Nizar Al-Holou

First-year integrated curricula across engineering education coalitions

The National Science Foundation has supported creation of eight engineering education coalitions: Ecsel, Synthesis, Gateway, SUCCEED, Foundation, Greenfield, Academy and Scceme. One common area of work among these coalitions has been restructuring first-year engineering curricula. Within some of the Coalitions, schools have designed and implemented integrated first-year curricula. The purpose of this paper is to survey the different pilots that have been developed, abstract some design alternatives which can be explored by schools interested in developing an integrated first-year curriculum, indicated some logistical challenges, and present brief descriptions of various curricula along with highlights of the assessment results which have been obtained.

Development and performance analysis of a data-reduction algorithm for automotive multiplexing

Automotive multiplexing allows sharing information among various intelligent modules inside an automotive electronic system. In order to achieve an optimum functionality, the information should be exchanged among various electronic modules in real time. Data-reduction techniques are used to send the data over a transmission medium at a high speed. They can be employed in automotive multiplexing systems to improve the information exchange rate among various intelligent modules. Some off-the-shed data-reduction algorithms have been considered for automotive multiplexing. However, their applications have been limited to test data classes only. This paper introduces a data-reduction algorithm that can be applied to all data classes found in automotive multiplexing, including body- and engine-related data. Detailed performance analysis of the algorithm is presented. Although this algorithm has been developed to fit in the automotive environment, it can also be applied to nonautomotive applications in which extensive information exchange is performed among control modules via a multiplexing bus. The proposed algorithm uses SAE J1939 as a base protocol. However it can be used with other automotive multiplexing protocols without loss of generality.

ITS based Predictive Intelligent Battery Management System for plug-in Hybrid and Electric vehicles

Hybrid Electric vehicles (HEV) have been developed to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. The plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and electric vehicle (EV) have been recently widely analyzed for their additional significant potential of improving fuel efficiency and reducing emission. For PHEV, the charge depletion model of the High Voltage (HV) battery has been identified to be the appropriate model to ensure that the vehicle reaches its destination while vehicle HV battery is at its minimum threshold, thus allowing minimal use of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). For EV, the charge depletion model is the natural phenomenon due to the vehicle architecture. However, the charge depletion model would not ensure optimization in fuel efficiency and reduced emissions due to its lack of knowledge of vehicles relative traffic information. This drawback in the charge depletion model may be eliminated with the development of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) which allows vehicles and road infrastructures to share historical, real time and predictive future traffic information. In this paper, the charge depletion model and a proposed intelligent predictive charge depletion model are compared. The overall performance, including trip time and fuel consumption of the models under a selection of drive cycles, will be demonstrated via simulation results.

Next Generation Vehicle Network: Web Enabled

A new architecture of the next generation vehicle networks is proposed and discussed in this paper. Modern in-vehicle networks, on-board computers and the Internet, mobile telecommunications and Telematics applications in the ground vehicles, as well as future desired features are discussed. New applications such as remote diagnostic, condition monitoring, error detection, and remote firmware upgrade and reprogramming are proposed. Several hardware and software methodologies in the ground vehicles are proposed to achieve the proposed applications

A Microcontroller Laboratory Hardware Platform for the Academic Environment: The UDM-EVB

The MC68HC11 has been very popular in the academic environment, succeeded by the MC68HC12. Freescale (formerly Motorola) has introduced the HCS12 family of processors which obsoletes the 68HC11/12. The University of Detroit Mercy, as part of a masters thesis project, developed a new laboratory evaluation board (UDM-EVB) specifically designed for use in the academic environment. The Freescale HCS12 was selected as the processor of choice based upon the rich history of academic support for the 68HC11 and 68HC12. The UDM-EVB was designed as a single platform including an HCS12 target processor, a separate debugger, on-board power-supplies, and fault protected I/O circuits. This paper will address the trade-offs that exist between educational functionality, cost, robustness, and how satisfactory compromises were made in designing the UDM-EVB. The University of Detroit Mercy is working to make the UDM-EVB platform and a companion laboratory manual available to other academic institutions and industry

Teaching electroscience using computer-based instruction

This paper outlines our experience associated with teaching college level physics and electric circuits to nontraditional students using specially designed and locally produced computer-based instruction tools. The CBI tool is one part of a significant educational experiment involving a major curriculum development effort and an attempt to integrate experiential activities from a production work environment with academic degree granting programs. This paper concentrates on just the CBI portion of our experiment in an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of that one factor in the overall experiment. Even though our CBI development plans have been very ambitious with the aim that the CBI tools will be able to stand alone without a textbook, we used a textbook as a supplement. As outlined in the syllabus for each course, the student should work on the CBI module, review the textbook, and then meet with the instructor to review the basic concepts and discuss problem solutions. We especially discuss how the role of both the instructor and the student are significantly affected in CBI compared to more traditional instructional methods. Of major concern is how to meet the expectations of students conditioned by prior exposure to the traditional methods.

DGPS/INS integration using neural network methodology

This paper presents an INS/DGPS land vehicle navigation system using a neural network methodology. The network setup is developed based on a mathematical model to avoid excessive training. The proposed method uses a KF-based backpropagation training rule, which achieves the optimal training criterion. The North and East travel distances are used as desired targets to train the two decoupled neural networks. The proposed method is suitable for INS and DGPS systems sampled at different rates. In addition, an online stochastic modeling method for the desired target is developed. This method facilitates the use of the extended Kalman filter trained backpropagation neural network approach whenever the desired target statistics are not available, or not reliable. The experimental results demonstrate the suitability of this method in developing an INS/DGPS land vehicle navigation method.

The networks course: old problems, new solutions

New approaches and techniques for teaching the undergraduate level course in networks and data communications will be discussed. Many of these ideas were presented at the 1998 Workshop on Networking sponsored by NSF and Michigan State Universitys Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Improving Inter-processor Data Transfer Rates over Industrial Networks

Industrial networks allow information exchange between processors connected to them in industrial automation systems. Special protocols are used for inter- processor communication over industrial networks. In order to achieve optimum functionality, the inter- processor communication should be in real time. Data reduction and compression algorithms are used to transfer the information in a relatively short period of time. Data reduction algorithms can be used to improve information transfer rates over the industrial networks to achieve better performance. However, the nature of industrial networks demands special data reduction techniques compared to other networks. This paper proposes a data reduction algorithm for industrial networks. The proposed data reduction algorithm is based on a commonly used industrial protocol called Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol. However, the presented algorithm may be extended to other communication protocols without the loss of generality.

Teaching introduction to electric circuits using computer-based instruction for manufacturing engineering students

We are developing an electro-physics curriculum which integrates the fundamental contents of conventional physics with electric circuits. We discuss the difficulties and the challenges associated with using CBI to replace some aspects of traditional classroom learning.