Doctoral Degrees (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)
Recent Submissions
-
Fast multi-core CEM solvers and flux trapping analysis for superconducting structures
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The dissertation presents the development of a numerical field solver, called TetraHenry (TTH), for inductance extraction and flux trapping analysis of superconducting integrated circuits. The solver ...
-
Magnetic modelling, analysis and on-chip shielding of SFQ Circuits
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Single Flux Quantum (SFQ) based electronic circuits are susceptible to failure if exposed to external magnetic fields, even in very small quantities. Operating margins of SFQ circuits have shown to decrease ...
-
Tunable narrow-band X-band bandpass filters
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation proposes two narrow-band tunable X-band filters from different classes, one planar and one waveguide. The first is a suspended substrate varactor-tuned doubly end-loaded staircase filter ...
-
A digital low-level radio frequency control system for the particle accelerators at iThemba LABS
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a digital low-level radio frequency (RF) control system for the cyclotron particle accelerators at iThemba LABS. This system replaces ...
-
Characterisation of the dielectric properties of rhinoceros tissue using computer simulation and physical tissue phantom models
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12)Introduction: Understanding the electromagnetic behaviour of in-vivo devices within rhinoceros tissue will aid existing tracking and anti-poaching endeavours and provide new insights into rhinoceros physiology and ...
-
Design optimisation of reluctance synchronous machines: a motor and generator study
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study focuses on the design and optimisation of the recently popular synchronous reluctance machine. The increase of this machine's popularity is because of its inherent high effciency, with industry ...
-
Design optimisation and performance evaluation of flux switching machines for geared medium-speed wind generator drives
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: As wind turbines become large, the cost of energy increases because of the employed drivetrain (geared or direct–drive). Consequently, non–conventional geared medium–speed (MS) generators are gaining ...
-
Design and optimisation of direct-driven PM variable-flux synchronous generators for directly grid-connected slip-synchronous wind-turbines
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation presents design, optimisation and prototype tests of radial-flux, low-speed, permanent magnet (PM) and copper excited, synchronous generators with a new topology. The designed generators ...
-
Smart dock for bicycle protection in theft-prone urban areas
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Cycling, when utilised as a form of transport in an urban environment, holds valuable benefits and sustainable advantages for a wide variety of stakeholders. Various barriers exist that contribute to a ...
-
Design of line-start permanent magnet synchronous machines using the Taguchi Method
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Future energy challenges and global environmental concerns urge the world to focus on energy efficiency programs more than ever. Energy efficiency improvement is an important way to address these challenges. ...
-
Contributions to engineering electromagnetics
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The dissertation presents an overview of the publications of the candidate, and his research group, on engineering electromagnetics — in particular computational electromagnetics (CEM) — which have ...
-
Modelling and mitigation of specular multipath interference in a dual-frequency phase comparison FMCW radar system
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Digital signal processing technology has improved greatly over the last two decades. Increased processing power, cheaper memory and higher sampling rates have enabled the application of Frequency-Modulated ...
-
Scheduling strategies to improve quality of service for heterogeneous data over resource constrained wireless mesh networks
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Cost and bandwidth plays a major role in many telemetry and Internet of Things (IoT) application network implementations. Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) based on singleradio single-channel (SRSC) networks ...
-
Advances in spectral techniques for fruit quality evaluation: case of ULF-NMR and NIRS
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Industrial application of non-destructive analytical techniques still faces a challenge of lack of general and specialty models for quality evaluation. Current developments strive to alleviate this problem ...
-
Characterising the electromagnetic environment of MeerKAT
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: MeerKAT is South Africa’s 64-dish precursor radio telescope to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), currently under construction in the semi-desert Karoo region. As these are new generation instruments, ...
-
Hardware description language modelling and synthesis of superconducting digital circuits
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The energy demands and computational speed in high performance computers threatens the smooth transition from petascale to exascale systems. Miniaturization has been the art used in CMOS (complementary ...
-
From high-speed superconducting devices to nanosensors
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this dissertation the story of a research career spanning 34 years is told. It started in microelectronics in the early 1980’s and focused on aspects of design and optimization of high-voltage diodes. ...
-
Automatic flight envelope recovery for large transport aircraft
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis presents the design of an automatic flight envelope recovery system for large transport aircraft. The flight envelope of the aircraft is conceptualised to consist of the aerodynamic envelope, ...
-
Using probabilistic graphical models to detect dynamic objects for mobile robots
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: An autonomous mobile robot must be able to identify moving objects in its environment, continually as it is operating, for accurate environment mapping and collision-free navigation. This is not an easy ...
-
Fast Mesh-based physical optics for large-scale electromagnetic analysis
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: At sufficiently high frequencies, the electrical size of scattering objects become very large. The electromagnetic field simulation of such objects becomes prohibitively expensive with physically rigorous ...
-
Robust Fly-by-Wire under Horizontal Tail Damage
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Aircraft damage modelling was conducted on a Boeing 747 to examine the effects of asymmetric horizontal stabiliser loss on the flight dynamics of a commercial fly-by-Wire (FBW) aircraft. Change in static ...
-
Optimised active fault detection for an open loop stable system
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12)Active fault detection for a stable open-loop linear time invariant system is considered. The optimal active fault detection setup is developed around an estimator based architecture. The auxiliary signal and estimator are ...
-
Modelling of Antenna Responses
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation presents surrogate modelling techniques for the radiation patterns and scattering parameters of antennas. The models are developed in the context of calibration of re ector antennas ...
-
Training neural word embeddings for transfer learning and translation
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In contrast to only a decade ago, it is now easy to collect large text corpora from theWeb on any topic imaginable. However, in order for information processing systems to perform a useful task, such as ...
-
SQUID geomagnetic signal analysis and modelling of Schumann Resonances in the earth-ionosphere cavity
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Due to its extreme sensitivity to magnetic flux, vast dynamic range and wide bandwidth, the Superconductive Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) is at the frontier of all existing magnetic field sensors. ...
-
Automated aerial refuelling of a large receiver aircraft
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Performing aerial refueling of a large receiver is an extremely strenuous task for a pilot. Automating the aerial refueling for a large receiver is thus highly desirable. While significant research has ...
-
Miniaturised multilayer RF and microwave Circuits
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Ceramic and laminate multilayered technologies are explored in the design of novel circuit topologies and in novel implementations of classical circuit topologies. A cross-slot coupled filter topology ...
-
Spinning solar sail : the deployment and control of a spinning solar sail satellite
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Solar sailing has become a viable and practical option for current satellite missions. A spinning solar sail has a number advantages above a 3-axis stabilised sail. A spinning sail is more resistant to ...
-
Design of a dual-polarized dense dipole array for SKA mid-frequency aperture array
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation presents the design of a dual-polarized Dense Dipole Array, or “DDA”, as a candidate element for the SKA Mid-Frequency Aperture Array. The design consists of tightly coupled dipole ...
-
A Fixed Switching Frequency technique for finite-set model predictive control of power electronic converters
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03)ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A fixed switching frequency scheme for finite-control-set model predictive control is resented. The purpose of the control scheme is to achieve an output waveform quality that compares well to that of a ...
RSS 1.0