Computer Engineering Commons^™

Multi-Bot Easy Control Hierarchy, Ryan Cooper, Marton Demeter, Jonathan Ho, Alan Nguyen

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

The goal of our project is to create a software architecture that makes it possible to easily control a multi-robot system, as well as seamlessly change control modes during operation. The different control schemes first include the ability to implement on-board and off-board controllers. Second, the commands can specify either actuator level, vehicle level, or fleet level behavior. Finally, motion can be specified by giving a waypoint and time constraint, a velocity and heading, or a throttle and angle. Our code is abstracted so that any type of robot - ranging from ones that use a differential drive set up, …

Scudent Books: A University-Focused Bookselling Platform, Winston Chang, Christina Ciardella, Renee Prescilla

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

As the beginning of each university semester or quarter commences, so does the rush to acquire books for classes. The search for school books is a busy and important task for many students. However, an entire slew of problems and frustrations emerge with this academic race to gather books. To begin, students have to deal with the traditional frustrations of expensive textbooks sold at the university bookstore which is especially troublesome for those on a tight budget. Additionally, required textbooks for classes may not be available at the bookstore or require restocking which can take an unknown amount of time. …

Smartmirror: A Glance Into The Future, Jason Chen, Matthew Koken

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

In todays society, information is available to us at a glance through our phones, our laptops, our desktops, and more. But an extra level of interaction is required in order to access the information. As technology grows, technology should grow further and further away from the traditional style of interaction with devices. In the past, information was relayed through paper, then through computers, and in todays day and age, through our phones and multiple other mediums. Technology should become more integrated into our lives - more seamless and more invisible. We hope to push the envelope further, into the future. …

Multi-Scale Spatial Cognition Models And Bio-Inspired Robot Navigation, Martin I. Llofriu Alonso

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The rodent navigation system has been the focus of study for over a century. Discoveries made lately have provided insight on the inner workings of this system. Since then, computational approaches have been used to test hypothesis, as well as to improve robotics navigation and learning by taking inspiration on the rodent navigation system.

This dissertation focuses on the study of the multi-scale representation of the rat’s current location found in the rat hippocampus. It first introduces a model that uses these different scales in the Morris maze task to show their advantages. The generalization power of larger scales of …

Artificial Intelligence Hardware Accelerator, Maor Bernstein, Patrick Miller

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

This paper documents the investigation and implementation of the mathematics behind artificial intelligence using a programmable gate array interfaced through a software API. Machine learning is made possible through training on large amounts of information and is often performed across clusters of CPUs in an attempt to minimize runtime. In an attempt to make this process less resource intensive, we are researching how to optimize the most intensive of operations by offloading them to a field of programmable gate array.

Fiber-Optic Sensor For Strain-Insensitive Temperature Measurements, Ming Han

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

An in-line fiber-optic temperature sensor is disclosed. In an implementation, the in-line fiber-optic temperature sensor includes an optically transmissive fiber, a reflector, a microstructured fiber defining a channel therein for receiving a fluid, and a Fabry-Perot cavity in fluid communication with the micro structured fiber. The micro structured fiber can be retained between the optically transmissive fiber and the reflector. The Fabry-Perot cavity defined by a material and configured to receive a gas having an index of refraction that changes in a known way with temperature and pressure changes in fluid communication with the channel of the micro structured fiber. …

Point Cloud Framework For Rendering 3d Models Using Google Tango, Maxen Chung, Julian Callin

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

This project seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of point cloud meshing for capturing and modeling three dimensional objects on consumer smart phones and tablets. Traditional methods of capturing objects require hundreds of images, are very slow and consume a large amount of cellular data for the average consumer. Software developers need a starting point for capturing and meshing point clouds to create 3D models as hardware manufacturers provide the tools to capture point cloud data. The project uses Googles Tango computer vision library for Android to capture point clouds on devices with depth-sensing hardware. The point clouds are combined and …

Sclork 2.0, Juan Miguel Baluyut, Jowy Curameng

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

For the past 10 years, the Laptop Orchestra is an emerging interdisciplinary field that involves Computer Science, Engineering, and music. In the past 4 years, Santa Clara University has developed it’s own Laptop Orchestra ensemble called SCLork. For this project, we will be making improvements to the Laptop Orchestra by incorporating a mobile phone element for audience participation. In addition, we will be designing an original composition using computer science sound synthesis techniques. Our mobile element is implemented as a mobile-friendly website that will be accessed by audience members. This website will be used in tandem by both audience and …

Track My Hoist, Brett Harrison, Madison Rubia, Paras Zaveri

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Construction sites all over the world rely on hoist lifts for transporting material and workers at the job site. Despite being such an integral part of construction projects, there is currently no tool to track the use of this critical and highly necessary piece of equipment at the construction site. The purpose of this project is to design a systemthat would enable the managers and employees of construction companies to efficiently track and manage the hoist lifts at their sites.

Efficient tracking and management of the lifts would result in savings of cost, time, and energy for the construction companies. …

Beta: Bioprinting Engineering Technology For Academia, Max Abrams, Jeffrey Barone, Cynthia Le, Jacob Ososke, Franz Plum, Emily Takimoto, Josie Warren

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Higher STEM education is a field of growing potential, but too many middle school and high school students are not testing proficiently in STEM subjects. The BETA team worked to improve biology classroom engagement through the development of technologies for high school biology experiments. The BETA project team expanded functionality of an existing product line to allow for better student and teacher user experience and the execution of more interesting experiments. The BETA project’s first goal was to create a modular incubating Box for the high school classroom. This Box, called the BETA Box was designed with a variety of …

Autonomous Speed Control For Kia Optima, Andrew J. Combs, Kyle Fugatt, Kevin Mcfall

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

The standard method for speed control is the cruise control system built into most modern vehicles. These systems employ a PID controller which actuates the accelerator thus, in turn, maintains the desired vehicle speed. The main drawback of such a system is that typically the cruise control will only engage above 25 mph. The goal of this paper is to describe a system which we used to control vehicle speed from a stop to any desired speed using an Arduino microcontroller and a CAN BUS shield, from where autonomous features can be built upon. With this system, we were able …

Enhancing Informative Frame Filtering By Water And Bubble Detection In Colonoscopy Videos, Ashok Dahal, Junghwan Oh, Wallapak Tavanapong, Johnny S. Wong, Piet C. De Groen

Johnny Wong

Colonoscopy has contributed to a marked decline in the number of colorectal cancer related deaths. However, recent data suggest that there is a significant (4-12%) miss-rate for the detection of even large polyps and cancers. To address this, we have been investigating an ‘automated feedback system’ which informs the endoscopist of possible sub-optimal inspection during colonoscopy. A fundamental step of this system is to distinguish non-informative frames from informative ones. Existing methods for this cannot classify water/bubble frames as non-informative even though they do not carry any useful visual information of the colon mucosa. In this paper, we propose a …

Cable Footprint History: Spatio-Temporal Technique For Instrument Detection In Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Procedures, Chuanhai Zhang, Wallapak Tavanapong, Johnny S. Wong, Piet C. De Groen, Junghwan Oh

Johnny Wong

We propose a new fast spatio-temporal technique that detects an operation scene---a video segment corresponding to a single purpose diagnosis action or a single purpose therapeutic action. The technique utilizes (1) color contrast of the cable region and the background, (2) the new area-based coordinate system to compute spatial features, and (3) the history of locations of detected cables of the instrument in a video to discard false regions. The proposed technique and software are useful for (1) automatic documentation of diagnostic or therapeutic operations at the end of the procedure, (2) a second review for causes of complications due …

Powerplaylist: A Collaborative Web Application That Aims To Give Everyone A Voice, Sara Cassella, Alexander Polatnick, Kristen Ronhovde

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

PowerPlaylist is a client-server based online collaborative playlist that allows guests of a party to have private access to the hosts playlist. Guests can access the queue of songs, request songs, or up-vote or down-vote songs already requested by other guests. Before PowerPlaylist, there was no musical platform that allowed guests at an event to express his or her opinions on what music should be played without distracting the host or DJ. This web application platform solves that problem while requiring little authentication, and not requiring any software downloads in order to be used. PowerPlaylist aims to give every guest …

Virtual Reality Rhythm Game, Joshua Yi, Jordan Lai

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Virtual reality headsets such as the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift bring robust virtual reality technology in the hands of consumers. However, virtual reality technology is still a very new and unexplored domain with a dearth of compelling software that takes advantage of what virtual reality has to offer. Current rhythm games on the virtual reality platform lack a sense of immersion for the player. These games also require players to remain stationary during gameplay. Our solution is a game where players have to hit musical notes that appear in a trail around them. The trail will move in different …

Ehras: Electronic Healthcare Record Management For Ad Hoc Settlements, Jack Kingsman, Evan Paul, Max Werner

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Providing reliable and accurate healthcare to refugees in an ad hoc setting can be challenging for a variety of reasons, and most settlements currently utilize little to no record keeping for patients. EHRaS, our mobile-first electronic healthcare record management system, can provide an inexpensive electronic healthcare record (EHR) solution that is flexible in last-mile applications where infrastructure and technical support is at a minimum. By utilizing NFC technology, novel caching practices, and an extensible interface, our system not only securely identifies patients and authorizes staff to access sensitive medical data, but generally provides a competitive, low-overhead alternative to other open …

Design And Implementation Of A Direct/Indirect Hybrid Trust Model For Secure Authentication In A Mobile Ad Hoc Network, Immanuel Amirtharaj, Eric Bonilla, Parker Newton

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

We investigated the problem of cryptographic key authentication in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET). Using the theory of digital trust, we propose an authentication scheme for MANETs that includes a hybrid trust model between the direct and indirect approaches. Our hybrid trust model supplies trust data to a decentralized web of trust in order to authenticate nodes in a MANET. We ran some simulations of our authentication scheme to verify its security and investigate potential trust threshold values. Also, we designed and implemented a proof-of-concept iOS application that implements our authentication scheme. Some future work includes investing several implications …

Intelligent Coordination And Automation For Smart Home Accessories, Alexander Choulos, Tian Zhang

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Smarthome accessories are rapidly becoming more popular. Although many companies are making devices to take advantage of this market, most of the created smart devices are actually unintelligent. Currently, these smart home devices require meticulous, tedious configuration to get any sort of enhanced usability over their analog counterparts. We propose building a general model using machine learning and data science to automatically learn a user's smart accessory usage to predict their configuration. We have identified the requirements, collected data, recognized the risks, implemented the system, and have met the goals we set out to accomplish.

Pro-Resume: The Infographic Resume Builder, Ivy Wu, Kyra Wayne, Sanika Lakka, Tanisha Rai

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Scoring an interview is a challenge for any job seeker these days, thus having a unique and well-organized resume is crucial to grab a recruiter’s attention. Online resume builders such as ResumeNow and VisualizeMe have been created to help users build resumes; however, their templates are lacking in quantity, customizability, and in some instances, even legibility. Thus, our team set out to create an infographic online resume builder, a web application that allows its users to build, organize, and beautify their resumes to aid them in their job search. Our system allows for easy integration with their LinkedIn profiles so …

Real Time Analysis Of Eye Gaze Data, Nathan Ng, Andrew Wei

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Eye Tracking is an up and coming form of technology that allows the analysis of human interaction and attention patterns. This can be extremely useful in multiple aspects such as the automotive industry, the medical field, gaming industries, and schools and universities. But what hasn't been done yet is the real time analysis of that data. In this document, we propose to bridge the gap between raw data gathered from the Tobii Pro X3-120 Eye Tracker and the real time analysis of that data. Doing so will unlock untapped potential in the form of dynamic applications and real time experiment …