The design and analysis of quartic double well potential with stochastic resonance for communication systems

Non-linearity and noise are two phenomena that are expected to be essential to future advanced technologies. Although largely abstained, in general, from introduction into current communication systems, the counter-intuitive phenomenon called Stochastic Resonance (SR) can be introduced into communication systems in an innovative form. Therefore, in this thesis, the most prominent dynamical system in the SR field, the double well potential, namely the over-damped Duffing equation with symmetric bistable potential, has been studied in order to reveal its signal processing capabilities for communication systems. Within this thesis, the double well potential was designed in order to detect a binary pulse amplitude modulated (BPAM) signal subject to a background noise. The bit-error-rate (BER) performance was enhanced by adding various resonant signals to the input. In addition, the eye patterns of system output indicated that, while decreasing BER, a resonant causes a strong fluctuation. It was eliminated by a use of two systems coupled in parallel, which provided further performance improvement. The results inferred that the double well potential performs filtering and modulation. Following that, the double well potential was designed as a lowpass filter by determining the DC gain and cut-off frequency. Through simulations, as a filter, its noise suppression performance was shown to be better than that of various orders of Butterworth filters. The analog and digital modulation capabilities of the double well potential have also been investigated. In order to clarify the relation between input signal and modulation parameters, the differential equation driving the output was solved, and thus the output was expressed as a function of modulation parameters. It was shown that the output is a multivariate analog modulated signal. In terms of digital modulation, the output of system processing a PAM signal has been interpreted by means of a Markov chain. The results indicated that this process consists of a convolutional coding and multidimensional modulation. In addition, the presence of noise induced coding was found. Finally, the system was designed to obtain a pulse width position modulated (PWPM) output. Throughout the project, detection, filtering, modulation and coding capabilities have been demonstrated, it has been concluded that the double well potential is an sophisticated signal processing tool

Noise benefits in joint detection and estimation problems

Adding noise to inputs of some suboptimal detectors or estimators can improve their performance under certain conditions. In the literature, noise benefits have been studied for detection and estimation systems separately. In this study, noise benefits are investigated for joint detection and estimation systems. The analysis is performed under the Neyman-Pearson (NP) and Bayesian detection frameworks and according to the Bayesian estimation criterion. The maximization of the system performance is formulated as an optimization problem. The optimal additive noise is shown to have a specific form, which is derived under both NP and Bayesian detection frameworks. In addition, the proposed optimization problem is approximated as a linear programming (LP) problem, and conditions under which the performance of the system can or cannot be improved via additive noise are obtained. With an illustrative numerical example, performance comparison between the noise enhanced system and the original system is presented to support the theoretical analysis. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

A Metastable Modular Structure Approach for Shape Morphing, Property Tuning and Wave Propagation Tailoring

The emerging concept of reconfigurable mechanical metamaterials has received increasing attention for realizing future advanced multifunctional adaptive structural systems partially due to their advantages over conventional bulk materials that are beneficial and desirable in many engineering applications. However, some of the critical challenges remain unaddressed before the concept can effectively and efficiently achieve real-world impacts. For instance, in the state-of-art, modules of mechanical metamaterials only reconfigure collectively to achieve global topology adaptation. As a result, the structure merely exhibits limited number of configurations that are discretely different from each other, which greatly undermines the benefits and impact of the reconfiguration effect. Additionally, most of the metamaterials investigations are focusing on the “materials” characteristics assuming infinite domain without considering the “structure” aspect of the systems. The effects of having finite domains and boundary conditions will generate new research issues and phenomena that are critical to real-world systems. To address the challenges and fundamentally advance the state of the art of multifunctional adaptive structures, this dissertation seeks to create a paradigm shift by exploiting and harnessing metastable modular mechanics and dynamics. Through developing new analysis and synthesis methodologies and conducting rigorous analytical, numerical, and experimental investigations, this research creates a new class of reconfigurable metastructure that can achieve mechanical property and topology adaptation as well as adaptive non-reciprocal vibration/wave transmission. The intellectual merit of this dissertation lies in introducing metastable modules that can be synergistically assembled and individually tuned to realize near continuous topology and mechanical property adaptation and elucidating the intricate nonlinear dynamics afforded by the metastructure. This research reveals different kinds of nonlinear instabilities that are able to facilitate the onset of supratransmission, a bandgap transmission phenomenon pertained to nonlinear periodic metastructure. In addition, utilizing this novel phenomenon, supratransmission, together with inherent spatial asymmetry of strategically configured constituents, the proposed metastructure is shown to be able to facilitate unprecedented broadband non-reciprocal vibration and wave transmission and on-demand adaptation. Since the proposed approach depends primarily on scale-independent principles, the broader impact of this dissertation is that the proposed metastructure could foster a new generation of reconfigurable structural and material systems with unprecedented adaptation and unconventional vibration control and wave transmission characteristics that are applicable to vastly different length scales for a wide spectrum of applications.PHDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147525/1/wuzhen_1.pd

The Convergence of Parametric Resonance and Vibration Energy Harvesting

Energy harvesting is an emerging technology that derives electricity from the ambient environment in a decentralised and self-contained fashion. Applications include self-powered medical implants, wearable electronics and wireless sensors for structural health monitoring. Amongst the vast options of ambient sources, vibration energy harvesting (VEH) has attracted by far the most research attention. Two of the key persisting issues of VEH are the limited power density compared to conventional power supplies and confined operational frequency bandwidth in light of the random, broadband and fast-varying nature of real vibration. The convention has relied on directly excited resonance to maximise the mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion efficiency. This thesis takes a fundamentally different approach by employing parametric resonance, which, unlike the former, its resonant amplitude growth does not saturate due to linear damping. Therefore, parametric resonance, when activated, has the potential to accumulate much more energy than direct resonance. The vibrational nonlinearities that are almost always associated with parametric resonance can offer a modest frequency widening. Despite its promising theoretical potentials, there is an intrinsic damping dependent initiation threshold amplitude, which must be attained prior to its onset. The relatively low amplitude of real vibration and the unavoidable presence of electrical damping to extract the energy render the onset of parametric resonance practically elusive. Design approaches have been devised to passively minimise this initiation threshold. Simulation and experimental results of various design iterations have demonstrated favourable results for parametric resonance as well as the various threshold-reduction mechanisms. For instance, one of the macro-scale electromagnetic prototypes (∼1800 cm3) when parametrically driven, has demonstrated around 50% increase in half power band and an order of magnitude higher peak power (171.5 mW at 0.57 ms−2) in contrast to the same prototype directly driven at fundamental resonance (27.75 mW at 0.65 ms−2). A MEMS (micro-electromechanical system) prototype with the additional threshold-reduction design needed 1 ms−2 excitation to activate parametric resonance while a comparable device without the threshold-reduction mechanism required in excess of 30 ms−2. One of the macro-scale piezoelectric prototypes operated into auto-parametric resonance has demon-strated notable further reduction to the initiation threshold. A vacuum packaged MEMS prototype demonstrated broadening of the frequency bandwidth along with higher power peak (324 nW and 160 Hz) for the parametric regime compared to when operated in room pressure (166 nW and 80 Hz), unlike the higher but narrower direct resonant peak (60.9 nW and 11 Hz in vacuum and 20.8 nW and 40 Hz in room pressure). The simultaneous incorporation of direct resonance and bi-stability have been investigated to realise multi-regime VEH. The potential to integrate parametric resonance in the electrical domains have also been numerically explored. The ultimate aim is not to replace direct resonance but rather for the various resonant phenomena to complement each other and together harness a larger region of the available power spectrum

Aeronautical engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 277)

This bibliography lists 467 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in Mar. 1992. Subject coverage includes: the engineering and theoretical aspects of design, construction, evaluation, testing, operation, and performance of aircraft (including aircraft engines); and associated aircraft components, equipment, and systems. It also includes research and development in ground support systems, theoretical and applied aspects of aerodynamics, and general fluid dynamics