exploring methods to replace the dielectric with high-K layers and the polysilicon storage layer with nanoparticles. The use of nanoparticles as a storage layer provides several advantages such as added charge retention, lower programming voltages and multiple charge storage. This undergraduate research project will focus on formation of nanoparticle based devices for memory applications. The nanoparticles will be formed by atomic layer deposition or physical vapor deposition on ultra thin tunnel dielectrics. Devices consisting of a tunnel layer and a blocking layer will be fabricated and characterized. The role of underlying surface on the nanoparticle formation will be explored. Also, the role of nanoparticle size and work function will be explored. The student will be involved in all aspects of the work starting from device fabrication, electrical characterization and modeling. The student will also be working with other graduate students in the group for assistance in fabrication.

Design of an Ultra-Compact Microscope
Consider the human eye. Lie down and look at the sky on clear blue day. Most people see floaters within the eye. These floaters are very small clumps of cells floating in the vitreous humor. This shows that a relatively simple optical instrument like the eye can be used as a microscope. This student REU project is to explore how small in size a useful microscope can be made to obtain images of small objects. The project will explore several different ways microscopes can be made that use microfabricated components. This project will require some searching of the literature, learning some optical design software and working in the laboratory. The goal is to propose a design of a microscope that is less than 1x1x1 inches that can magnify an object by 100 times. There are a variety of directions that this project can take depending on the student's interests.

This project would be supervised by Dr. John Muth. His areas of interest include photonics, microfabrication, novel electronic and optical materials and free space optical communications.

Intelligent Memory Hierarchy Optimization
Computer systems continue to face memory wall problem, where the performance of applications is increasingly determined by memory latency. Processor speeds (may) continue to grow at 55% a year, whereas the memory speeds only grow at 7% a year. Even today, a processor suffers several hundred of cycles to access the main memory. It is increasingly difficult to hide the latency of accessing the main memory. Although running multiple threads on an SMT or CMP can help hide the latency, it often gives pathological performance due to interaction between the threads.

Our main approach is to explore how to deal with the memory wall by making caches and main memory more efficient and intelligent.

Architecture support for computer security and software reliability
HEAPMON: HeapMon is a helper thread that performs heap bug detection similar to Purify. Since the helper thread runs in parallel to the application, it offloads much of the overheads of run-time bug detection that is interleaved with the application execution. In addition, efficient filtering mechanisms significantly reduce the workload of the helper thread, resulting in an average slowdown of less than 5%.

Abstract
This project will involve building a software interface between an autonomous vehicle PLC controller and a computer vision program. The car already has all the sensors, actuators, PLC and network in place. All the devices in the car communicate via Ethernet (TCP/IP and UDP/IP protocols). Thus each device including the PLC, camera and computer vision controller has an IP address associated with them. The PLC is interfaced with the actuators such as steering wheel, brakes, accelerator etc and the sensors such as wheel encoders. All these sensors and actuators have allocated registers in the PLC which can be accessed via PLC using TCP or UDP packets.

Project Tasks

1. To build an interface between the PLC and the vision controller program. (C/C++ socket programming on Unix/Linux platform). This program should be able to read the sensor values from PLC and write the actuator control commands to PLC using socket programming. This interface should be written as a function so that any other program can call it with a set of parameters to be read and written to the PLC as arguments.
2. To build a GUI for testing the controller functionality and the interface built in task(1). For e.g. turn the steering by 40 degrees, change the gear to drive, read the wheel speed etc.
3. To build a software interface between the GigE Ethernet camera and the computer vision program using openCV (C++) to read and display the image frames.
4. To implement and integrate this functionality into the car.

Students Skill Sets

1. Familiar with C/C++ programming on unix platform.
2. Familiar with socket programming on unix platform.
3. Familiar with GUI design.