Major Qualifying Project Center A Term 2007–2008

2005-2006||2006-2007||2007-2008||2008-2009||2009-2010||2010-2011||2011-2012

The MIT Lincoln Laboratory continues a joint collaboration with Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to have a number of their undergraduate seniors perform their Major Qualifying Project (MQP) at the Laboratory in Lexington, MA.

Description of Fall 2007 Projects:

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Modeling Multi-Target Track Association and Sensor Fusion
Group 31 – Systems and Architectures (2–3 students)
Dr. Stephen D. Weiner
WPI Faculty Advisor – TBD

The Systems and Architectures Group is concerned with modeling the performance of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems comprised of networks of sophisticated radar and optical sensors connected by an overall battle management control structure.  In such BMD systems, information collected by several sensors on a number of targets must be combined and used to make decisions regarding which targets should be intercepted and which targets should be rejected.  For this process to be successful, it is necessary that the data from “sensor 1” on “target A” be associated with data from “sensor 2” on “target A” and not with data from “sensor 2” on “target B”.  To date, most of the analyses of this problem have involved elaborate Monte Carlo simulations which provide high fidelity modeling of the target motion, target signatures and sensor measurement capability but provide limited flexibility to consider target and sensor variations.  They also provide limited insight into those threat and defense parameters, which have the greatest influence on overall performance.

The students will develop simple modular parametric models of the association and fusion process to permit rapid evaluation of the overall defense performance as a function of number of targets, density of targets, velocity spread of targets, defense sensor resolution and accuracy in range and angle, any sensor measurement biases and the relative geometry of the different sensors.  Major modules will include association of crossing targets for a single sensor, handover of single targets from one sensor to another, sensor bias estimation and removal, association of objects in a target complex seen by one sensor with these objects seen by a second sensor.  For each module, the output will be the probability of success and the probabilities of different failure modes as a function of the input parameters.  These individual modules will be combined into an overall functional model whose output will be the probability of correctly selecting the object to be intercepted (the warhead) as a function of all the input parameters.  This overall model will be used in higher-level simulations of total BMD system performance.  It would be nice if versions of the model could be developed as an Excel spreadsheet(s) or a MATLAB script(s).  The output of these simple models will be compared with the output from more elaborate Monte Carlo simulations.

Students for this project could be Physics, Mathematics, or Electrical and Computer Engineering majors or a combination of these majors. The skills needed for this project include a background in probability and error analysis (MA 2621 or MA 2631), understanding of coordinate systems and simple target motion (PH 1110 or PH 1111; PH 2201 or ES 2503 would be helpful), and understanding of the capabilities and limitations of computers to model these processes.  The most important skill is good judgment, to model all the important factors in the problem and ignore all the unimportant factors. Knowledge of MATLAB is also required There are a number of people in Group 31 who can assist in acquiring the background and developing the judgment needed to address this problem.

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Multi-Sensor Fusion in a Distributed Computing Environment
Group 33 – Ranges & Test Beds (2 students)
D. Seth Hunter
WPI Faculty Advisor – TBD

Lincoln Laboratory’s Ranges and Test Beds group is developing the ballistic missile defense sensor infrastructure for the Pan-Pacific Range, associated mobile range assets, and field test beds.  Distributed computing has enabled the centralized control of range assets into a single command center and the real-time fusion of data from many sensors to improve analysis capabilities.  Common challenges in these efforts include the distribution of data, control of computer clusters, monitoring and visualization of system and network resources, and real-time performance of system communication.

Students participating in this Major Qualifying Project will select, design, and integrate a new technology into one of the group’s distributed computing projects.  Current efforts include a ballistic missile defense system test bed for live-time testing of experimental algorithms, a range control center, and a common reusable backend for radar sensors.  A selection of specific project ideas relevant to these efforts will be provided during the PQP phase of the project and the students will be allowed to choose the project which best fits their interests and abilities.

This project requires 2 students majoring in Computer Science, with strengths in the areas of computer networking, distributed systems, and software engineering.  The technologies most likely to be used during the design and implementation of the project include Linux, Java or C++, XML, SQL, and JMS or CORBA.  The desire and ability to work as an intern at Lincoln Laboratory on preparatory research during the summer prior to the MQP is a strong advantage.

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Advanced Flight Test Instrumentation Design and Evaluation
Group 34 – Intelligence, Test, and Evaluation (2–3 students)
Dr. Peter Dolan and Dr. Mohamed Abouzahra
WPI Advisor – TBD

On-board measurement of an object’s instantaneous orientation, position, and velocity, temperature, and instrumentation status are often critical in assessing the object’s performance during flight test operations.  This data must be transmitted to a receiving station, in real-time, using heavily-used frequency bands.  Many systems exist which are capable of collecting, processing, and transmitting aeronautical telemetry data, but these systems are typically heavy, power-hungry, and voluminous.

Students working on this project will investigate and design a lightweight, modular system for collecting and transmitting telemetry data over distances up to one kilometer.  Power systems and alternate communication protocols will be examined.  Representative sensors, including accelerometers, GPS receivers, and temperature sensors, will be fused with DSP/FPGA development kits, and “mote-like” transceivers to demonstrate and characterize a prototype system.  The design of a more compact, ruggedized system may be performed toward the end of the project.

This project requires two to three students majoring in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering.  A basic knowledge of Electrical Engineering and digital systems is required.  Relevant classwork would include ECE-3133, ECE-3305, ECE-3311, ECE-3803, ECE-3810, ECE-4304, and ECE-4703.

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Investigation of Force-Limited Vibration Testing for Space Applications
Group 71 – Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Michael Languirand
WPI Faculty Advisor – TBD, Mechanical Engineering Department

MIT Lincoln Laboratory has a long history of designing, developing and building systems for air defense, missile defense, space surveillance, tactical surveillance, and advanced communications.  These activities involve the complete hardware development cycle from conceptual design and analysis, through fabrication and testing.

The testing phase involves evaluation of hardware under expected environmental conditions, which often include vibration load simulations.  An often encountered issue associated with vibration testing is how to best minimize over-testing caused by differences between the expected vibration environment and that created by laboratory test equipment.  This concern is particularly important for space flight applications where equipment often have minimal design margins.

Historically the laboratory has used a technique of peak acceleration response limiting to minimize over-testing and the resulting artificial test failures.  Presently the laboratory is investigating the technique of force limited vibration testing in order to improve testing capabilities.

This MQP will investigate the applicability of force limited vibration for typical space flight applications.  In consultation with Laboratory staff the students will determine how to best apply force limiting and derive force limits.  The students will perform analyses and conduct vibration testing to evaluate this test technique and compare it to previous testing using existing and/or student designed equipment mass mock-ups. 

The project will require 2 or 3 students with mechanical design and dynamic analysis capabilities.  Some knowledge of finite element analysis, vibration test equipment and instrumentation will also be helpful, but is not required.

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Geiger-Mode Avalanche Photodiode (APD) Optimization Study
Group 87 – Advanced Imaging Technology (2–3 students)
Dr. Brian Aull
WPI Faculty Advisor – TBD

The Advanced Imaging Technology Group develops advanced silicon based focal-plane technology for both DoD and scientific applications, such as astronomy, remote sensing, and adaptive optics. These applications include both active and passive imaging systems. Examples of research activity include design, fabrication, and testing of world class CCD imaging devices used in a variety of high end scientific applications (for example, the focal planes for the Chandra x-ray telescope and various major telescopes), demonstration of silicon-based photon-counting detector arrays, and development of unique active-pixel sensors.

Using the above technology, arrays of Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes (APDs) integrated with digital CMOS circuits have been developed and demonstrated for both active and passive imaging systems.   Existing CAD tools do a poor job of modeling the characteristics of these APDs, making precise optimization difficult. The students will conduct a systematic experimental study of the dependence of APD performance parameters, such as dark count rate and detection efficiency, on both the fabrication process and the measurement technique. The results of this experimental study will support development of theoretical models that will facilitate optimized design and fabrication of these devices.

This project requires a total of 2 to 3 students majoring in physics or electrical and computer engineering, or applied mathematics (or a combination of the three majors).  One of the students has already been selected. Understanding of the physics of semiconductor devices and first-rate experience in experimental laboratory technique are required (either PH 3502 or ECE 3901 is required).

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Design of a Wideband Circular Array
Group 39 – Air Defense Techniques (2 students)
Dr. Herbert Aumann
WPI Faculty Advisor – TBD

Group 39 is interested in developing a wideband antenna for an aircraft surveillance program. This particular project focuses on the design, prediction and simulation of a circular phased array antenna.

The students would model and optimize the phased array and phased array elements using WIPL-D or NEC software with particular emphasis on wide bandwidth performance. A few prototype phased array elements would be built. Students would verify the simulations by measuring isolated as well as embedded element patterns on an antenna range.

The project requires three electrical engineering and/or physics students. Background in electromagnetism (EE 2112 Electromagnetism or PH 2301 / PH3301 Electromagnetism) is required and Matlab experience would be helpful.

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Reconfigurable Computing Infrastructure with High Performance
FPGA Intellectual Property (IP) Cores for Signal Processing
Group 102 – Embedded Digital Systems (3–4 students)
Dr. Michael Vai and Dr. Huy. T. Nguyen
WPI Faculty Advisor – TBD

The Embedded Digital Systems Group is involved in the design and development of advanced signal processor technology based on hybrid architectures that use a combination of programmable digital signal processors (DSPs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Systems with throughput on the order of 100s of billion operations per second (GOPS) are required to meet the needs of next generation of applications.

The seamless incorporation of a high performance FPGA coprocessor into a software application is highly desirable. Besides the apparent benefit of application acceleration, this capability will support the implementation of a target system in multiple stages using technologies of increasingly higher performance and risk factors (e.g., DSP, FPGA, and ASIC). This project is aimed at developing an infrastructure with a high level middleware library that will allow the use of high performance FPGA IP cores to support heterogeneous, reconfigurable signal processors capable to deliver 100s GOPS of computation in the challenging form factors required for embedded processor found in radars, sonars, and communication systems. The use of FPGA embedded programmable processors to interface IP cores with different host processor architectures will be explored. A total of three or four electrical and computer engineering students with suitable backgrounds (ECE 3801 and 3810) will work under the direction of Dr. Michael Vai and Dr. Huy Nguyen to design and implement the infrastructure. Performance, scalability, and flexibility of a prototype implementation will be demonstrated in a modern radar application. This will be an excellent project for engineering students wishing to work on the forefront of computer technology in the important field of reconfigurable, embedded processing.

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Design and Implementation of an Intelligent Distributed Signal Processing Library for Real-Time Computing
Group 102 – Embedded Digital Systems (3 students)
Dr. Jeremy Kepner and Ms. Nadya Travinin
WPI Faculty Advisor – Prof. Michael Ciaraldi
Computer Science Department

The Embedded Digital Systems Group is involved in the design and development of advanced signal processing software technology for rapid prototyping of real-time embedded systems.  One of the key technology challenges in the development of embedded processing is the hardware-to-software mapping and optimization of the application software.  Overall program efficiencies of 30% or more are needed to make programmable solutions viable for embedded form-factors, and yet initial (unoptimized) efficiencies as low as a few percent are common for C or C++ programs.  The problem is exacerbated when the application requires multiple processors in order to meet throughput requirements.  To address these challenges, Lincoln Laboratory is researching intelligent middleware technology aimed at delivering high-performance on parallel and distributed architectures.

This project is aimed at developing a high performance middleware library that will be capable of automatically mapping itself onto parallel and distributed processors.  The library is being prototyped using the class definition and function overloading features of MATLAB. Neural network and dynamic programming techniques are being developed to facilitate automated mapping strategies.  A total of three computer science, electrical and computer engineering (concentration in signal processing), or mathematics students with suitable backgrounds will work under the direction of Dr. Jeremy Kepner and Ms. Nadya Travinin to design and implement the middleware.  Performance, scalability, and flexibility of a prototype implementation will be demonstrated on a representative sensor signal processing application using a large Beowulf cluster (192 nodes). This will be an excellent project for computer scientists and engineers wishing to work on the forefront of computer technology in the important field of embedded signal processing.

The three students should have excellent object oriented programming skills. Having taken Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (CS 4341) will be a big plus.

Students should have a solid background in Java, Windows, and LINUX. Web programming and GUI design is suggested. A strong background in physics and mathematics is suggested. The three-person team would be composed of students from electrical engineering, physics, math, and / or computer science.

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Infrared Signature Reduction for Missile Defense Applications
Group 73 – Aerospace Engineering (2 students)
Mr. Scott Van Broekhoven
WPI Faculty Advisors – TBD

Lincoln Laboratory is involved in the design and development of experiments and sensors for ongoing missile defense tests.  One class of sensor under development at the Laboratory is a compact fly-away sensor package (FASP) that separates from a target missile exo-atmospherically and collects highly resolved near-field data.  For future flight tests it is desirable to reduce the IR signature of the FASPs so as not to confuse ground based and airborne sensing platforms.

The students will be tasked with designing a system that can mitigate the IR signature of the FASP.  The FASP has multiple heat sources including sensors, RF transmitters, flight computers etc., which will make the project very challenging.  As part of the process the MQPs will develop thermal models of the FASP with their proposed thermal management systems.  A thermal mockup of the FASP exists and will be used to perform model validation experiments in the Laboratories vacuum chambers.  If the project is successful then the new design developed by the MQPs might be flown on future FASP missions.

Two students are needed to complete this project.  A background in heat transfer and thermodynamics is desired.  A working knowledge of Solidworks and some prior laboratory experience would be beneficial.

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Designing and Implementing a
 Service Oriented Architecture (SOA): A Case Study
Information and Communications Services Group (2–3 students)
Ms. Kathleen Carusone
WPI Faculty Advisor TBD

The Information and Communications Services (ICS) Group assists the Laboratory Divisions and Groups in defining information technology (IT) architectures and functions for Laboratory-wide use. The ICS Group is responsible for business applications and infrastructure services utilized by the entire Laboratory. The group is supports the Laboratory Intranet and the many web-based applications utilized by Laboratory personnel.

Participants in this project will explore the different ways of introducing an SOA into an existing application environment.  They will:

  • Define different types of services
  • Explore and analyze various implementation options for those services,
  • Write a report for Lincoln Laboratory describing the recommended SOA implementation approach, identifying elements of the architecture and why they were chosen, and functionality that should be exposed through services. The report will include information on migrating existing applications and building new applications in the environment.

In doing this project, participants will demonstrate a clear understanding of SOA, particularly the principles of SOA, namely:

  • Reuse
  • Granularity
  • Modularity
  • Interoperability

This project requires 2-3 Computer Science students.  The students should have experience with Software Engineering (CS 3733) or Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (CS 4233), and Webware (CS 4241). The technologies most likely to be utilized in this project include Java, and the Eclipse development environment. Familiarity with XML, SOAP, and WSDL will be beneficial. Students with availability to work at the Laboratory on preparatory research during the summer prior to the project are preferred.

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Development of Satellite Algorithms and Displays
Group 91 – Space Control Systems (3 students)
Dr. David E. Whited

Lincoln Laboratory has an extensive history in building Space Control Systems. Space Control is very similar to Air Traffic Control, except that instead of keeping track of planes we are responsible for tracking satellites, rocket bodies, space trash, and asteroids. Lincoln has been involved in this area since Sputnik and continues to build next generation systems for this mission.

The goal of this project is develop algorithms and displays that can be used as part of simulation activities or as part of an operational system. The project itself will be accomplished in JAVA as part on our on-going development of the TRUST libraries. The TRUST libraries represent our efforts to build a core library for Space Control Activities. Students’ efforts will focus on developing algorithms to solve specific challenges as well as developing displays for demonstration of those algorithms.

Students should have a solid background in Java, Windows, and LINUX. Web programming and GUI design is suggested. A strong background in physics and mathematics is suggested. The three-person team would be composed of students from electrical engineering, physics, math, and / or computer science.

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Service Oriented Architecture Development
Group 43 – Weather Sensing (2 students)
Dr. Mark Weber
WPI Faculty Advisor – TBD

Lincoln Laboratory’s Weather Sensing Group conducts applied research for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The research is focused on hazardous weather surveillance, forecasting, and dissemination of pertinent information to key decision makers in the aviation system (pilots, air traffic controllers, traffic management planners, and airline dispatchers). The group specializes in Doppler weather radar processing technology, high-resolution short-term weather forecasts, sensor fusion, and information technology.

Group 43 has openings for two computer science students to participate in Service Oriented Architecture development projects.  These projects address the need to develop open, net-centric infrastructures supporting rapid capability evolution in two areas:  (1) air traffic control and the impacts of adverse weather; (2) effective exploitation of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaisance (ISR) sensors in military operations.  The interested students should be familiar with Java and other modern, object oriented programming languages and have a strong interest in learning and experimenting with web service standards.  Interest in one of the above application areas is also highly desirable."

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The work described in this web page was and will be performed at Lincoln Laboratory, a center for research and development operated by MIT. The opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this web page are those of the authors and not necessarily endorsed by MIT, the U.S. Air Force, or the United States Government.

Employment at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and/or participation in these projects is restricted to U.S. citizens.
The work described in this web page is sponsored by the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Air Force under Air Force Contract FA8721-05-C-0002.

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