Massood Towhidnejad

Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University · Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

This text provides a broad discussion covering the entire software development life cycle. It uses a comprehensive case study to address each topic and features the following: • A description of the development, by the fictional company Homeowner, of the DigitalHome (DH) System, a system with “smart” devices for controlling home lighting, temperat...

This paper provides an update to our ongoing Resilient Autonomous Systems (RAS) project that is being conducted at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and is supported by the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). The objective of the RAS project is to develop a distributed multi-layer autonomous UAS planning and control technology for gathering intellige...

While many Software Engineering (SE) and Computer Science (CS) textbooks make use of case studies to introduce difference concepts and methods, the case studies introduced by these texts focus on a specific life-development phase or a particular topic within software engineering object-oriented design and implementation or requirements analysis and...

This paper presents a Research and Development (R&D) effort to design and develop a flight simulation system with Adaptive Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), and Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), for integration of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) into National Airspace System (NAS). The paper will delineate the design and development of the Nex...

One of the major investments of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Next Generation Air Transportation (NextGen) program is in Four-Dimensional (4D) Trajectory Based Operations (TBO). The heart of 4D TBO is the autopilot capability on any National Airspace System (NAS) operating aircraft. Autopilot is an essential component of the Flight Ma...

Commercial space operations introduce challenges in both the integration of spacecraft national airspace system and support the coordination of orbital spacecraft. There exists a need for a low-cost tracking system capable of supporting these vehicles that does not require a substantial development of additional infrastructure. Automatic Dependent...

The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Next Generation Air Transportation (NextGen) program is a long-term modernization and transformation of the current National Airspace System (NAS) into a more effective and coordinated decision-making system. NextGen provides a more reliable, secure, and dependable aviation capability for both users and o...

Airspace integration is a major challenge that must be addressed for wider unmanned aircraft system (UAS) acceptance and one-day ubiquitous operations. Both research and training play a role in addressing these challenges, which are cross-disciplinary. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) is heavily invested in promoting the safe integration...

Advances in engineering methods and technology, modern system complexity, and the need to work across cultures and multiple time zones have influenced significant change in the practice of engineering. The same cannot be said of engineering education. This paper describes the Digital Home case study project that covers full life-cycle development o...

The demand for additional engineering and computing degree graduates continue to increase [1, 2]; however, interest in pursuing these degrees is not matching the predicated demand. More specifically, attracting US students in engineering and computing field has always been a challenge; this is particularly true for female and minority students. Fac...

One of the primary objectives of most undergraduate engineering programs is to prepare graduates for engineering practice. Advances in engineering methods and technology, modern system complexity, and the need to work across cultures and time zones have influenced significant change in the practice of engineering. Unfortunately, there has been litt...

With the ever increasing complexity of engineered systems, there is a need for educating and training additional systems engineers to meet future demand. Over the last three years, educators and professional systems engineers from around the world have been working on the development of a Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE...

The System Wide Information Management (SWIM) program is one of the critical components in the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) NextGen project. This investigates some of the challenges that arise during communication between the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) and the Data Management System (DMS). The FAA has identified nine operational scenari...

To enhance the flexibility and responsiveness of commercial space operations, improved surveillance techniques are required to track the ascent and descent of a space vehicle through the national airspace system. In this paper, a prototype UAT Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (or ADS-B) transmitter developed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical...

There are advantages to retrieve information from the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). However, the UAV-WSN system has some differences with conventional WSN system. So it is important to design an appropriate scheme to control the transmission in a UAV-WSN system. In this paper we proposed a protocol called A-OAlo...

While many Software Engineering (SE) and Computer Science (CS) textbooks make use of case studies to introduce difference concepts and methods, the case studies introduced by these texts focus on a specific life-development phase or a particular topic within software engineering object-oriented design and implementation or requirements analysis and...

With the ever-increasing complexity of systems, it is important to properly educate the upcoming systems engineering workforce. The Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE) provides guidelines for graduate program degrees in systems engineering. GRCSE establishes a baseline set of entrance expectations, objectives, outcomes and...

The Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE) v. 1.0, published in December 2012, was developed by an international author team with an explicit aim to provide a solid foundation for improving the consistency and relevance of systems engineering education around the world. This paper describes the different issues that the autho...

A collection of slides from the author's conference presentation is given. The following topics are discussed: ADS-B unit for suborbital flight; and high altitude balloon flight testing.

Quad-rotor-typed UAV can perform multiple targets detection effectively by its controllability and agility. In this study, the ground multiple targets detection with stochastic distances between the different targets is considered. A target position is described as a two-dimensional coordinate. The all positions' coordinates and the start-point coo...

To support the periodic launch and recovery of sub-orbital reusable launch vehicles (sRLV), some sterilization of airspace surrounding the launch and recovery sites is required to ensure safe ascent and descent through the national airspace system. To reduce the necessary airspace to restrict, tracking technologies such as ADS-B can be employed. Th...

The complexity of current engineered systems and the increasing role of software in those systems emphasize the need for educating and training qualified systems engineers to meet future demand. As the role of software increases in the overall operation and success of systems it becomes necessary for the system engineers to understand and appreciat...

Computational thinking (CT) does not require profound knowledge of computer science (CS). Vice versa, it helps students organize and build up new knowledge around the core CS concepts they encounter on the daily basis. Furthermore, CT provides a set of problem-solving skills and enhances analytical abilities that are crucial for the young generatio...

At the Infotech@Aerospace Conference in 2011, the Gale UAS was presented as a new unmanned aircraft being developed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to perform in-situ measurements of climate conditions within tropical cyclones. The goal of this new platform is to provide s...

Robots for disaster response require a multi-disciplinary engineering approach in order to solve the constraints and requirements of operating within a disaster environment for one or multiple missions. At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the senior capstone design course for the Department of Electrical, Computer, Software, and Systems Engine...

Although many software engineering (SE) and computer science (CS) texts use case studies to explain the different concepts, these case studies tend to focus on a specific subject such as object oriented design and implementation or requirements analysis and specification. In addition, these case studies usually lack instructor guidelines on how to...

This WIP discusses Inspire-CT, an NSF-funded, multi-institutional project that is exploring ways to share the excitement and engagement of advanced computing courses with pre-college and introductory undergraduate students. The discussion includes examples of initial educational activities and a summary of results, issues, and future plans.

This paper describes and advocates a focused approach to using inspections of software artifacts as an active learning technique in software engineering education. A central thesis is that one must “learn to read before they write” that is, you should read and study an existing software artifact, before you develop one. There is discussion of how s...

This paper presents research conducted by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University performed in collaboration with scientists at NOAA's Hurricane Research Center, Aircraft Operations Center, and UAS Program. For this project, a UAS is designed and developed for deployment into a tropical cyclone from WP-3D Orion aircraft via a sonobuoy tube delivery sy...

Case studies have been a subject of much study and research about their effectiveness in teaching and learning [1, 2, 3]. Although the use of case study teaching has become a proven and pervasive method of teaching about professional practice in such fields as business, law, and medicine, it is yet to be adopted in any significant way in the comput...

The use of case studies is an effective method for introducing real-world professional practices into the classroom. Case studies have become a proven and pervasive method of teaching about professional practice in such fields as business, law, and medicine. The term "case study" is used in a variety of ways. In its most naive form, it simply refer...

The use of case studies is an effective method for introducing real-world professional practices into the classroom. Case studies have become a proven and pervasive method of teaching about professional practice in such fields as business, law, and medicine. The term "case study" is used in a variety of ways. In its most naive form, it simply refer...

Over the last 45 years as a student and faculty member in Computer Science, I have been involved in learning, teaching, and writing for the CS1 course. I have authored or co-authored textbooks for CS1 in nine different programming languages from Fortran ...

The EcoCar Challenge provides 17 universities the opportunity to compete in the design and development of a new hybrid-vehicle based off of the 2009 Saturn Vue. At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the vehicle’s initial architecture has been designed that provides the opportunity for the vehicle to operate in up to four different modes: electri...

The paper discusses the content and use of a comprehensive case study called the DigitalHome (DH) system. The DH system involves the development of ldquosmart houserdquo technology by a national retail chain serving the needs of home owners. Thus far, DH artifacts, scenarios and exercises have been developed. Thus DH case study has been used in an...

With the ever increasing role of software in our day-to-day life, and even more important the criticality of their role in safety and reliability of the applications, it is important to find techniques that helps with identifying and balancing risks. One such technique is Fault Tree Analysis, which has proven to be powerful in other domains such as...

The paper argues for the use of the "case study" approach to educating and training software engineers. After discussing problems in software engineering education and introducing the fundamentals of case study teaching, the paper describes a project to develop a comprehensive and complete case study, called the DigitalHome (DH) system, which invol...

The paper argues for the use of the "case study" approach to educating and training software engineers. After discussing problems in software engineering education and introducing the fundamentals of case study teaching, the paper describes a project to develop a comprehensive and complete case study, called the DigitalHome (DH) system, which invol...

This paper advocates the use of the "case study" approach to educating and training software engineers. After an account of the use of case studies in the education of professionals, there is a discussion of problems in educating software professionals and how a case teaching approach can be used to address these problems. The paper describes a pro...

One of the major areas of software engineering, as specified in the SWEBOK (SoftWare Engineering Body Of Knowledge) (1), is software quality. This paper presents an argument on why software quality should be an important component of an undergraduate computer science or software engineering curricula, and why it should not be viewed only as an exer...

Software plays an increasing role in the safety critical systems. Increasing the quality and reliability of the software has become the major objective of software development industry. Researchers and industry practitioners, look for innovative techniques and methodologies that could be used to increase their confidence in the software reliability...

We present a study on software fault tree analysis (SFTA) conducted at the Software Assurance Technology Center at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. While researchers have made various attempts at SFTA, software assurance practitioners have been slow to adopt it. One reason is the intense manual effort needed to identify and draw the fault trees fo...

One of the major areas of software engineering, as specified in the SoftWare Engineering Body Of Knowledge, is software quality. This paper argues that software quality should be a central focus in an undergraduate computer science or software engineering curriculum, and that quality should not be viewed only as an exercise in software testing. Fir...

This tutorial proves an overview of software quality concepts, processes, and techniques, as related to the design and implementation of undergraduate computing curricula. It provides ideas and examples of how to incorporate and integrate software quality practices into such curricula

This paper describes an experiment which involved students in the undergraduate computer science senior project capstone design course, and students in the graduate software testing course. Students entering the senior project class are graduating seniors who have completed all but maximum of two required CS classes. They have already completed a o...

This paper addresses a central and critical issue in the development of computer software - its quality. The main thesis of the paper is that computer science faculty, in their design and implementation of curricula, do not devote sufficient attention to teaching their students how to develop high-quality software. As in industry, the most common a...

An abstract is not available.

This paper summaries some Embry-Riddle University activities on the incorporation of Watts Humphrey's Personal Software Process (PSP) throughout the undergraduate computer science curriculum. This paper includes a description of the project's objectives, a discussion of the activities engaged in by students, an explanation of how the activities wer...

A new software engineering educational model is proposed in order to more efficiently close the gap between industry software engineering needs and academic software engineering education. The model is analogous to the medical school/teaching hospital curriculum model; it is based on academic/industry collaboration using a “Software Center” as the...

This paper discusses the role of personal software process definition in the education of computing professionals and the importance of emphasizing quality in the development of software. After examining recent government and industry efforts in introducing and instituting effective software development processes, there is a description of the Capa...

This paper discusses the role of personal software process definition in the education of computing professionals and the importance of emphasizing quality in the development of software. After examining recent government and industry efforts in introducing and instituting effective software development processes, there is a description of the Capa...

As the processing power of computers has increased, more complex and larger problems have been introduced. The lack of a disciplined approach to the solution of such problems has created a situation referred to as the “software crisis”. That is, software products have been behind schedule, over budget and unreliable. The Software Engineering Instit...

In teaching a course that includes the analysis of algorithms, songs can be used as teaching examples. Multiple examples can be done at one time, or in one homework set, without the background explanation required to analyze real algorithms. Many components ...