Defense Notices

The desire to hide communications has existed since antiquity. This includes hiding the existence of the transmission and the location of the sender. Wireless networks offer an opportunity for hiding a transmission by placing a signal in the radio frequency (RF) occupied by a target network which also has the added benefit of lowering its probability of detection. 

This research hides a signal within the RF environment of a packet based wireless (infrastructure) network. Specifically, in this research the interfering (covert) signal is placed in the guard band of the target network’s orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) signal. We show that the existence of adaptive protocols allow the target network to adjust to the existence of the covert signal. In other words, the wireless network views the covert network as a minor change in the RF environment; this work shows that the covert signal can be indistinguishable from other wireless impairments such as fading. 

The impact of the covert signal on the target system performance is discovered through analysis and simulation; the analysis and simulation begin at the physical layer where the interaction between the target and covert systems occurs. After that, analysis is performed on the impact of the covert link on the target system at data-link layer. Finally, we analyze the performance of the target system at the transmission control protocol (TCP) layer which characterizes the end-to-end performance. The results of this research demonstrate the potential of this new method for hiding the transmission of information. The results of this research could encourage the creation of new protocols to protect these networks from exploitation of this manner.

Measurement of wind velocity is of essential to enhance the wind energy utilization which is very important considering the fact that it one of most important renewable source of energy and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) has become a very popular technology for such measurements. In this study, a pulsed Doppler Lidar operating at 1.5µm is demonstrated with coherent detection technique for measurement of velocity of spinning disc which is a hard target used in this project. This Lidar uses the principle of Doppler shift to measure the velocity and an Acousto-optic modulator is used for frequency shifting in the transmitter to produce an intermediate frequency. A data acquisition board (DAQ) was used to generate the pulses and also to process the data once it was collected by the receiver using mat lab. A graphical user interface was used to interface the DAQ with the system and changing parameters like PRF, pulse width, record directory etc. could be changed directly from the computer. A thorough study of literature has been done and same has been presented. The architecture of the Lidar, velocity results, future work and an analysis of SNR’s dependence on range and pulse energy under predefined atmospheric conditions will be discussed.

Ever since the invention of near infrared optical spectroscopy almost three decades ago, research has still been going actively to improve the accuracy of biological tissue oxygenation measurements and make it commercially available in clinics for medical diagnosis and imaging. Hemoglobin concentration in blood especially near brain can be found by determining the absorption and scattering coefficient of chromosphere at a particular wavelength. But there are many challenges to overcome when infrared light penetrates deeper into our skull which acts as a high scattering medium. This improvement has taken a new shape with the application of diffusion theory to separate the absorbed light and scattered light in tissues. With this motivation, in this project we designed a dual-frequency (120MHz and 125MHz) based two wavelengths LED transmitting system to transmit optical power through fibers and penetrate NIR light into a scattering medium which is then received by the detection and demodulation circuit for data acquisition. Different methods available to measure absorption and reduced scattering coefficient for non-homogenous medium will be discussed.

Understanding network behavior under challenges is essential to constructing a resilient and survivable network. Due to the mobility and wireless channel properties, it is more difficult to model and analyze mobile wireless networks under various challenges. We provide a comprehensive model to analyze malicious attacks against mobile ad hoc networks. We analyze comprehensive graph-theoretical properties and network performance of the dynamic networks under attacks against the critical nodes using both synthetic and real-world mobility traces. Our study provides insights into the design and construction of resilient and survivable mobile wireless networks.

Online Social Networks (OSNs) are integrated into business, entertainment, politics, and education; they are integrated into nearly every facet of our everyday lives. They have played essential roles in milestones for humanity, such as the social revolutions in certain countries, to more day-to-day activities, such as streaming entertaining or educational materials. Not surprisingly, social networks are the subject of study, not only for computer scientists, but also for economists, sociologists, political scientists, and psychologists, among others. In this dissertation, we build a model that is used to classify content on the OSNs of Reddit, 4chan, Flickr, and YouTube according the types of lifespan their content have and the popularity tiers that the content reaches. The proposed model is evaluated using 10-fold cross-validation, using data mining techniques of Sequential Minimal Optimization (SMO), which is a support vector machine algorithm, Decision Table, Naïve Bayes, and Random Forest. The run times and accuracies are compared across OSNs, models, and data mining algorithms. 
Our experiments compared the runtimes and accuracy of SMO, Naïve Bayes, Decision Table, and Random Forest to classify the lifespan of content on Reddit, 4chan, and Flickr as well as classify the popularity tier of content on Reddit, 4chan, Flickr, and YouTube. The experimental results indicate that SMO is capable of outperforming the other algorithms in runtime across all OSNs. Decision Table has the longest observed runtimes, failing to complete analysis before system crashes in some cases. The statistical analysis indicates, with 95% confidence, there is no statistically significant difference in accuracy between the algorithms across all OSNs. Reddit content was shown, with 95% confidence, to be the OSN least likely to be misclassified. All other OSNs, were shown to have no statistically significant difference in terms of their content being more or less likely to be misclassified when compared pairwise with each other.

To enhance the capabilities of autonomous flight systems for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs), a multichannel Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) collision-avoidance radar with a center frequency of 1.445 GHz is designed. The radar is intended to provide situational awareness for a 40% Yak-54 model aircraft by providing in real time range, radial velocity and angle-of-arrival (AoA) information on surrounding targets with an update rate of 10 Hz. A target’s range and Doppler is determined by employing a two-dimensional (2-D) Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) on the received signal which maps the target to a specific range-Doppler bin. Tests have shown that the proto-type radar is capable of providing range detection up to 430 m with an accuracy of 0.6 m for a target with a 1-m2 radar cross section (RCS). The radar is designed to provide a Doppler resolution of 10 Hz. An array of receiving antennas is used to determine a target’s elevation and azimuth angles by exploiting the received signal’s phase difference at each individual antenna. The AoA measurement error due to thermal noise was found to be less than 3° for a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 18 dB.

Nowadays superlattices (SLs) are widely used as optical materials due to optical absorption properties. Short-period superlattices with certain optical properties such as InAs/GaSb type-II superlattices and ZnTe/CdTe superlattices can serve for mid-infrared (MIR) detection and solar cells. In this study, a standard Kronig-Penney model is applied to calculate the mini band structure of such SLs. On the basis of the energy-balance equation derived from the Boltzmann equation, a simple approach is used to calculate the optical absorption coefficient for the corresponding SL systems. Comparison of simulation results and experimental findings will be made in this study. And reasonable causes of error and future work will be discussed.

Ever since the advent of electronic fuel injection, auto manufacturers have been able to increase fuel efficiency and power production, and to meet stricter emission standards. Most of these systems use engine sensors (RPM, Throttle Position, etc.) in concert with look-up tables to determine the correct amount of fuel to inject. While these systems work well, it is time and labor intensive to fine tune the parameters for these look-up tables. Automobile manufacturers are able to absorb the cost of this calibration since the variation between engines in a new model line is often small enough as to be inconsequential for a specific calibration. 

However, a growing number of drivers are interested in modifying their vehicles with the intent of improving performance. While some aftermarket performance upgrades can be accounted for by the original manufacturer equipped (OEM) electronic control unit (ECU), other more significant changes, such as adding a turbocharger or installing larger fuel injectors, require more drastic accommodations. These modifications often require an entirely new ECU calibration or an aftermarket ECU to properly control the upgraded engine. The problem then, is that the driver becomes responsible for the calibration of the ECU of this “new” engine. However, most drivers are unable to devote the resources required to achieve a calibration of the same quality as the original manufacturers. At best, this results in reduced fuel economy and performance, and at worst, unsafe and possibly destructive operation of the engine. 

The purpose of this thesis is to design and develop—using machine learning techniques—an approximate predictive model from current engine data logs, which can be used to rapidly and incrementally improve the calibration of the engine. While there has been research into novel control methods for engine air-fuel ratio control, these methods are inaccessible to the majority of end users, either due to cost or the required expertise with engine calibration. This study shows that there is a great deal of promise in applying machine learning techniques to engine calibration and that the process of engine calibration can be expedited by the application of these techniques.

Linear amplification using nonlinear components (LINC) is a design approach that can suppress the effects of the nonlinear distortion introduced by the transmitter. A typical transmitter design requirement is for the high power amplifier to be operated in saturation. The LINC approach described here employs a polyphase-coded FM (PCFM) waveform that is able to overcome this saturated amplifier distortion to greatly improve the spectral containment of the transmitted waveform. A two stage optimization process involving simulation and hardware-in-the-loop routines is used to create the final PCFM waveform code.

Mobile Ad Hoc networks~(MANETs) present great challenges to new protocol design, especially in scenarios where nodes are high mobile. Routing protocols performance is essential to the performance of wireless networks especially in mobile ad-hoc scenarios. The development of new routing protocols requires comparing them against well-known protocols in various simulation environments. Furthermore, application traffic like transactional application traffic has not been investigated for domain-specific MANETs scenarios. Overall, there are not enough performance comparison work in the past literatures. This thesis presents extensive performance comparison work with MANETs and uses inclusive parameter sets including both highly-dynamic environment as well as low-mobility cases.