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Events for September 29, 2014
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Meet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, & Engineering TalkMon, Sep 29, 2014
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Receptions & Special Events
This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process; a student led walking tour of campus and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process and financial aid. Reservations are required for Meet USC. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m. Please visit http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/firstyear/prospective/meetusc_sw.html to check availability and make an appointment. Be sure to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!
Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Admission
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Mahmoud Kamalzare Oral Defense
Mon, Sep 29, 2014 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mahmoud Kamalzare , Astani CEE Ph.D. Candidate
Talk Title: Computationally Efficient Design of Optimal Strategies for Passive and Semiactive Damping Devices in Smart Structures
Abstract: In recent years, significant improvements in memory capacity and processing speed of computers have provided the ability of modeling and analyzing large and complex dynamical systems. These systems usually consist of many elements, of which some have nonlinear properties. Standard nonlinear solvers ignore the localized nature of the nonlinearities when computing responses, which can result in a very time-consuming process. However, since the nonlinearities are often limited to only a few of the many degrees of freedom (DOFs), an alternate method has been developed in which the nonlinear perturbation dynamics are excluded from the nominal linear system and evaluated based on the response of the nominal system. This reduces the high-order system to a much lower-order system of nonlinear Volterra integral equations (NVIEs), which provides a very computationally efficient solution. The total response of the system can be then easily calculated using superposition.
This study adapts the methodology to provide a fast and computationally inexpensive method for designing control strategies implemented in but not limited to smart building structures. The development of control strategies for controllable passive dampers, i.e., semiactive damping devices, is complicated by the nonlinear and dissipative nature of the devices and the nonlinear nature of the closed-loop system with any feedback control. Control design for nonlinear systems is often achieved by designing a control for a linearized model since strategies for linear systems are straightforward. One such approach is clipped optimal control in which the desired damper forces are determined from an optimal controller (e.g., linear quadratic regulator (LQR), linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG), H2, etc.), which is designed assuming that the damping devices are fully linear actuators that can exert any forces (dissipative or non-dissipative), and a secondary bang-bang controller commands the controllable damper to exert forces as close as possible to the desired forces. However, designs using any linearized model generally results in suboptimal (and sometimes lousy) performance because the linear actuator assumption differs from the actual implementation with a dissipative damping device. Thus, one must generally resort to a large-scale parameter study (or performing an optimization algorithm) in which the nonlinear system is simulated many times to determine control strategies that are actually optimal for the nonlinear controlled closed-loop system. Herein, it is demonstrated how the proposed approach can significantly decrease the computational burden of a complex control design study for controllable dampers.
Next, this study expands the applicability of the proposed method by demonstrating that the approach can also be adapted to accommodate the more realistic cases when, instead of full-state feedback, only a limited set of noisy response measurements are available to the controller, which requires incorporating a Kalman filter estimator, which is linear, into the nominal linear model. Furthermore, since the primary controller is rarely designed using a high-order model (because it is impractical due to numerical difficulties, as well as often unnecessary since high-order models, such as complex finite element structure models, have high frequency dynamics that remain mostly unexcited by an external disturbance), to bring the method to full maturity, a reduced-order model for control design is incorporated with the full model to simulate semiactively controlled structural responses using the proposed NVIE approach. Finally, it is explained briefly how the proposed approach can be implemented when uncertainties are involved in the system.
This dissertation provides a broad and comprehensive methodology for designing control strategies for smart structures using the proposed computationally efficient method. Numerical results confirm the accuracy, stability, and computational efficiency of the proposed simulation methodology and specifically show about two orders of magnitude speed up relative to the conventional solvers for the typical semiactive design parameter studies.
Location: 209 Conference Room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Timing Over Wireless
Mon, Sep 29, 2014 @ 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Satyam Dwivedi, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Timing Over Wireless
Abstract: Traditionally wireless technology has been used to communicate messages. However, in this talk will focus on two other applications, namely, precise positioning in indoor environments, and clock parameter exchange of electronic nodes over wireless. Both these applications rely on measuring and estimating time related parameters over wireless.
Our work on indoor positioning is based on a new method of distributed positioning which exploits time delays in transmission scheduling. This method achieves distributed positioning, where every node in a network knows the position of every other node, without requiring any communication among nodes. The underlying idea can also be extended to self localize a passive network node. Via extensive experiments we verify that our method is a very efficient cooperative distributed position methodology that in surpasses the capabilities and performance of many alternative in the literature.
Precise wireless clock synchronization is the holy grail of achieving efficiency and coordination in wireless sensor networks. I will describe a new technique which provides range and clock parameter estimation simultaneously between any two node over wireless. In order to experimentally verify the algorithm, we developed a new in-house measurement model.
Accuracies obtained by our above models are in the order of sub-Hertz for clock frequency error estimation, and sub-nanosecond for clock phase error estimation, and less than 30 cm for range estimation over a range up to 10 meters.
Precisely estimating timing parameters over wireless results in hardware constraints. Continuous improvement in the hardware which can accomplish the tasks of positioning, clock synchronization and communication will be discussed, and our efforts towards developing an ultra-wideband (UWB) testbed will be explained.
Host: Andreas Molisch, molisch@usc.edu, EEB 530, x04670
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Sep 29, 2014 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Stacey Finley (Assistant Professor, BME), Andrew Mackay (Assistant Professor, BME & Pharmacology/Pharmaceutical Sciences), Natasha Lepore (Assistant Professor of Research Radiology), Stacey Finley (Assistant Professor, BME), Andrew Mackay (Assistant Professor, BME & Pharmacology/Pharmaceutical Sciences), Natasha Lepore (Assistant Professor of Research Radiology)
Talk Title: BME Research Presentations
Abstract: Stacey Finley (12:30) Targeting tumor angiogenesis and metabolism: Insight from systems biology models.
Andrew Mackay (12:50)Talk Title: TBA
Natasha Lepore (1:10) Computational Imaging of Brain Organization Research Group
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Preparing for the Engineering Career Fair- FOR GRAD STUDENTS
Mon, Sep 29, 2014 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Viterbi Students, make a great first impression at the Career Fair no matter what your class standing! You will learn how to optimize your time, approach employers, and prepare for this event. Graduate students will learn additional tips tailored just for their needs!
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: All Viterbi Graduate and Post Graduate Students
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
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Oculus VR Information Session
Mon, Sep 29, 2014 @ 05:30 PM - 07:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
More in depth look into the Engineering Teams at Oculus VR, as well as the Recruiting Team, who helps in finding the best to support.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: All Viterbi
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
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AAAI General Meeting
Mon, Sep 29, 2014 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
Interested in Artificial Intelligence? Don't know what that is? Come find out! Join us at our first GM where you can meet the E-Board, as well as others interested in AI. We will be discussing our planned events for the semester and would love to hear from all of you if you have anything AI related you want to know more about.
For info about who we are, you can check out our website:
http://aaaiusc.com/
To get updates on our future events, please join our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/344421032279109/Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 107
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: uscAAAI
