Sharif Digital Repository

Bias Temperature Instability (BTI) is known as one serious reliability concern in nanoscale technology sizes. BTI gradually degrades threshold voltage (Vth) of MOS transistors. The main consequence of Vth degradation in SRAM cell transistors is the Static Noise Margin (SNM) degradation that makes SRAM cells susceptible against soft errors. SNM degradation in SRAM cells results in bit-flip occurrences and should be monitored accurately before resulting in permanent failures. This work proposes a sensor called Current-based BTI Sensor (CBS) to assess the aging state of SRAM cells. CBS measures BTI-induced SNM degradation of SRAM cells by monitoring the write current shifts due to BTI. The... 

Reducing energy consumption is one of the challenges facing wireless sensor networks with many solutions introduced for them with each having advantages and disadvantages. Some of the solutions introduced are based on using movable sinks. In this project, we attempt at proposing a place for the establishment of sinks using genetic algorithm that can reduce energy consumption in the net knots and increase the net life. This work should be done after reviewing the results of past researches and introduced methods. We will analyze the practicality of the proposed model using simulation and will show their advantages over the previous mentioned methods  

Power harvesters are used to generate energy for electronic devices. These electrical energy generators consist of three main parts: energy source, power electronic converter and energy storage. In order to minimize some of the weaknesses of these devices, including low power density and low reliability, the hybrid power harvesting method can be utilized. In this thesis, we design and build a hybrid energy harvester considering the advantages of simultaneous usage of solar and thermal energies for a wearable sensor, focusing on "efficiency enhancement" and "availability improvement". In the designed device, both solar and thermal energy harvesting units operate independently. In the solar... 

Congestion in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) leads to both packet loss and excessive energy consumption. That is why congestion has to be controlled during the life of a WSN. One of the go well protocols that has tried to tackle congestion in WSNs is PCCP. PCCP utilizes a cross-layer optimization, imposes a hop-by-hop approach and achieves efficient congestion control; however it has got its own shortcomings. Here we have carried out a survey on congestion problem and have proposed a solution called Modified PCCP to elevate the performance of PCCP by making some changes in the scheduler which is designed in the cross layer. Using this model the congestion is controlled and the PCCP protocol... 

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently achieved a great deal of attention due to its numerous attractive applications in many different fields. Sensors and WSNs possesses a number of special characteristics that make them very promising in many applications, but also put on them lots of constraints that make issues in sensor network particularly difficult. These issues may include topology control, routing, coverage, security, and data management. In this thesis, we focus our attention on the coverage problem. Firstly, we study the best current solutions in the literature. We choose one of them as the basis of our work and study it thoroughly as the core model of our coverage model.... 

This thesis activities, consists of three main parts. The first part is, manufacturing and optimization of the electrical part of blood glucose measurement devices, based on electrochemical sensors. In this part, design of blood glucose measurement systems based on two and three electrode electrochemical sensors are proceeded and the accuracy of the electrical block, is increased up to 1mg/dl according to sensor current range. The second part, is related to the design of different probes for blood electrical characteristics (impedance magnitude) measurements, at low frequencies. Measurements with these probes show, first the blood impedance magnitude range at low frequencies and moreover,... 

Proton precession magnetometers are one of the most sensitive scalar magnetic sensors. Their function is based on Zeeman effect and also nuclear magnetic resonance phenomena. In this project we have designed and implemented needed coils, swithching and signal detection circuits. Because of extremely high sensitivity of this sensor to induced noises and also gradient of earth’s magnetic fileld, detection of precession signal needs design of low noise electronic circuits with special EMC considerations. The implemented system in this project contains different blocks, such as switching circuit and its related control unit, amplifier, filter and frequency meter. Using this system, the obtained... 

In this study, transition metal phosphide, with a high accessible surface and abundant electroactive centers, was used as an electrocatalyst to fabrication an electrochemical sensor of Gloucose. The direct growth of thin film of nanocomposite can be considered as an efficient method to modify the electrode surface, and the application of these modified electrodes as electrochemical sensors. nanocomposite of transition metal phosphide (CuCoP) were directly grown on Cu(OH)2 nanotubes (as-prepared on GCE) in order to design hierarchical core-shell nanostructure with using efficient, inexpensive and fast method. Here, Cu(OH)2 nanotubes not only served as substrate, but also steer the CuCoP to... 

H2S is a toxic gas used in chemical laboratories and industries. H2S is also liberated in nature due to biological processes and also from mines and petroleum fields. At some threshold level, exposure to concentrations over 10 ppm can result in headaches, irritability, dizziness and in some case leads to death. So that introducing sensors which sense H2S at ppm level with the low response time is so essential. The present work emphasizes on H2S resistance-sensing properties of pure and Pd doped WO3 films prepared by Arc discharge method. XRD, SEM, EDAX and XPS were applied to analyze crystal structure, morphology and chemical composition of the films. The analyzes results showed that films... 

Use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to record environmental data such as temperature, sound level, and light intensity has grown dramatically. The specification of the locations of sensors is important. Using tools such as global positioning system (GPS) to find the location of sensors is not economical. Sensors can record their distances from neighboring sensors. On the other hand, the locations of some sensors are fixed. In wireless sensor network localization (SNL), we want to find the location of sensors using the available information. An approach for solving the SNL problem is to model the problem as an optimization problem and use an interior point method for its solution. Interior... 

This thesis presents an analytical solution for determination of the
electro-elastic media subjected to an anti plane shear harmonic wave containing a multi-phase cylindrical fiber whose electro-elastic properties differ from those of the matrix. Both the matrix and the coated-fiber system are transversely isotropic piezoelectric materials with symmetry and poling axes parallel to the fiber axis. The coating can have variable thickness. The dynamic electro-mechanical equivalent inclusion method (DEMEIM) is presented and employed as an extension of dynamic equivalent inclusion method (DEIM) in order to take into account the electro-mechanical coupling. Accordingly, the coating-fiber... 

Node localization is an important issue in dynamic environments for location-dependent applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Geographical location information is necessary in many WSN applications. The goal of localization algorithm is to assign geographical coordinates to each unknown node position. Among different localization algorithms, DV-hop is one of the well- known algorithms. DV-hop algorithm is a range-free algorithm and has significant error in node location estimation. Since the node deployment is stochastic, minimizing this error has a critical role in location estimation accuracy of the algorithm. Increasing communication radius and number of anchors, to the certain... 

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are comprised by number of sensor nodes, which collect data and transmit them to the sink node, the battery of sensor nodes is limited and this issue appeals the attention of researchers to attempt to improve the energy consuming of sensor nodes in order to prolong the lifetime of networks. Circumstance of routing affects the lifetime of network. Researches have proved the efficiency of Clustering in routing protocols in WSNs. It is notable that the importance of CH selection is undeniable. In this thesis we have worked on the CH election and CH rotation of hybrid method, which utilizes Compressive Sensing (CS) in inter-cluster transmission. We have proposed... 

Monitoring of soil moisture plays an essential role in correct decision making and implementation of any closed loop control system in precision agriculture. On the one hand, continuous using of a lot of moisture sensors and monitoring of soil moisture via direct measurement is restricted by practical prohibitions. On the grounds that activation of a lot of sensors continuously requires communication of a large amount of information and causes high power consumption for a moisture monitoring system. On the other hand, using remote sensing methods such as satellite methods, for moisture monitoring in arbitrary spatial and time resolution for control purposes, is not practically possible. The... 

This research describes a new and relatively general method to grow well-aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on cobalt-deposited stainless steel by thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of ethylenediamine precursor. The CNTs are vertically aligned at high density over large areas on the surface. Different effective parameters in growth of carbon nanotubes, as type of substrate, surface treatment, temperature of growth , feeding carbon supplies have been studied. Finally, aligned carbon nanotubes have been prepared by 100-150 nm diameter and 9µ length. CoOx•nH2O–MWCNTs nanocomposites were successfully synthesized, using a cathodic electrochemical reduction of H2O2 to deposit cobalt... 

Human Activity Recognition (HAR) has had tremendous improvements in the field of elderly monitoring and telerehabilitation. An anchor point for HAR systems in telerehabilitation is supervising rehabilitative excercises. For Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, a group of rehabilitative activities, known as Lee Silverman Voice Treatment-BIG, or LSVT-BIG, have shown to be effective in improving motor performance. Similar to any rehabilitative measure, delivering these activities requires the supervision of an expert or clinician, so that the patient receives proper feedbacks. HAR systems can replace human experts. They can recognize activities and provide the user with proper feedback. HAR... 

In this document, the cooperative estimation of states between two interceptors and one target is expressed in order to evaluate the effect of information sharing in different situations on the estimation performance. Due to the importance of the proper estimation of the target acceleration in advanced navigation rules, the main focus of the document is on a more precise estimation of the absolute states of the target. For this purpose, a filter based on the extended Kalman filter was used as an estimator, and to evaluate the promotion of the estimation performance, the combination of measured data was used in two different ways. Matlab Simulink is the simulation software used. The dynamics... 

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is a new surgical technique in which surgery is performed using smart instruments and viewing apparatus inserted through a very small incision rather than by making a large incision to expose, and afford access to the operation site. Piezo film force sensor can be used in MIS graspers for providing tactile data to overcome problems such as lack of sense of touch or to find hidden arteries.This thesis, investigates fundamental understanding of piezo film sensor especially when we want to connect these sensors to measurement units.Two different approaches for signal conditioning the sensor have been proposed and circuits have been fabricated. Several... 

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are prone to faults due to battery depletion of nodes, where a node failure can disturb routing, as it plays a key role in transferring sensed data to the end users. A WSN may be partitioned into groups of nodes called clusters; for every cluster, there is a node, called Cluster Head (CH) that is responsible for collecting and transferring data from all nodes in that cluster. This means that the CH is a single point of failure; i.e., once a CH fails, the whole cluster will fail, which leads to inability of its members for transferring data outside the cluster. This thesis presents a Fault-Tolerant and Energy-Aware algorithm (FTEA), which prolongs the lifetime... 

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a modern surgical technique in which the operation is performed through small incisions in the body. Therefore, the surgeon looses his/her sense of touch which is of high importance in any medical operation. In the present work, a novel smart grasper is presented in which the surgeon can virtually acquire a feeling of force/momentum experienced by the organ/tissue. The smart grasper uses piezoelectric sensors bonded at desired locations to detect the applied force/momentum applied by surgeon and to measure the transmitted force/momentum to the tissue/organ. First, an accurate electro-mechanical model of the smart grasper is developed and the relations...