https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Descriptions of project laboratory and thesis
topics at the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering and Informatics
Introduction – please read carefully
Dear Exchange Student!
Thank you for your interest to attend a Project Laboratory course or to prepare your BSc or MSc thesis work at
the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (VIK) of the Budapest University of Technology and
Economics (BME).
Bellow, you find a list of topic descriptions available for exchange students at the VIK. If otherwise not stated, the
working language is English. Students are strongly advised to contact the supervisor of the topic they are
interested in as early as possible to get their permission to work on the topic. Please check the prerequisites
carefully if those are specified in the description.
One topic may accept more than one student.
All students working on a Project Laboratory topic or preparing a Thesis work must enroll to the appropriate
course, depending on the degree program (Electrical Engineering or Software Engineering). Credit values (using
ECTS) of these courses are also depending on the degree program.
Both projects laboratory and thesis works are prepared under the supervision of a faculty staff member. Students
are expected to regularly meet and report their progress to their supervisor during the semester. A written report
has to be submitted by the end of the semester in order to get mark and credit. The supervisor has the right to
grant no credit and a “Fail” mark if he or she is strongly dissatisfied with the work, its progress and/or with the
presence or attitude of the student. Any topic or supervisor change is strongly discouraged during the study
period (semester) at the BME and no such change is permitted as a general rule. In case of any kind of “force
majeure” or personal conflict, please contact the course director.
No appeal is possible against the mark granted by the supervisor. No late submission of the written report is
tolerated.
If the thesis work task comes with laboratory work (e.g. setting up and executing measurements, tests,
experiments, etc.) requiring the use of dedicated equipment, the student is expected to strictly observe all
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regulations (opening hours, security measures, schedules, etc.) of the laboratory he or she carries out the
activities. If such rules and regulations are violated, the student will be denied the use of equipment which may
result in the failure of completing the task specified by the topic description.
As a general rule, please notice that a successful study period abroad requires a careful preparation and this list is
here to help you in that process.
On behalf of my colleagues, I am looking forward to welcome you at the VIK as an exchange student and wish you
a successful semester at the BME.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Bálint KISS
bkiss@iit.bme.hu
BSc course director
BME VIK
Links to web pages of departments:
Automation and Applied Informatics - http://www.aut.bme.hu
Electronics Technology - http://www.ett.bme.hu/
Electron Devices - http://www.eet.bme.hu/new/index.php?lang=en
Network Systems and Services - http://www.hit.bme.hu/
Control Engineering and Information Technology - http://www.iit.bme.hu/eng/
Measurement and Information Systems - http://www.mit.bme.hu/eng/
Computer Science and Information Theory - http://www.cs.bme.hu/
Broadband Infocommunications and Electromagnetic Theory - http://hvt.bme.hu/index.php?lang=en
Telecommunications and Media Informatics - http://www.tmit.bme.hu/?bl=y
Electric Power Engineering - http://www.vet.bme.hu/indexe.html
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Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
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List of topics
Synthesis and Application of a Task-dependent Pipelined Multiprocessing Structure ................................................................................... 4
Indoor lighting control ................................................................................................................................................................................ 4
Target tracking with mobile robot............................................................................................................................................................... 5
Visual servoing of cooperative mobile robot system .................................................................................................................................... 5
Efficient algorithms .................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Optimization algorithms for increasing the efficiency of computer systems ................................................................................................. 6
Combinatorial Optimization and its Engineering Applications ...................................................................................................................... 7
Declarative Programming ........................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Construction of electronic circuits............................................................................................................................................................... 8
Embedded Power System Measurements on NI CompactRIO/Labview platform .......................................................................................... 9
Wireless power distribution........................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Live line maintenance technology ............................................................................................................................................................... 9
Design of electrostatic precipitator model ................................................................................................................................................ 10
Actual questions of lightning protection.................................................................................................................................................... 10
Protection against electrostatic discharges ............................................................................................................................................... 10
Primary equipment diagnostics................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Examination of propagating brush discharge ............................................................................................................................................. 11
Electrical equipment for intelligent buildings ............................................................................................................................................ 11
Investigation of space charges in electrical insulations .............................................................................................................................. 12
Development of partial discharge evaluation methods .............................................................................................................................. 12
Development of simulation programs ....................................................................................................................................................... 12
Electrical Circuit Simulation ...................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Interference of wind farms with utility’s high voltage grid: overvoltage protection of transformers and the power collecting cable system. 13
Interference of wind farms with utility’s high voltage grid: Switching transients ......................................................................................... 13
Data Mining ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 14
Hand Gesture Recognition ........................................................................................................................................................................ 14
Distributed and High-performance data analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 14
Prediction of the Prices on the Stock Exchange ......................................................................................................................................... 15
Hidden Markov model based Text-To-Speech Synthesis ............................................................................................................................ 15
Intelligent mobile applications .................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Your smartphone learns your behaviour! – Statistical parametric human-computer interaction on mobile devices..................................... 16
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Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
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Synthesis and Application of a Task-dependent Pipelined Multiprocessing
Structure
The aim of this activity is to develop and apply a method for designing a special multiprocessing structure for
making the pipeline function possible as a special parallel processing even if no efficiently exploitable parallelism
were discoverable in the task description. The starting point of this synthesis method is the task description
assumed to be given by a program written in a high level language (e. g. C, Java, etc). The next step is a
decomposing algorithm for generating proper segments of the task-describing program. The desired number of
the segments and the main properties of the processor set implementing the segments can be given as input
parameters for the decomposition algorithm. The estimated communication time-demand is also taken into
consideration. For constructing a beneficial pipeline structure, the high-level synthesis (HLS) methodology of
pipelined datapaths is applied. The HLS methods attempt to optimize by executing the scheduling and allocation
steps applied on a task-oriented input dataflow graph. Therefore, the resulted multiprocessing structure is not a
uniform processor grid, but it is shaped depending on the task to be solved, i.e. it can be called a task-dependent
multiprocessing or multi-core structure. In order to evaluate the whole method as a framework, a specific HLS
tool is applied. For illustrating and evaluating the method, practical benchmark tasks will be solved step-by-step.
In the frame of the above research and development program, various levels of foreign student participation can
be formulated, like: individual practice, diploma work, PhD thesis, etc.
Depending on the level, the specific work theme will cover one or more from the following sub-tasks:
• Developing algorithms for decomposing high-level task descriptions
• Handling the estimated communication time-demand of various standard bus structures
• Developing methods for considering the main practical properties of processing units implementing the
segments
• Generating a task oriented data-flow graph as the input for a high-level synthesis tool
• Synthesis and evaluation with a high-level synthesis tool
• Solving and evaluating practical benchmark problems
Supervisor’s name: Prof. Dr. Péter Arató
Supervisor’s office and email address: Bdg I. B321 , arato@iit.bme.hu
Department: Control Engineering and Information Technology
Indoor lighting control
Reactive lighting control methods are spreading in intelligent buildings optimizing energy consumption. Such
methods are capable to adjust the power of the lighting sources (e.g. LED lamps) to varying external and internal
disturbances: lighting is provided where it is needed and depending on occupancy and light intensity sensor
information. In large spaces the lighting conditions are inhomogeneous and therefore one sensor and one LED
lamp is not enough to provide satisfactory results. In such situations, the lighting control becomes a MIMO
(multiple input, multiple output) problem where the LED lamps must be centrally managed.
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Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
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The task is to participate in the development of a microcontroller based lighting controller which is capable to
receive signals for multiple sensors and to drive multiple LED light sources.
Supervisor: Dr. Bálint Kiss
Office: Building I, IB422, bkiss@iit.bme.hu
Department: Control Engineering and Information Technologies
Target tracking with mobile robot
The aim of the project is to design and implement algorithms that allow a robot to autonomously follow a moving
target such that the follower robot detects its configuration and eventually velocity state. The target tracking may
happen using different scenarios: constant follower, interception, etc. The algorithms will be implemented using
the DaNI mobile platform of National Instruments, hence the development environment is LabView.
Prerequisites: automatic control, distance and optical sensors, introductory level LabView programing
Supervisor: Dr. Bálint Kiss
Office: Building I, IB422, bkiss@iit.bme.hu
Department: Control Engineering and Information Technologies
Visual servoing of cooperative mobile robot system
The control and coordination of multi agent robotic system is a challenging problem of everyday engineering
practice. An efficient coordination algorithm intensively relies on sensor systems, among which visual
feedback plays an important role. Visual feedback systems using low cost sensors are usually slow and not
reliable; however, an appropriate algorithm can compensate the drawbacks of low cost sensors.
The student should develop a fast and robust algorithm that recognizes the static and moving objects based on
markers and the major feature of the raw image with varying lighting conditions using commercial webcams.
The tasks to be solved are the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Review the literature related to image processing and object recognition.
Review image processing function libraries in C (OpenCV) and Matlab environment.
Develop static object recognition based on markers for a single object.
Develop static object recognition based on edge detection for a single object
Develop static object recognition based on markers for multiple objects.
Develop static object recognition based on edge detection for multiple objects.
Analyze the results and develop a moving object recognition algorithm that is capable of path tracking for
multiple objects and can be utilized for real-time visual servoing.
8. Design and develop path tracking control using the previous results.
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Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Supervisors: Daniel A. Drexler, Research fellow, drexler@iit.bme.hu; Istvan Harmati PhD., Associate professor,
harmati@iit.bme.hu
Place of work: Intelligent Robotics Laboratory (B313, building I), Dept. Of Control Engineering and Information
Technology, BME
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge in programming (Matlab and/or C), image processing
Efficient algorithms
Most of the algorithmic problems are NP hard but even for the ones with polynomial time solutions a natural
question is whether there exist faster method then the usual one if we introduce some restrictions or relaxations.
The goal is to look at problems related to graphs from this point of view. For example, lately lots of work are
done on huge graphs when a cubic or a quadratic algorithm might be infeasible but there is a chance to obtain an
efficiently solvable variants of the problems.
One possibility is to look for useful special cases that can be solved more efficiently than the general problem.
Another approach is to consider the average case complexity of the problem, where the expectation is that the
algorithm is efficient for a random input. To consider a relaxation of the problem also might help. We can look for
a good approximate solution instead of the optimum or a randomized algorithm when a small probability of error
can be tolerated, if these improve the performance significantly. Furthermore, a more and more popular tool is
parameterized complexity theory, where a new parameter is introduced (for example maximum degree or other
graph parameter) in such a way that the problem is efficiently solvable when the value of the parameter is small
(for example, in the case of graphs with small degrees).
The goal is that for some selected problems related to graphs investigate the possibilities to apply these or similar
approaches to obtain efficient algorithms.
Supervisor: Dr. Katalin Friedl, friedl@cs.bme.hu
Department: Computer Science and Information Theory - http://www.cs.bme.hu/
Optimization algorithms for increasing the efficiency of computer systems
The complexity of today’s computer systems makes their design an extremely challenging optimization problem.
Tackling these challenges is very important, as this would lead to more efficient computer systems. On the other
hand, solving these problems optimally is unimaginable without appropriate computer support; in fact, because
of the size of the solution space or the difficulty of assessing the objective function, in many cases, it is quite hard
even with today’s computing power. Some current important optimization problems include:
 CPU-GPU optimization aims at finding the optimal workload distribution between a general-purpose
central processing unit (CPU) and a graphical processing unit (GPU) that is also capable of generalpurpose computation. The optimization must take into account that some operations can be computed
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Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
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more efficiently by the CPU, while some others are more appropriate for the GPU. Furthermore, the time
penalty incurred by the data transfer between the CPU and the GPU must also be considered.
 Multicore scheduling is the problem of assigning parts of a program (e.g., threads, objects, instructions) to
the available cores of a multicore processor. The aim is to minimize the total execution time as well as the
total power consumption of the system. Dependencies between the program parts as well as
communication between cores must be taken into account, as they constrain the speedup achievable
through parallelization.
 Memory optimization arises as a distinct optimization problem because memory accesses have an
increasing relative contribution to overall system performance and energy efficiency. In the hardware
architecture community, different techniques have been developed to decrease the average cost of
memory accesses, e.g. by caching. In the software and compiler community, techniques have been
developed to decrease the number of memory accesses and improve their locality. The aim of this
research is to combine these methods in a multicore, distributed cache environment.
In any of these cases, the student’s task will be to define an appropriate mathematical model of the problem, to
analyze its computational complexity, and to devise efficient algorithms for it. Since these problems are typically
NP-hard, not only exact algorithms, but also approximation algorithms and heuristics should be investigated.
Special attention should be given to the empirical evaluation of the algorithms on both real and random problem
instances. This way, the practical applicability of the algorithms can be validated. Moreover, this will provide
insight into what makes a problem instance easy or hard; such insight can then be leveraged to improve the
efficiency of the algorithm, or to devise completely new algorithms.
Supervisor: Dr. Zoltán Mann, zoltan.mann@gmail.com
Department: Computer Science and Information Theory - http://www.cs.bme.hu/
Combinatorial Optimization and its Engineering Applications
Discrete mathematics (or combinatorics) has a history of several centuries. In the last 60 years computers raised
the importance of studying algorithmic questions. In case of large scale problems the number of steps would
exponentially increase if an algorithm examined every possibility in an exhaustive search. Instead, such algorithms
are required where the number of steps can be bounded from above by a polynomial function of the size of the
input.
In order to develop such algorithms one has to study the structure of the models, the special properties of the
problems. This is the subject of combinatorial optimization, applying graphs, hypergraphs, matroids, special cases
of linear programming using totally unimodular matrices etc. With the help of these tools previously intractable
problems (or at least some special cases of them) could be solved by polynomial algorithms.
The suggested research concentrates on these tools (especially matroid theory) and on their engineering
applications (especially in the design of very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuits, in the extensions of classical
results of electric network theory for networks containing active and/or nonreciprocal devices, and in the
qualitative study of the rigidity of bar and joint frameworks (and their generalizations, the tensegrity
frameworks).
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Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Supervisor: Prof. András Recski, recski@cs.bme.hu
Department: Computer Science and Information Theory - http://www.cs.bme.hu/
Declarative Programming
Declarative programming (DP) is a branch of computer science dealing with declarative programming languages,
techniques and tools. As opposed to traditional, imperative languages, built around commands, a declarative
program consists of statements. Declarative languages have a straightforward semantics and their execution
regime can be viewed as a process of mathematical deduction.
Declarative programming has two main branches: logic programming (LP) and functional programming (FP).
Constraint Logic Programming (CLP) is an important extension of LP, which provides very efficient reasoning
techniques in a specific domain of interest.
The task of the applicant is to take part and contribute to ongoing research work in declarative programming,
especially in the following areas:
 Declarative languages and their implementation (distributed and parallel implementations, partial
evaluation, abstract interpretation).
 Joint use of multiple declarative approaches and techniques, such as constraint programming techniques
for different domains.
 The Semantic Web and its mathematical foundations (OWL – Web Ontology Language, description logics
and their reasoning algorithms).
 Application of declarative languages and semantic technologies in various areas.
Recommended preparatory reading: Logic, Programming and Prolog (2nd edition) by Ulf Nilsson and Jan
Maluszynski; John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 1995, http://www.ida.liu.se/~ulfni/lpp/
Supervisor: Dr. Péter Szeredi, szeredi@cs.bme.hu
Department: Computer Science and Information Theory - http://www.cs.bme.hu/
Construction of electronic circuits
The first part of the semester is a preparation for the construction; the characteristics of the most important
electrical components (diodes, transistors, FETs, OPAMPs) will be measured. On the basis of this measuring
experience each student will design his own circuit and realize it on a printed circuit board. This circuits are e. g. :
power supply, simple generators, logical timer circuits, etc.
Supervisor: Oroszlány Lajos, engineer, oroszl@eet.bme.hu
Department: Electron devices
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Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Embedded Power System Measurements on NI CompactRIO/Labview platform
Description and tasks:
1. Getting familiar with the NI CompactRIO and the Labview platforms
2. Compilation of simple measuring algorithms and deployment on the RIO hardware
3. Programming and testing of parallel algorithms, using also the FPGA module of the RIO platform
Requirements (prerequisites): Basic of measurement theory
Supervisor’s name: David RAISZ, PhD
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1 bldg. 4th floor, 411, raisz.david@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Wireless power distribution
Description and tasks:
1. Literature overview on existing applications / field test results
2. Comprehensive summary on possible application areas, possibilities, burdens/limitations, efficiencies etc.
3. Simple manual calculation of some applications (proximity loading of battery driven devices or electric
vehicles)
Requirements (prerequisites): Electric and magnetic field theory
Supervisor’s name: David RAISZ, PhD
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1 bldg. 4th floor, 411, raisz.david@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Live line maintenance technology
Live line maintenance allows the repair of high voltage power line and equipment without the interruption of the
energy supply. Actual questions are development of new technologies to widen the application possibilities and
protection of personnel from the hazards of electric and magnetic field. The investigations can be performed in
the High Voltage Laboratory of the department, where a medium and a high voltage power line have been
installed recently.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems.
Supervisor’s name:
Bálint Németh
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1 building, 3rd floor 317, nemeth.balint@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
2013/2014 (Fall, version 2013/08)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Design of electrostatic precipitator model
Description and tasks: The application of electrostatic precipitators is becoming required at more and more
places due to environmental regulations. Thus it is important to develop the efficiency of these devices, which can
be based on a numerical model. The task is the further development of a module of the numerical precipitator
model.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems.
Supervisor’s name:
István Kiss
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1 building, 3rd floor 306, kiss.istvan@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Actual questions of lightning protection
The research of lightning protection has traditions at the University. Students can choose from several hot topics
that are currently investigated.
Preventive lightning protection is a risk based method that has been developed at the department recently. The
task is the further development of an expert system for preventive lightning protection.
Investigation of the lightning detection systems is of utmost importance to understand the results and their
applicability in lightning research. The task is the understanding and comparative study of current systems.
Critical review of lightning protection standards is an actual topic, as a new European standard has come into
force. Some points of the new standard received serious criticism that motivates their deeper investigation.
Lightning protection design is a practical task. Based on the given standards the student has to design the
lightning protection system of a given building.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems.
Supervisors’ name:
Norbert Szedenik and Bálint Németh
Supervisors’ office and email address: V1 building, 3rd floor 319, szedenik.norbert@vet.bme.hu,
V1 building, 3rd floor 317, nemeth.balint@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Protection against electrostatic discharges
Electrostatic discharges can harm the processes of chemical, petroleum, pharmaceutical and other plants. The
risks are currently only qualitatively evaluated. The task is the development of an expert system that allows the
quantification of the risk of fire and explosion due to electrostatic discharges.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems.
Supervisors’ name: István Berta and Norbert Szedenik
2013/2014 (Fall, version 2013/08)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1 building, 3rd floor 314, berta.istvan@vet.bme.hu,
V1 building, 3rd floor 319, szedenik.norbert@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Primary equipment diagnostics
Description and tasks: One of the main activities of the High Voltage Laboratory is the development of
diagnostic methods for high voltage power apparatus. Several methods and devices can be studied and
developed, e.g. dielectric spectra, partial discharges, dissolved gas analysis etc. on cables, transformers and
switchgear.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems.
Supervisors’ name:
Bálint Németh, Ádám Tamus, Richárd Cselkó
Supervisor’s office and email address: nemeth.balint@vet.bme.hu,
cselko.richard@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
tamus.adam@vet.bme.hu,
Examination of propagating brush discharge
Propagating brush discharges are among the recently identified phenomena. The energy of these discharges can
be enormous, thus its destructive effects may be very intense. The task is the design of an arrangement to
investigate the discharges and then perform measurements.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems.
Supervisor’s name: István Kiss
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1 building, 3rd floor 306, kiss.istvan@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Electrical equipment for intelligent buildings
Several topics can be studied in the electrical realization of intelligent buildings. The relating standards,
equipment of different manufacturers and real-life tasks can be performed on the most recent devices.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems and programming.
Supervisors’ name: Tamás Iváncsy and Bálint Németh
Supervisors’ office and email address: V1 building, 3rd floor 318, tamas.ivancsy@vet.bme.hu,
V1 building, 3rd floor 317, nemeth.balint@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
2013/2014 (Fall, version 2013/08)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Investigation of space charges in electrical insulations
Dielectric strength of insulating materials is in strong relationship with the tendency of the material to accumulate
space charge. The task is the development of a PEA measuring system and performing measurements on several
types of samples.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems, measurement technology and electromagnetic
fields.
Supervisor’s name:
Richárd Cselkó
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1 building, 3rd floor 317, cselko.richard@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Development of partial discharge evaluation methods
Partial discharge diagnostics is a widely used method for the condition assessment of high voltage apparatus. The
tasks are the further development of measurement arrangement and the investigation of evaluation methods on
artificial samples and real-life data.
Requirements (prerequisites): Basics of signals and systems and measurement technology.
Supervisor’s name: Richárd Cselkó
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1 building, 3rd floor 317, cselko.richard@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Development of simulation programs
The task is to develop simulation program(s) in the field of electrotechnics, electric machines and power
engineering, for example to simulate the synchronization of a synchronous machine, show the working principle
of a fuel cell etc. Modern programming tools, like Delphi or labview, should be used.
Supervisor’s name: Dr. Laszlo Farkas
Supervisor’s office and email address: Bldg. Q, room MF 4, farkas.laszlo@mail.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Electrical Circuit Simulation
Introduction to time domain analysis. Modeling network components. Differential equations, Laplace method,
numerical integration. Transients in RC, RL and RLC circuits in DC and AC networks. Introduction to transmission
line modeling and traveling waves. Single phase and there phase networks. Simulation tools (Digsilent
PowerFactory, ATP-EMTP, etc.). Steady state analysis, symmetrical faults, power flow. Calculation of line and
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Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
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cable parameters. Modelling of transformers, circuit breakers, line faults. Introduction to power system
transients. Hands on lab using ATPDraw and EMTP. Unsymmetrical fault in 3-phase networks.
Supervisor’s name: Laszlo Prikler
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1/412, prikler@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Interference of wind farms with utility’s high voltage grid: overvoltage
protection of transformers and the power collecting cable system
The high-voltage distribution system that connects the windfarm to the utility’s grid is vulnerable to surges
coming along these overhead lines. The local distribution overhead lines are quite susceptible to lightning strikes
because they are ubiquitous and dominant in the local landscape. EMTP-type computer simulation includes the
following:
• lightning risk analysis, estimation of the frequency of lightning flashes
• selection of metal oxide arresters (if needed) to protect the transformer and the cable
• selecting the optimal location of the arrester at the MV side of the transformer (transformer side or cable side
of the fuse/CD/isolator switch)
• protecting the 120/20 kV transformer, the HV equipment of the substation and the MV collecting cable network
against overvoltages arising at the high voltage transmission line.
Supervisor’s name: Laszlo Prikler
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1/412, prikler@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Interference of wind farms with utility’s high voltage grid: Switching transients
At start up of the wind-farm, the MV cable system is energized by closing the 20 kV circuit breaker at the 120/20
kV transformer. This switching operation may produce severe inrush current transient because many generator
step-up transformers are energized simultaneously. The inrush current peak is function of the cable network
topology, the residual flux value of the transformers, as well as the instant of energization on the sinusoidal wave.
Energizing the 120/20 kV substation transformers and the cable network simultaneously may also produce
switching overvoltages, which may overstress the metal oxide arresters. Study needed for:
• Evaluation of inrush transients by means of EMTP simulations
• Calculation of temporary overvoltages when the main transformer is energized or re-energized, according to the
relay protection scheme
• Calculation of switching transients arising when single or multi-phase faults appears on the MV cable network
• Calculation of fault clearing transients on the MV cable system.
Supervisor’s name: Laszlo Prikler
2013/2014 (Fall, version 2013/08)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Supervisor’s office and email address: V1/412, prikler@vet.bme.hu
Department: Electric Power Engineering
Data Mining
Data mining can be applied in many fields ranging from banking, telecommunication and insurance sectors to
personal informatics. Let it be a loan scoring model or the recommender system of Amazon, these techniques
work on huge datasets and produce results and predictive analytics models that improve efficiency and boost
business revenues. This is just a general description of the area and the exact topic will be selected on the record
and interests of the applicant. We can provide interesting data analysis tasks in the area of mobile computing,
location-based services, business intelligence, open-source software, traffic control, e-commerce, stock market,
and many more. Number of students: 3 students
Supervisors: Gáspár Csaba, Nagy István, Prekopcsák Zoltán
{gaspar/nagy.istvan/prekopcsak}@tmit.bme.hu
Department: Telecommunications and Media Informatics
Hand Gesture Recognition
Anyone who has seen the Minority Report or other similar sci-fi movie, must have thought about controlling our
everyday devices with hand gestures. For some special use-cases, like the gesture control of Nintendo Wii,
gesture recognition is a usual technology, but it has further possibilities which is interesting to explore. If these
algorithms are simplified and optimized, then they can be used in smaller devices like a wristwatch, which could
provide an even more natural interface for controlling the house heating system or playing with computer games.
In the past semester, we have created the largest public gesture recognition benchmark in this department. The
student should use this benchmark to compare existing gesture recognition algorithms or even develop a new
one which is more accurate than previous methods. In case of an electrical engineering student, the task can
include designing a small unobtrusive device which implements a low-power gesture recognition algorithm and it
can control various home appliance.
Supervisor: Prekopcsák Zoltán prekopcsak@tmit.bme.hu
Department: Telecommunications and Media Informatics
Distributed and High-performance data analysis
In the past decades, the growth of the RAM size could not keep up with the growth of data that needs to be
analyzed at different companies. There is an increasingly frequent need to analyze gigabytes or even terrabytes of
data, thus we have to invent new approaches to solve these tasks. The solution might be the recent SSD (Solid
State Disk) technology which allows faster data access than regular hard disks, or we could use the parallel
processing power of graphics cards to solve big optimization problems.
2013/2014 (Fall, version 2013/08)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
If we step to the level of more computers, then we can use distributed frameworks like the Apache Hadoop which
provides unlimited scalability with adding more computers to the cluster. All of these interesting technologies are
the basis of the most successful web companies today (like Facebook, LinkedIn or Google), and is predicted to
stay so in the next decade. The student should dive into one of these technologies, investigate the increased
performance that they can provide, and implement own methods to analyze large amounts of data with them.
Supervisor: Prekopcsák Zoltán prekopcsak@tmit.bme.hu
Department: Telecommunications and Media Informatics
Prediction of the Prices on the Stock Exchange
The indexes of Stock Exchange are widely known indicators of the economic situation. The economic analyses try
to give forecast of these prices. There are several theory, how can we make good prediction, but most of the
algorithms are failed. We would like to develop robust, widely useable algorithms to predict economical time
series.
The theme is suitable for theses and dissertations. If you would like to know more about data mining, work in the
department or further details of our topics, please contact us for an informal conversation via e-mail
(gnagy@tmit.bme.hu)!
Department: Telecommunications and Media Informatics
Hidden Markov model based Text-To-Speech Synthesis
Text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis is a major modality of human-computer interaction. „Speaking applications” – it is
a great way to communicate with the users via speech on mobile devices, tablets, in-car environment, intelligent
homes, robotics, etc. The present solutions are understandable, although their naturalness should be increased,
and the computational cost should be decreased.
Hidden Markov model (HMM) based text-to-speech synthesis learns parameters (excitation, duration and spectral
parameters) from a speech database (e.g. 20 hours of recordings) and creates an artificial voice model from which
any text can be synthesized. The main advantages of HMM-based TTS are small footprint, high speech quality and
speaker adaptation.
First we help the candidate to get familiar with present TTS solutions and HMM-based TTS technology,
furthermore the related toolkits. Next, we select a specific field together, in which the candidate will make
research and development. These fields include HMM-based speech synthesis on mobile devices (Android,
iPhone), synthetic speech quality improvements, automatic creation of new voices, speaker adaptation, etc.
The topic is appropriate for BSc, MSc thesis and for international conferences. The candidate should read and
write in English, and should have basic programming skills.
Supervisors: Bálint Tóth, Dr. Géza Németh; toth.b@tmit.bme.hu
2013/2014 (Fall, version 2013/08)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
Department: Telecommunications and Media Informatics
Intelligent mobile applications
Nowadays mobile devices are able to run complex calculations, such as speech recognition and speech synthesis.
Besides the traditional graphical user interface novel approaches of human-computer interaction can be created
with speech user interfaces (SUIs).
First we help the candidate the get familiar with different mobile platforms (Android, iPhone) and their general
features. Next, we select a special field together, in which the candidate will make research and development.
These fields include the following:
- Optimizing speech synthesizer for mobile devices.
- SMS / E-Mail / MMS / RSS reader.
- Navigational software for blind and visually impaired users.
- Emotion controlled applications.
- Smart TV applications.
- Novel ideas of the candidate might be research topic as well.
The topic is appropriate for BSc, MSc thesis and for international conferences. The candidate should read and
write in English, and should have basic programming skills.
Supervisors: Bálint Tóth, Dr. Géza Németh; toth.b@tmit.bme.hu
Department: Telecommunications and Media Informatics
Your smartphone learns your behaviour! – Statistical parametric humancomputer interaction on mobile devices
Smartphones can gather a great knowledge about their environment and owner through microphone, gyroscope,
camera, textual input, WiFi signal, call history, e-mail and SMS messages, internet traffic, etc. The goal of the
current research and development is to create statistical parametric models based on the available/recorded data
to enhance human-computer interaction on mobile devices and to create intuitive mobile applications.
First the candidate should get familiar with the existing models and machine learning techniques, and then the
candidate should create an experimental system on Android or iPhone. Some examples for the experimental
system:
-
Speaker adaptation of text-to-speech engine based on the phone conversations of the user.
Predictive text input based on the user’s email and SMS messages.
Optimizing power consumption based on the sleep cycle of the user.
Intuitive, speaking user manual.
Health advices for elderly users based on their physical activity.
2013/2014 (Fall, version 2013/08)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
https://www.vik.bme.hu/english/
-
Novel ideas of the candidate might be research topic as well.
The topic is appropriate for BSc, MSc thesis and for international conferences. The candidate should read and
write in English, and should have basic programming skills.
Supervisors: Bálint Tóth, Dr. Géza Németh; toth.b@tmit.bme.hu
Department: Telecommunications and Media Informatics
2013/2014 (Fall, version 2013/08)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics