Defense Notices


All students and faculty are welcome to attend the final defense of EECS graduate students completing their M.S. or Ph.D. degrees. Defense notices for M.S./Ph.D. presentations for this year and several previous years are listed below in reverse chronological order.

Students who are nearing the completion of their M.S./Ph.D. research should schedule their final defenses through the EECS graduate office at least THREE WEEKS PRIOR to their presentation date so that there is time to complete the degree requirements check, and post the presentation announcement online.

Upcoming Defense Notices

Andrew Riachi

An Investigation Into The Memory Consumption of Web Browsers and A Memory Profiling Tool Using Linux Smaps

When & Where:


Nichols Hall, Room 246 (Executive Conference Room)

Committee Members:

Prasad Kulkarni, Chair
Perry Alexander
Drew Davidson
Heechul Yun

Abstract

Web browsers are notorious for consuming large amounts of memory. Yet, they have become the dominant framework for writing GUIs because the web languages are ergonomic for programmers and have a cross-platform reach. These benefits are so enticing that even a large portion of mobile apps, which have to run on resource-constrained devices, are running a web browser under the hood. Therefore, it is important to keep the memory consumption of web browsers as low as practicable.

In this thesis, we investigate the memory consumption of web browsers, in particular, compared to applications written in native GUI frameworks. We introduce smaps-profiler, a tool to profile the overall memory consumption of Linux applications that can report memory usage other profilers simply do not measure. Using this tool, we conduct experiments which suggest that most of the extra memory usage compared to native applications could be due the size of the web browser program itself. We discuss our experiments and findings, and conclude that even more rigorous studies are needed to profile GUI applications.


Elizabeth Wyss

A New Frontier for Software Security: Diving Deep into npm

When & Where:


Eaton Hall, Room 2001B

Committee Members:

Drew Davidson, Chair
Alex Bardas
Fengjun Li
Bo Luo
J. Walker

Abstract

Open-source package managers (e.g., npm for Node.js) have become an established component of modern software development. Rather than creating applications from scratch, developers may employ modular software dependencies and frameworks--called packages--to serve as building blocks for writing larger applications. Package managers make this process easy. With a simple command line directive, developers are able to quickly fetch and install packages across vast open-source repositories. npm--the largest of such repositories--alone hosts millions of unique packages and serves billions of package downloads each week. 

However, the widespread code sharing resulting from open-source package managers also presents novel security implications. Vulnerable or malicious code hiding deep within package dependency trees can be leveraged downstream to attack both software developers and the end-users of their applications. This downstream flow of software dependencies--dubbed the software supply chain--is critical to secure.

This research provides a deep dive into the npm-centric software supply chain, exploring distinctive phenomena that impact its overall security and usability. Such factors include (i) hidden code clones--which may stealthily propagate known vulnerabilities, (ii) install-time attacks enabled by unmediated installation scripts, (iii) hard-coded URLs residing in package code, (iv) the impacts of open-source development practices, (v) package compromise via malicious updates, (vi) spammers disseminating phishing links within package metadata, and (vii) abuse of cryptocurrency protocols designed to reward the creators of high-impact packages. For each facet, tooling is presented to identify and/or mitigate potential security impacts. Ultimately, it is our hope that this research fosters greater awareness, deeper understanding, and further efforts to forge a new frontier for the security of modern software supply chains. 


Alfred Fontes

Optimization and Trade-Space Analysis of Pulsed Radar-Communication Waveforms using Constant Envelope Modulations

When & Where:


Nichols Hall, Room 246 (Executive Conference Room)

Committee Members:

Patrick McCormick, Chair
Shannon Blunt
Jonathan Owen


Abstract

Dual function radar communications (DFRC) is a method of co-designing a single radio frequency system to perform simultaneous radar and communications service. DFRC is ultimately a compromise between radar sensing performance and communications data throughput due to the conflicting requirements between the sensing and information-bearing signals.

A novel waveform-based DFRC approach is phase attached radar communications (PARC), where a communications signal is embedded onto a radar pulse via the phase modulation between the two signals. The PARC framework is used here in a new waveform design technique that designs the radar component of a PARC signal to match the PARC DFRC waveform expected power spectral density (PSD) to a desired spectral template. This provides better control over the PARC signal spectrum, which mitigates the issue of PARC radar performance degradation from spectral growth due to the communications signal. 

The characteristics of optimized PARC waveforms are then analyzed to establish a trade-space between radar and communications performance within a PARC DFRC scenario. This is done by sampling the DFRC trade-space continuum with waveforms that contain a varying degree of communications bandwidth, from a pure radar waveform (no embedded communications) to a pure communications waveform (no radar component). Radar performance, which is degraded by range sidelobe modulation (RSM) from the communications signal randomness, is measured from the PARC signal variance across pulses; data throughput is established as the communications performance metric. Comparing the values of these two measures as a function of communications symbol rate explores the trade-offs in performance between radar and communications with optimized PARC waveforms.


Qua Nguyen

Hybrid Array and Privacy-Preserving Signaling Optimization for NextG Wireless Communications

When & Where:


Zoom Defense, please email jgrisafe@ku.edu for link.

Committee Members:

Erik Perrins, Chair
Morteza Hashemi
Zijun Yao
Taejoon Kim
KC Kong

Abstract

This PhD research tackles two critical challenges in NextG wireless networks: hybrid precoder design for wideband sub-Terahertz (sub-THz) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications and privacy-preserving federated learning (FL) over wireless networks.

In the first part, we propose a novel hybrid precoding framework that integrates true-time delay (TTD) devices and phase shifters (PS) to counteract the beam squint effect - a significant challenge in the wideband sub-THz massive MIMO systems that leads to considerable loss in array gain. Unlike previous methods that only designed TTD values while fixed PS values and assuming unbounded time delay values, our approach jointly optimizes TTD and PS values under realistic time delays constraint. We determine the minimum number of TTD devices required to achieve a target array gain using our proposed approach. Then, we extend the framework to multi-user wideband systems and formulate a hybrid array optimization problem aiming to maximize the minimum data rate across users. This problem is decomposed into two sub-problems: fair subarray allocation, solved via continuous domain relaxation, and subarray gain maximization, addressed via a phase-domain transformation.

The second part focuses on preserving privacy in FL over wireless networks. First, we design a differentially-private FL algorithm that applies time-varying noise variance perturbation. Taking advantage of existing wireless channel noise, we jointly design differential privacy (DP) noise variances and users transmit power to resolve the tradeoffs between privacy and learning utility. Next, we tackle two critical challenges within FL networks: (i) privacy risks arising from model updates and (ii) reduced learning utility due to quantization heterogeneity. Prior work typically addresses only one of these challenges because maintaining learning utility under both privacy risks and quantization heterogeneity is a non-trivial task. We approach to improve the learning utility of a privacy-preserving FL that allows clusters of devices with different quantization resolutions to participate in each FL round. Specifically, we introduce a novel stochastic quantizer (SQ) that ensures a DP guarantee and minimal quantization distortion. To address quantization heterogeneity, we introduce a cluster size optimization technique combined with a linear fusion approach to enhance model aggregation accuracy. Lastly, inspired by the information-theoretic rate-distortion framework, a privacy-distortion tradeoff problem is formulated to minimize privacy loss under a given maximum allowable quantization distortion. The optimal solution to this problem is identified, revealing that the privacy loss decreases as the maximum allowable quantization distortion increases, and vice versa.

This research advances hybrid array optimization for wideband sub-THz massive MIMO and introduces novel algorithms for privacy-preserving quantized FL with diverse precision. These contributions enable high-throughput wideband MIMO communication systems and privacy-preserving AI-native designs, aligning with the performance and privacy protection demands of NextG networks.


Arin Dutta

Performance Analysis of Distributed Raman Amplification with Different Pumping Configurations

When & Where:


Nichols Hall, Room 246 (Executive Conference Room)

Committee Members:

Rongqing Hui, Chair
Morteza Hashemi
Rachel Jarvis
Alessandro Salandrino
Hui Zhao

Abstract

As internet services like high-definition videos, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence keep growing, optical networks need to keep up with the demand for more capacity. Optical amplifiers play a crucial role in offsetting fiber loss and enabling long-distance wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission in high-capacity systems. Various methods have been proposed to enhance the capacity and reach of fiber communication systems, including advanced modulation formats, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) over ultra-wide bands, space-division multiplexing, and high-performance digital signal processing (DSP) technologies. To maintain higher data rates along with maximizing the spectral efficiency of multi-level modulated signals, a higher Optical Signal-to-Noise Ratio (OSNR) is necessary. Despite advancements in coherent optical communication systems, the spectral efficiency of multi-level modulated signals is ultimately constrained by fiber nonlinearity. Raman amplification is an attractive solution for wide-band amplification with low noise figures in multi-band systems.

Distributed Raman Amplification (DRA) have been deployed in recent high-capacity transmission experiments to achieve a relatively flat signal power distribution along the optical path and offers the unique advantage of using conventional low-loss silica fibers as the gain medium, effectively transforming passive optical fibers into active or amplifying waveguides. Also, DRA provides gain at any wavelength by selecting the appropriate pump wavelength, enabling operation in signal bands outside the Erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) bands. Forward (FW) Raman pumping configuration in DRA can be adopted to further improve the DRA performance as it is more efficient in OSNR improvement because the optical noise is generated near the beginning of the fiber span and attenuated along the fiber. Dual-order FW pumping scheme helps to reduce the non-linear effect of the optical signal and improves OSNR by more uniformly distributing the Raman gain along the transmission span.

The major concern with Forward Distributed Raman Amplification (FW DRA) is the fluctuation in pump power, known as relative intensity noise (RIN), which transfers from the pump laser to both the intensity and phase of the transmitted optical signal as they propagate in the same direction. Additionally, another concern of FW DRA is the rise in signal optical power near the start of the fiber span, leading to an increase in the non-linear phase shift of the signal. These factors, including RIN transfer-induced noise and non-linear noise, contribute to the degradation of system performance in FW DRA systems at the receiver.

As the performance of DRA with backward pumping is well understood with relatively low impact of RIN transfer, our research  is focused on the FW pumping configuration, and is intended to provide a comprehensive analysis on the system performance impact of dual order FW Raman pumping, including signal intensity and phase noise induced by the RINs of both 1st and the 2nd order pump lasers, as well as the impacts of linear and nonlinear noise. The efficiencies of pump RIN to signal intensity and phase noise transfer are theoretically analyzed and experimentally verified by applying a shallow intensity modulation to the pump laser to mimic the RIN. The results indicate that the efficiency of the 2nd order pump RIN to signal phase noise transfer can be more than 2 orders of magnitude higher than that from the 1st order pump. Then the performance of the dual order FW Raman configurations is compared with that of single order Raman pumping to understand trade-offs of system parameters. The nonlinear interference (NLI) noise is analyzed to study the overall OSNR improvement when employing a 2nd order Raman pump. Finally, a DWDM system with 16-QAM modulation is used as an example to investigate the benefit of DRA with dual order Raman pumping and with different pump RIN levels. We also consider a DRA system using a 1st order incoherent pump together with a 2nd order coherent pump. Although dual order FW pumping corresponds to a slight increase of linear amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) compared to using only a 1st order pump, its major advantage comes from the reduction of nonlinear interference noise in a DWDM system. Because the RIN of the 2nd order pump has much higher impact than that of the 1st order pump, there should be more stringent requirement on the RIN of the 2nd order pump laser when dual order FW pumping scheme is used for DRA for efficient fiber-optic communication. Also, the result of system performance analysis reveals that higher baud rate systems, like those operating at 100Gbaud, are less affected by pump laser RIN due to the low-pass characteristics of the transfer of pump RIN to signal phase noise.


Audrey Mockenhaupt

Using Dual Function Radar Communication Waveforms for Synthetic Aperture Radar Automatic Target Recognition

When & Where:


Nichols Hall, Room 246 (Executive Conference Room)

Committee Members:

Patrick McCormick, Chair
Shannon Blunt
Jon Owen


Abstract

As machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and deep learning continue to advance, their applications become more diverse – one such application is synthetic aperture radar (SAR) automatic target recognition (ATR). These SAR ATR networks use different forms of deep learning such as convolutional neural networks (CNN) to classify targets in SAR imagery. An emerging research area of SAR is dual function radar communication (DFRC) which performs both radar and communications functions using a single co-designed modulation. The utilization of DFRC emissions for SAR imaging impacts image quality, thereby influencing SAR ATR network training. Here, using the Civilian Vehicle Data Dome dataset from the AFRL, SAR ATR networks are trained and evaluated with simulated data generated using Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) and Linear Frequency Modulation (LFM) waveforms. The networks are used to compare how the target classification accuracy of the ATR network differ between DFRC (i.e., GMSK) and baseline (i.e., LFM) emissions. Furthermore, as is common in pulse-agile transmission structures, an effect known as ’range sidelobe modulation’ is examined, along with its impact on SAR ATR. Finally, it is shown that SAR ATR network can be trained for GMSK emissions using existing LFM datasets via two types of data augmentation.


Past Defense Notices

Dates

Sushmitha Boddi Reddy

Conversational AI Chatbots

When & Where:


Zoom Meeting, please contact jgrisafe@ku.edu for link.

Committee Members:

Prasad Kulkarni, Chair
David Johnson, Co-Chair
Zijun Yao


Abstract

We know that AI and Machine learning are being used in every industry and in every experience. Chatbots are among most visible applications of AI technology and since the time chatbots have entered the digital world, every industry wants to use chatbots to help their customers with the common issues. Most of the chatbots are kind of a messaging interface where instead of humans answering, message bots will be responding.

Chatbots are an artificial intelligence software that can initiate a human like conversation with a real human based on the training.AI uses a natural language to communicate with Artificial Intelligence features embedded in them. The conversation humans have with bots is powered by Machine Learning algorithms which breaks down the messages received into human understandable languages using Natural Language Processing techniques and responds to your queries like what you can expect from any human on the other side. In this project I've trained a chatbot using a dataset which responds to our messages.


Kailani Jones

Metrics Identifying Gaps in the SOC's Alert Handling Process

When & Where:


Zoom Meeting, please contact jgrisafe@ku.edu for link.

Committee Members:

Alexandru Bardas, Chair
Drew Davidson
Fengjun Li
Bo Luo
John Symons

Abstract

In the recent years, organization's attack surfaces continue to increase with the rise of data storage, application diversity, and ransomware attacks.

The response typically falls to the enterprise Security Operation Center (SOC). However, even with an expanding attack surface, organizations continue to decommission or completely remove their SOCs due to the uncertainty around their respective value. This work traces and analyzes (1) the SOC's effort to reimpose endpoint monitoring and content handling as a result of the Internet's new and different sociotechnical environment resulting from COVID-19's “work from home” and (2) propose a metrics framework that captures the gaps within the SOC analysts' core function: the alert handling process. By intersecting historical analysis (starting in the 1970s) and ethnography (analyzed 256 field notes and performed two rounds of semi-structured interviews across 770+ hours in a SOC over 26 months) whilst complementing with quantitative interviews (covering 7 other SOCs), we find additional causal forces that, for decades, have pushed network management toward endpoints and content. With a similar ethnographic approach (participation observation paired with semi-structured interviews), we further locate expert judgement in the alert handling process and utilize those limitations as key performance indicators to identify gaps and capture the needs within the SOC.


Likitha Vemulapalli

Identification of Foliar Diseases in Plants using Deep Learning Techniques

When & Where:


Zoom Meeting, please contact jgrisafe@ku.edu for link.

Committee Members:

Prasad Kulkarni, Chair
David Johnson
Suzanne Shontz


Abstract

Artificial Intelligence has been gathering tremendous support lately by bridging the gap between humans and machines. Amazing discoveries in numerous fields are paving way for state-of-the-art technologies. Deep Learning has shown immense progress in the field of computer vision in recent years, with neural networks repeatedly pushing the frontier of visual recognition technology. Recent years have witnessed an exponential increase in the use of mobile and embedded devices. With great success of deep learning, there is an emerging trend to deploy deep learning models on mobile and embedded devices. However, it is not a simple task, the limited resources of mobile and embedded devices make it challenging to fulfill the intensive computation and storage demand of deep learning models and state-of-the-art Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) require computation at billions of floating-point operations per second (FLOP) which inhibit them from being utilized in mobile and embedded devices. Mobile convolutional neural networks use depth wise and group convolutions rather than standard “fully-connected” convolutions.  In this project we will be applying mobile convolutional models to identify the diseases in plants. Plant diseases are responsible for serious economic losses every year. Due to various reasons, the crops are affected based on climate conditions, various kinds of diseases, heavy usage of pesticides and many other factors. Due to the rise in use of pesticides, the farmers are experiencing irreplaceable losses. Less use of pesticides can help in better crop production. Using these mobile CNNs we can identify the diseases in plants with leaf images and based on the type of disease pesticides can be used respectively. The main goal is to use an efficient model which can assist farmers in recognizing leaf symptoms and providing targeted information for rational use of pesticides. 


Truc Anh Ngoc Nguyen

ResTP: A Configurable and Adaptable Multipath Transport Protocol for Future Internet Resilience

When & Where:


2001B Eaton Hall

Committee Members:

Victor Frost, Chair
Morteza Hashemi
Taejoon Kim
Bo Luo
Hyunjin Seo

Abstract

Motivated by the shortcomings of common transport protocols, e.g., TCP, UDP, and MPTCP, in modern networking and the belief that a general-purpose transport-layer protocol, which can operate efficiently over diverse network environments while being able to provide desired services for various application types, we design a new transport protocol, ResTP. The rapid advancement of networking technology and use paradigms is continually supporting new applications. The configurable and adaptable multipath-capable ResTP is not only distinct from the standard protocols by its flexibility in satisfying the requirements of different traffic classes considering the characteristics of the underlying networks, but by its emphasis on providing resilience. Resilience is an essential property that is unfortunately missing in the current Internet. In this dissertation, we present the design of ResTP, including the services that it supports and the set of algorithms that implement each service. We also discuss our modular implementation of ResTP in the open-source network simulator ns-3. Finally, the protocol is simulated under various network scenarios, and the results are analyzed in comparison with conventional protocols such as TCP, UDP, and MPTCP to demonstrate that ResTP is a promising new transport-layer protocol providing resilience in the Future Internet (FI).


Dinesh Mukharji Dandamudi

Analyzing the short squeeze caused by Reddit community by Using Machine learning

When & Where:


Zoom defense, please email jgrisafe@ku.edu for the meeting information

Committee Members:

Matthew Moore, Chair
Drew Davidson
Cuncong Zhong


Abstract

Algorithmic trading (sometimes termed automated trading, black-box trading, or algo-trading) is a computerized trading system where a computer program follows a set of specified instructions to make a transaction. Theoretically, the transaction should allow traders to make profits at a rate and frequency that a human trader cannot attain. Algorithmic trading is an automated trading method that is carried out using a computer algorithm. Trade theory theoretically posits that humans cannot earn profits at a pace and frequency comparable to those generated by computers.  

 

Traders have a tough time keeping track of the many handles that originate data. NLP (Natural Language Processing) can be used to rapidly scan various news sources, identifying opportunities to gain an advantage before other traders do. 

 

Based on this background, this project aims to select and implement an NLP and Machine Learning process that produces an algorithm, which can detect OR predict the future value from scraped data using Natural language processing and Machine Learning. This algorithm builds the basic structure for an approach to evaluate these documents. 


Lyndon Meadow

Remote Lensing

When & Where:


2001B Eaton Hall

Committee Members:

Matthew Moore, Chair
Perry Alexander
Prasad Kulkarni


Abstract

The problem of the manipulation of remote data is typically solved used complex methods to guarantee consistency. This is an instance of the remote bidirectional transformation problem. From the inspiration that several versions of this problem have been addressed using lenses, we now extend this technique of lenses to the Remote Procedure Calls setting, and provide a few simple example implementations.

    Taking the host side to be the strongly-typed language with lensing properties, and the client side to be a weakly-typed language with minimal lensing properties, this work contributes to the existing body of research that has brought lenses from the realm of math to the space of computer science. This shall give a formal look on remote editing of data in type safety with Remote Monads and their local variants.


Chanaka Samarathungage

NextG Wireless Networks: Applications of the Millimeter Wave Networking and Integration of UAVs with Cellular Systems

When & Where:


Zoom Meeting, please contact jgrisafe@ku.edu for link.

Committee Members:

Morteza Hashemi, Chair
Taejoon Kim
Erik Perrins


Abstract

Considering the growth of wireless and cellular devices and applications, the spectrum-rich millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies have the potential to alleviate the spectrum crunch that wireless and cellular operators are already experiencing. However, there are several challenges to overcome when using mmWave bands. Since mmWave frequencies have small wavelengths compared to sub-6 GHz bands, most objects such as human body, cause significant additional path losses, which can entirely break the link. Highly directional mmWave links are susceptible to frequent link failures in such environments. Limited range of communication is another challenge in mmWave communications. In this research, we demonstrate the benefits of multi-hop routing in mitigating the blockage and extending communication range in the mmWave band. We develop a hop-by-hop multi-path routing protocol that finds one primary and one backup next-hop per destination to guarantee reliable and robust communication under extreme stress conditions. We also extend our solution by proposing a proactive route refinement scheme for AODV and Backpressure routing protocols under dynamic scenarios.
In the second part, the integration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to the NextG cellular systems is considered for various applications such as commercial package delivery, public health and safety, surveying, and inspection, to name a few. We present network simulation results based on 4G and 5G technologies using raytracing software. Based on the results, we propose several network adjustments to optimize 5G network operation for the ground users as well as the UAV users.


Wenchi Ma

Object Detection and Classification based on Hierarchical Semantic Features and Deep Neural Networks

When & Where:


Zoom Meeting, please contact jgrisafe@ku.edu for link.

Committee Members:

Bo Luo, Chair
Taejoon Kim
Prasad Kulkarni
Cuncong Zhong
Guanghui Wang

Abstract

The abilities of feature learning, semantic understanding, cognitive reasoning, and model generalization are the consistent pursuit for current deep learning-based computer vision tasks. A variety of network structures and algorithms have been proposed to learn effective features, extract contextual and semantic information, deduct the relationships between objects and scenes, and achieve robust and generalized model. Nevertheless, these challenges are still not well addressed. One issue lies in the inefficient feature learning and propagation, static single-dimension semantic memorizing, leading to the difficulty of handling challenging situations, such as small objects, occlusion, illumination, etc. The other issue is the robustness and generalization, especially when the data source has diversified feature distribution.  

The study aims to explore classification and detection models based on hierarchical semantic features ("transverse semantic" and "longitudinal semantic"), network architectures, and regularization algorithm, so that the above issues could be improved or solved. (1) A detector model is proposed to make full use of "transverse semantic", the semantic information in space scene, which emphasizes on the effectiveness of deep features produced in high-level layers for better detection of small and occluded objects. (2) We also explore the anchor-based detector algorithm and propose the location-aware reasoning (LAAR), where both the location and classification confidences are considered for the bounding box quality criterion, so that the best-qualified boxes can be picked up in Non-Maximum Suppression (NMS). (3) A semantic clustering-based deduction learning is proposed, which explores the "longitudinal semantic", realizing the high-level clustering in the semantic space, enabling the model to deduce the relations among various classes so as better classification performance is expected. (4) We propose the near-orthogonality regularization by introducing an implicit self-regularization to push the mean and variance of filter angles in a network towards 90° and 0° simultaneously, revealing it helps stabilize the training process, speed up convergence and improve robustness. (5) Inspired by the research that self-attention networks possess a strong inductive bias which leads to the loss of feature expression power, the transformer architecture with mitigatory attention mechanism is proposed and applied with the state-of-the-art detectors, verifying the superiority of detection enhancement. 


Sai Krishna Teja Damaraju

Strabospot 2

When & Where:


Zoom Meeting, please contact jgrisafe@ku.edu for link.

Committee Members:

Drew Davidson, Chair
Prasad Kulkarni
Douglas Walker


Abstract

Geology is a data-intensive field, but much of its current tooling is inefficient, labor intensive and tedious. While software solutions are a natural solution to these issues, careful consideration of domain-specific needs is required to make such a solution useful. Geology involves field work, collaboration, and a complex hierarchical data structure management to organize the data being captured.

 

    Strabospot was designed to address the above considerations. Strabospot is an application that helps earth scientists capture data, digitize it, and make it available over the world wide web for further research and development. Strabospot is a highly portable, effective, and efficient solution which can transform the field of Geology, affecting not only how the data is captured but also how that data can be further processed and analyzed. The initial implementation of Strabospot, while an important step forward in the field, has several limitations that necessitate a complete rewrite in the form of a second version, Strabospot 2.

 

    Strabospot 2 is a major software undertaking being developed at the University of Kansas through a collaboration between the Department of Geology and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. This project elaborates on how Strabospot 2 helps the Geologists on the field, what challenges Geologists had with Strabospot and how Strabospot 2 fills in the deficits of Strabospot 1. Strabospot 2 is a large, multi-developer project. This project report focuses on the features implemented by the report author.


Patrick McNamee

Machine Learning for Aerospace Applications using the Blackbird Dataset

When & Where:


Zoom Meeting, please contact jgrisafe@ku.edu for link.

Committee Members:

Michael Branicky, Chair
Prasad Kulkarni
Ronald Barrett


Abstract

There is currently much interest in using machine learning (ML) models for vision-based object detection and navigation tasks in autonomous vehicles. For unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and particularly small multi-rotor vehicles such as quadcopters, these models are trained on either unpublished data or within simulated environments, which leads to two issues: the inability to reliably reproduce results, and behavioral discrepancies on physical deployments resulting from unmodeled dynamics in the simulation environment. To overcome these issues, this project uses the Blackbird Dataset to explore integration of ML models for UAV. The Blackbird Dataset is overviewed to illustrate features and issues before investigating possible ML applications. Unsupervised learning models are used to determine flight-test partitions for training supervised deep neural network (DNN) models for nonlinear dynamic inversion. The DNN models are used to determine appropriate model choices over several network parameters including network layer depth, activation functions, epochs for training, and neural network regularization.