Engineering Commons^™

Woody: Roborodentia 2011 Robot, Felix Chung, Canh Sy, Hanson Yu

Computer Engineering

Woody is a fully autonomous robot built and designed for the 2011 Cal Poly Roborodentia competition. Woody’s goal is to score the most points in the competition by navigating the competition field, efficiently collecting ping pong balls from the racks, and shooting the balls into the goal accurately. There was no specific budget set for the project, but costs were kept low by using tools from the Computer Engineering Capstone Lab, inexpensive materials such as wood, and reusable parts from robots from previous Roborodentia competitions.

San Luis Obispo Transit Tracker System Back-End Server, Daryl Alan A. Dimalanta

Computer Engineering

This document gives the rationale, design process, technical implementation, testing procedures, and testing results of a back-end server used for the San Luis Obispo (SLO) Transit Tracker System. The SLO Transit Tracker System (SLOTTS) includes client software installed on mobile devices and a back-end server. The purpose of this system is to encourage SLO residents to utilize the transit system by having the client software present current bus location, navigation instructions, and bus schedule in a simple, fast, and easy to use mobile application.

Due to the limited central processing unit (CPU) and limited power supplied by the battery, route …

Markerless Affine Region Tracking And Augmentation Using Mser And Sift, Gregory (Greg) Eddington Ii

Computer Engineering

Due to the advancements in mobile computing hardware and the inclusion of cameras in many computing platforms, augmented reality systems have become widely available. This paper presents a real-time implementation of a novel markerless augmented reality algorithm which is able to track two-dimensional affine regions without a priori information of the environment or computing a world model. The implementation consists of the MAR library; a modular software library which performs the region detection, identification, and tracking; and the Lighthouse application; a program which uses the MAR library to allow the user to augment scenes viewed from a camera. The algorithm …

Characterization Of A Dual Acoustic Receiver System For Measuring Range And Bearing To Acoustic Tags, Victoria Campana, Justin Knight

Computer Engineering

Experiements were performed to determine the effectiveness of the Lotek RT-A Hydrophone system and if it could provide the data necessary for a particle filter to determine the location of a shark. Over the period of a few months, we tested off the Cal Poly Pier at set GPS coordinates to characterize how accurately the Lotek System can determine range and orientation. Ranges from 0-500 meters were tested with the Lotek system being in a stationary position and Lotek receiver tag being put at specified GPS coordinates. The two hydrophone rigging was then rotated a full 360 degrees to gauge …

Mr. Robot: A Roborodentia Contestant, Stephen Berry, Jamie Nease

Computer Engineering

Roborodentia is an annual robotics competition held during Open House at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Each year, students construct autonomous robots which compete head-to-head to score the most points. This report will give an overview of the competition and the details of our robot.

Edapts Web Application Redesign With Route Editor And Dynamic Frontend, John O'Connor, Aaron Berk

Computer Engineering

The EDAPTS (Efficient Deployment of Advanced Public Transportation Systems) system is designed to facilitate the public transportation system, making it even easier for San Luis Obispo residents and guests to use. We have upgraded the web component of the system adding a tool that makes it simple for non-programmers to add, edit, and delete routes. Furthermore, we have modified the front end web code to read from a central MySQL database containing all the route information created using the new, user-friendly tool.

Ultra-Short Baseline Acoustic Positioning System, Timothy Joel Soppet

Computer Engineering

This paper explains the design, implementation, and testing of an ultra short baseline (USBL) acoustic positioning system for the Amador Valley High School (AVHS) Robotics Club’s Barracuda Mark-X AUV. The system will be used to locate an underwater transducer beacon representing the final waypoint in an obstacle course designed for the AUVSI/ONR RoboSub international collegiate competition.

Streaming Client And Server Model, Austin Alan Diec

Computer Engineering

A few years ago, several Cal Poly undergraduates started the Autonomous Robot Platform (ARP). Interest in a revision of the ARP requires a new layer of communication. This paper describes the design and partial implementation of the communication layer to be used with the revised ARP. The communication layer would allow the autonomous robot platform to connect with a client over the wireless local area network (WLAN) for instructions and commands. It is important to note that currently, the assumed revision of the ARP is nonexistent, so many of the design decisions are based solely on the assumptions of ARP …

Cp7 And Datalogger Design And Implementation, Hoang (Mike) Tran

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

Auto Fall Detector, Nhut Thanh Ho

Computer Engineering

This device is named Cardea, the goddess of health in roman Mythology. The Cardea will be attached to the waist of the individual’s body to detect any falls, and will send out alarm signals to people in the surrounding area. The end goal of this project is to provide a helpful and friendly device for the elderly and their families. It is easy to maintain and dependable for long term use.

Detection Of Breathing And Infant Sleep Apnea, Brian Berg

Computer Engineering

Sleep apnea is a condition where people pause while breathing in their sleep; this can be of great concern for infants and premature babies. Current monitoring systems either require physical attachment to a user or may be unreliable. This project is meant to develop a device that can accurately detect breathing through sound and issue appropriate warnings upon its cessation. The device produced is meant to be a standalone device and thus was developed as an embedded systems project on a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA.

Project 308: Augmented Reality Mario Kart, Joseph Abad, David Allender, Joryl Calizo, Ryan Gaspar, Gavin Lee

Computer Engineering

Mario Kart is a popular go-kart racing game developed by Nintendo. The premise of the game is simple: drive a go-kart along a racetrack and reach the finish line before the other players. What makes this game unique, however, is the inclusion of weapons, traps, and other projectiles that a player can use to gain an advantage in the race. We have taken on the challenge of not only recreating this amazing game, but using the art of Augmented Reality to fully immerse the player in the full experience. Rather than play the game on a television screen with a …

Reactive Routing In Hidra Networks, Scott Michael Marshall

Computer Engineering

In recent years, the Internet has grown so large that the future scalability of the Internet has become a major concern. The two primary scalability concerns are the size of the forwarding table and the ability for BGP to converge while distributing hundreds of thousands of routes.

HIDRA is a new Internet routing architecture that is backwards-compatible with existing routing technologies and protocols that focuses on feasibility-of-implementation. HIDRA remedies the first Internet scalability concern by proposing a means to reduce the number of entries in the default-free zone (DFZ) forwarding table.

This project extends HIDRA by designing a complete reactive …

Utilization Of Automated Gcc Optimization For Dual-Width Instruction Sets On The Arm Architecture, Shane Watson

Computer Engineering

One of the most important considerations in embedded systems is code size. This consideration is obviously imposed by external factors such as cost and physical space, but what it boils down to is that we want our devices to be as powerful as they can within a (typically limited) specific form factor. This limits the amount of space we have for memory and as such we should always be considering the code size of our application and making sure it’s as efficient as possible. We also then need to consider other factors such as performance and power consumption. This is …

Development Of A Cubesat Payload To Model Particle Dampening In Space: Design And Implementation Of Software For Cp7, Daniel Walker

Computer Engineering

The California Polytechnic State University CubeSat student research & development group, PolySat, is currently in a mature development stage of a single unit CubeSat designated CP7. The CP7 mission implements a scientific payload designed to characterize particle dampers in microgravity conditions. When subjected to vibration, the momentum exchanges and frictional forces of the particles create a damping effect that can be optimized to suit a number of applications over a broad frequency and amplitude range. In space based applications, particle dampers would serve as a robust and simple device to eliminate jitter in optical assemblies and other sensitive instrumentation. This …

Snmp Integration Into The Cygnet Scada System, Paul Fake

Computer Engineering

The SNMP Remote Device is a CygNet-integrated software device that can communicate (read-only) with any managed network hardware. It has the ability to retrieve any managed object, requiring only a host name or IP, a community name (password), and the object identifier (OID). This Remote Device is fully-integrated into the CygNet SCADA system. Users can create the device in the DDS service, create a Point for each managed object, map the Points to UDCs, store data into the Points, and schedule the retrieval of data.

Ultrasonic Shark-Tag Locator System For Iver2 Auv, Nathaniel Garcia

Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project is to develop a system for tracking an ultrasonic underwater transmitter that can be integrated into an IVER2 AUV to allow it to follow and monitor tagged sharks in the ocean for scientific research.

The system consists of a four main components including a shark-tag, two hydrophones, a filter/amplifier & threshold detector circuit, and a microcontroller.

This project, while not completing field testing and integration with the IVER2, is a proof of concept of a system that utilizes passive sonar to determine a bearing from the system to a shark-tag transmitter. Additionally, it devised several …

Memento: Personal Scrapbook Android Application, Ryan Joseph Rosete

Computer Engineering

The Memento project focuses on providing Android phone users with a new alternative to capture memories. Its main purpose is to create an application that stores pictures and data on an Android phone. Users can view these saved entries for later use to recall what they have done in the past or show to others. The initial idea for this project stemmed from a personal interest in both scrapbooks and popular microblog services. The application aims to provide a new service that is currently not offered in the Android Market.

In order to create this application, there are two main …

Irrigation Leak Detection: Using Flow Rate Sensors To Detect Breaks In An Irrigation System, Adam Openshaw, Kalvin Vu

Computer Engineering

This report details the exploration and invention of a mechanism that can detect breaks in an irrigation system. With the ultimate goal of conserving water, we have designed an inexpensive, self sustaining flow rate monitor that can be used to identify anomalies in an irrigation system and wirelessly communicate the status of the system to a base station. Our implementation can also determine the direction of the anomaly based on the nature of the anomaly itself. This means that multiple monitors can be used to pinpoint the location of a break within the system in addition to merely detecting its …

Characterization Of The Rfx400 For Use In Software Defined Radio, Edward Adams

Computer Engineering

While software defined radio is an extremely flexible technology that is fairly rarely used, as a single purpose radio is much cheaper, it provides an excellent means of learning RF and communications skills through the lens of digital electronics, and it would behoove a Cal Poly student interested in these areas to take on a project in software defined radio. This project aims to lower the barrier to entry for future students to undertake such a project. The use of an up-converter/down-converter is documented for future students to interface with.

Rfid Asset Tracking And Digital Check-Out System, Jeffrey (Jeff) Migliore

Computer Engineering

An asset tracking and digital check-out system was developed using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and a Single Board Computer (SBC). A RFID reader was used as a check point to process transactions. The RFID reader was attached to the SBC via USB. The SBC is integrated into a network via Ethernet and hosts a web graphical user interface (GUI) frontend for users to view transactions and query availability of assets. A MYSQL database was used for the backend storage of data.

Specifically, this system was designed to track tool assets. Many modern companies have employees sharing limited resources. The common …

Nexys 2 Slot Machine, Mark Luna

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Low Power Touch Screen Document Viewer, Chris Perfetto

Computer Engineering

This document will cover the requirements, design, implementation and testing of a low power touch screen document viewer to serve as a replacement bulletin board. It was Implemented using a BeagleBoard development board, a 4.3” touchscreen LCD and a SD card with a Ubuntu Linux OS installed. The testing of this device is primarily testing the power consumption. The device is not yet complete and will require further development for it to completely satisfy the requirements.

Wii-Mote Head Tracking: A Three Dimensional Virtual Reality Display, David Fairman

Computer Engineering

The goal of this project is to create a customizable three dimensional virtual reality display on a system available to any non-technical user. This System will use the infrared camera component of a standard Nintendo Wii-mote to track a user's head motions in all six major directions. The virtual reality will be a customizable image projected onto a screen or simply shown on a computer or TV monitor. In order to appear 3-dimensional, the image will continually change according to the position of the user's head. As the user moves their head to the left and right, portions of the …

Bluetooth "Clicker": Response Pads For Large Classes, Using Bluetooth Devices, Dana Goyette

Computer Engineering

When teaching classes with many students, many teachers opt to use “Clicker” devices to electronically poll students. This project aims to replace these “Clicker” devices with standard Bluetooth devices. The overall goal of this project is to create a framework for two-way communications between a base station and multiple remote devices.

Max Flow Spill Code Placement Algorithm Implemented In Gcc 4.4.3, Stephen Robert Beard

Computer Engineering

The placement of spill code plays an important role in the register allocator of an optimizing compiler. Many computer architectures possess a register linkage convention that dictates which registers are preserved across function calls and which are not. This project addresses the problem of optimizing spill code that is associated with register linkage conventions.

This algorithm was created by Dr. Chris Lupo and is described in the paper Beyond Register Allocation: a Novel Algorithm for Spill-Code Placement. The algorithm was implemented for GCC 2.5.7 for a PA-RISC architecture [4]. The work in this project will involve porting the existing code …

Household Outlet Monitoring And Control System, Michael Young

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

Pretty Lights, Nicholas (Nick) Delmas, Matthew (Matt) Maniaci

Computer Engineering

Digital media players often include a visualization component that allows a user to watch a visualization synchronized to their music or videos. This project uses the visualization plugin API of an existing media playback program (WinAmp) but it displays its visuals using physical LED lights. Instead of outputting visuals to the computer screen, data is sent over USB to a micro controller that runs the LED lights. This project aims to give users a more visceral visual experience than traditional visualizations on the computer screen.

Global Positioning Logger, Matthew Hall

Computer Engineering

The Global Positioning Logger (GPL) is a mobile embedded device that utilizes GPS technology. The GPS data is used to display current speed and past global locations.

Utopia 3.0: Power Cycling Controller Board, Allan Chan

Computer Engineering

The Universal Test & Observation Power Interface Adapter (UTOPIA) is a device used for hard drive testing by Western Digital. Utopia is designed to provide an interface to communicate with a hard drive and perform power cycling functions on a hard drive.

The purpose of this project is to develop a prototype that retains the features of the previous Utopia boards while including two new features to be used in the next design: voltage margining and improved Serial Input/Output (SIO) drive control.

This document describes the design of version 3.0 of UTOPIA starting with component selection, schematic design and, PCB …