Engineering Commons^™

Electronic Deer Warning System, David Zhuo, Anlang Lu

Computer Engineering

Deer-vehicle collisions (DVCs) are extremely dangerous, often injuring or even killing drivers. Unfortunately, this form of automotive accident is commonplace in the United States. According to the NHTSA, DVCs result in 200 human deaths a year.2

Despite these deadly incidents, there currently are no deployed federal or state systems for preventing DVCs. There are many consumer electronic deer deterrent products, but their long-term effectiveness is questionable.3 In fact, there does not appear to be much research into electronic deer deterrent systems. Aside from constant audio output and electric shock, no other means of electronic deterrent exist. Even if fixed deterrents …

Isopropyl Alcohol Pump For Printed Circuit Boards Using An Arduino, Lawrence Zhu

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

Accumulator Volume Sensor Final Project Report, Chris Naughton, Kinwei Yu, Michael George

Mechanical Engineering

Accumulator Volume Sensing Team has developed two sensor designs aimed at detecting the position of the piston within a 4024 accumulator. The two designs include the use of a Renishaw LMA10 magnetic encoder and a SpectraSymbol HotPot linear potentiometer. The magnetic encoder solution drastically increases the accuracy of sensing the piston position compared to the current solutions of both a string-pot and linear variable differential transformer while costing slightly less. The linear potentiometer seeks to provide a solution that drastically decreases the cost compared to the present sensing methods. Both designs call for a modification to one half of the …

Design, Analysis, And Simulation Of A Jitter Reduction Circuit (Jrc) System At 1ghz, Run Bin Yu

Master's Theses

The clock signal is considered as the “heartbeat” of a digital system yet jitter which is a variation on the arrival time of the clock edge, could undermine the overall performance or even cause failures on the system. Deterministic jitter could be reduced during the designing process however random jitter during operation is somehow less-controllable and unavoidable. Being able to remove jitter on the clock would therefore play a vital role in system performance improvement.

This thesis implements a 1GHz fully feedforward jitter reduction circuit (JRC) which can be used as an on-chip IP core at clock tree terminals to …

Electric Smart Load Meter, Johnny Tran

Electrical Engineering

This project details the design of an electric meter that reads the signals of any device plugged into an outlet and displays cost readings that may potentially reduce power consumption. The sensor monitors whether a plugged in device continuously consumes power after completely charging up. For a charging device, the current remains constant until the device reaches 100% charge. Once the device becomes fully charged, the current discontinues for proper power usage. A unique aspect of the meter is that it displays cost per hour, day, and year. Displaying the cost per unit of time creates awareness for customers, potentially …

Garage Door Security System, Trevor Lehr, Austin Williams

Electrical Engineering

This project focuses on the design and build of a low cost system that monitors garage doors and transmits their state to a receiver unit placed at a convenient location inside the user’s house. This provides the user with the ability to monitor their garage doors from the comfort of inside their home without having to go outside and look at the garage. The receiver unit includes a screen to display system information and LEDs to make it easy to view the garage door’s status from a distance. The system has great enough range to place the receiver at any …

Designing A Power Distribution System For The Arce 257 Revit Structural Model, Reid Wilhelm

Electrical Engineering

The construction industry needs engineers. Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineers, better known as MEPs, comprise a large number of employees who design and assist in the building of commercial structures. In particular, electrical engineers design power distribution systems for these buildings, including the power, lighting, low voltage, and fire protection subsystems.

Here at Cal Poly, architectural engineers enrolled in ARCE 257 create authentic structural plans for a fictitious two-story structure. This senior project transforms these structural plans into an architectural model and creates a power distribution system for the entire building. This is done through a building information modeling (BIM) …

Active Contact Lens - Low Power Backscattering Sensor-To-Antenna Integration Circuitry, Caleb B. Porter

Electrical Engineering

The Active Contact Lens measures the cornea-scleral radius of the wearer’s eye, which correlates to intraocular pressure (IOP), Glaucoma’s primary indicator. IOP varies throughout the day, and is drastically different from person to person, so constantly measuring it over a period of a few days can provide individualized tracking of the disease’s development and will help doctors develop personalized treatment schedules to treat the disease more precisely.

The Active Contact Lens sensor measures strain, based on the cornea-scleral radius, and reports the results wirelessly, to allow monitoring of an individual’s IOP over time. The lens is powered similarly to a …

Final Design Report: Grasp Data Acquisition Project Axon Vr, Michael Erberich, Jack Schultz, Tyler Yeaman

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Photovoltaic Cooking In The Developing World, Tyler Watkins, Christopher O'Day, Omar Arriaga

Mechanical Engineering

The challenge of clean cooking is faced by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. We present a cooking technology consisting of a solar panel directly connected to an electric heater in a well-insulated chamber. Assuming continued decrease in solar panel prices, we anticipate that in a few decades Solar Electric Cooking technologies will be the most common cooking technology for the poor. Appropriate use of insulation reduces the power demand making low-power Insulated Solar Electric Cooking systems already cost competitive.

Power Distribution:Protection Analysis, Avneet S. Samra

Electrical Engineering

The objective of this project is to build a radial distribution system that operates on a lower voltage. The system consists of a transmission line protected by a SEL-351 Relay, a three- phase transformer protected by a SEL-587 Relay, and a three-phase induction motor protected by a Cooper Form 6 Controller. The SEL-351, SEL-587, and the Cooper Form 6 Controller are microprocessor-based relays that are used to provide protection under faulted conditions. When a fault is detected in the system, the closest upstream relay sends a trip signal to its assigned local breaker. The SEL-351 provides overcurrent protection for the …

Inquiry Of Graphene Electronic Fabrication, John Rausch Greene

Master's Theses

Graphene electronics represent a developing field where many material properties and devices characteristics are still unknown. Researching several possible fabrication processes creates a fabrication process using resources found at Cal Poly a local industry sponsor. The project attempts to produce a graphene network in the shape of a fractal Sierpinski carpet. The fractal geometry proves that PDMS microfluidic channels produce the fine feature dimensions desired during graphene oxide deposit. Thermal reduction then reduces the graphene oxide into a purified state of graphene. Issues arise during thermal reduction because of excessive oxygen content in the furnace. The excess oxygen results in …

A Comparison Of Wavelet And Simplicity-Based Heart Sound And Murmur Segmentation Methods, Joshua David Korven

Master's Theses

Stethoscopes are the most commonly used medical devices for diagnosing heart conditions because they are inexpensive, noninvasive, and light enough to be carried around by a clinician. Auscultation with a stethoscope requires considerable skill and experience, but the introduction of digital stethoscopes allows for the automation of this task. Auscultation waveform segmentation, which is the process of determining the boundaries of heart sound and murmur segments, is the primary challenge in automating the diagnosis of various heart conditions. The purpose of this thesis is to improve the accuracy and efficiency of established techniques for detecting, segmenting, and classifying heart sounds …

Scaled Synthetic Aperture Rader Development, Jason Garvey Schray

Master's Theses

Several previous Cal Poly thesis projects involve synthetic aperture radar (SAR), automatic target recognition (ATR), and tracking. SAR data was either accessed from a publicly available database or generated using complex computer modeling software. The motivation for this dual thesis project is to design and construct a scaled SAR system to support Cal Poly radar projects. Ideally this is a low-cost, high resolution SAR architecture that produces raw range Doppler data for any desired target area. To that end, a scaled SAR system was successfully designed, built, and tested. The current SAR system, however, does not perform azimuthal compression and …

Musictrakr, Benjamin Lin

Computer Engineering

MusicTrackr is an IoT device that musicians attach to their instruments. The device has a start and stop button that allows users to record their playing sessions. Each recorded session is sent wirelessly to a cloud database. An accompanying website displays all of the recorded sessions, organized by date. After picking a specific date, the user can view graphs showing total practice time and average session length as well play back any recordings during that date. In addition, the user may add comments to any specific date or recording. Lastly, the user may tag a specific date with a color …

Build-A-Board, Christopher Messerer, Brian Holland

Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project is to build a single board computer that will be able to run Linux and provide some expansion capabilities in the form of GPIO, USB, etc. This single board computer will have all the components that a fully functional computer has but with a much smaller form factor and overall capabilities.

Prosense, Johnny Favazza Ii, Casey Glasgow, Matt Epperson

Computer Engineering

This project aims to gather advanced data sets from MEMS sensors and GPS and deliver it to the user, who can capitalize on the data. The once negligible half-degree difference of your board barreling down a wave can be recorded from a gyro and exploited for the perfect turn. The exact speed dreaded by longboarders where speed wobbles turn into a road rash can be analysed and consequently avoided. Ascertaining the summit of your flight using combined GPS sensors from the ski ramp allows for the correct timing of tricks. When it comes to pursuing excellence in professional sports, amateur …

El Capitán: Cal Poly Rose Float Digital Drive System, Gregory Raffi Baghdikian

Computer Engineering

In today’s world of smartphones, self-driving cars, and internet-connected coffee makers, it seems as if computers are contained in everything around us. These “embedded systems” have become critical components of our lives, improving everything about the things they control, from cost, to speed, to simplicity. One area that embedded systems has hardly gained a foothold is in the world of floatbuilding. Most of the floats in the Tournament of Roses Parade, including the one built jointly by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona, are technologically very simple, using mostly analog components and rudimentary discrete digital logic to …

Wireless Mesh Networks For Scada Systems, Zachary Weisman

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

Pinpoint: Location Beacon And Tracking, Ezequiel Lopez Iii

Computer Engineering

The purpose of Pinpoint was to create a device that can collect and transmit location information for multiple users on a wireless network. The device would be used to keep track of and communicate with other users nearby. The final design includes a touchscreen display as a graphical user interface (GUI), an XBee RF module for wireless networking, a GPS receiver for location tracking, and a Programmable System on a Chip (PSoC) to control the modules.

Testing Feasibility Of Inductive Power Coupling For Modern Applications, Andrew Burman

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

This project takes two bifilar tesla coils and uses them to find a % efficiency of power transfer as distances between the coils decrease. The reason this experiment is being conducted is to find possible implications for wireless charging of vehicles using similar style coils. This project conducted experiments on 60 Hz, 400 Hz, and 1 kHz frequencies for a small input signal. The general conclusion is that as the frequency increases more power can be transferred and higher efficiency of power transfer is seen. This project also concluded that it could be possible to get higher efficiency at a …

Manufacturing And Characterization Of Poly (Lactic Acid)/Carbon Black Conductive Composites For Fdm Feedstock: An Exploratory Study, Dylan Fitz-Gerald, Justin Boothe

Materials Engineering

This exploratory study developed methods of manufacturing and characterizing the electrical properties of small batches of conductive composite feedstock for the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) manufacturing process, commonly known as 3D printing. We utilized a solution casting process of Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) (Grade 4043D, NatureWorks, LLC.) and Carbon Black (CB) (Vulcan® XC72, Cabot Corp.) in chloroform. The resulting composite precursor was cryogenically treated with liquid nitrogen and milled in a coffee grinder in order to achieve particles that could be fed into the extruder. Composite precursors were dried in a vacuum oven at an elevated temperature of 38°C. Filaments were …

Design Of Inexpensive And Easy To Use Diy Internet Of Things Platform, Samuel R. Jaffe

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on the design and implementation of a new, inexpensive, and less complex system for a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Internet of Things (IoT) platform. The hardware aspects focus on a new chip called the ESP8266 which contains both microcontroller and WiFi connectivity capabilities in an extremely affordable package. The system uses the Arduino IDE to program the ESP8266, which is known to be an extremely user-friendly environment. All other software is both free and easy to use. Past methods of creating IoT projects involved either expensive hardware, often ranging from $50-$100 per node, or complicated programming requiring a full …

Hall Effect Modeling In Fem Simulators And Comparison To Experimental Results In Silicon And Printed Sensors, Leonardo A. Frem

Master's Theses

Finite element method simulation models for thin-film semiconductor-based Hall sensors were developed using secondary data in order to understand their behavior under strong magnetic fields. Given a device geometry and charge carrier density and mobility, the models accurately calculated sensor resistance, Hall voltage under a normally-incident constant magnetic field, and expected offset from a population of Hall devices. The model was successfully matched against data from integrated chip Hall sensors from St. Jude Medical. Additionally, the feasibility of creating Hall effect devices with common carbon ink was explored experimentally. The material properties obtained from testing these ink-based devices through the …

Analysis Of Various Algorithmic Approaches To Software-Based 1200 Baud Audio Frequency Shift Keying Demodulation For Aprs, Robert F. Campbell

Master's Theses

Digital communications continues to be a relevant Field of study as new technologies appear and old methodologies get revisited or renovated. The goal of this research is to look into the old digital communication scheme of Bell 202 [67] used by APRS and improve software based demodulation performance. Improved performance is defined by being able to correctly decode more packets in an efficient, real time, manner. Most APRS demodulation is currently done using specialized hardware since that yields the best performance. This research shows that through using Sivan Toledo's javAX25 [72] software package, new demodulation algorithms can be implemented that …

Complex Filters As As A Cascade Of Of Buffered Gingell Structures: Design From From Band-Stop Constraints, Samuel Robert Johnston

Master's Theses

This thesis presents an active Complex Filter implementation that that creates a transfer function with with a single real pole and a complex zero. The two-input/two-output network developed in in this thesis responds differently based upon upon the relative phase difference of of the two inputs. If a negative ninety-degree phase difference occurs between the two inputs, the filter will exhibits a bandstop response. While a positive ninety-degree phase difference exhibits a bandpass response. This topology is relatesd to to Gingell’s RC-CR polyphase topology but because of of the use of of op-amps, can be cascadedd without without suffering loading …

Processing Of Simulated And Experimental Images Of Closely Spaced Binary Stars Using Speckle Interferometry, Niels Smidth

Master's Theses

Theory and methods of processing speckle interferometry data from close visual binary stars are presented and implemented. The effects of the optical systems used for observing close visual binary stars are explained and simulated from both the geometrical and physical optical viewpoints. The atmospheric phase distortion and shot noise responsible for the observed speckle patterns are simulated. The deconvolution technique originally presented by Labeyrie is implemented to extract astrometric data from close visual binary stars. This method is applied to both simulated and experimental data from Kitt Peak National Observatory as validation. Parts of the deconvolution process are optimized to …

Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter Development For Residential Dc Electricity, Cassidy Alan Aarstad

Master's Theses

The following technical report describes the development and testing of an arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) for DC circuits operating primarily at 48 volts. We have identified an effective method for determining when arcing is occurring. Our method is primarily based on comparing the frequency spectrum of current flowing through the circuit during an arcing event to a known characteristic spectrum. Once an arc has been identified, our interrupter is capable of responding adequately to eliminate the arc. Hardware tests show the AFCI developed in this thesis responded, in all test cases, within 2 seconds of an arc fault occurrence. …

Analysis Of Electromagnetic Launcher Design And Modeling, Garrett Ross Germany

Master's Theses

This thesis derives working expressions from electromagnetic physical laws to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of railguns. The expressions are refined for ease of use and then compared to electromagnetic simulators that solve complex equations that arise from different rail geometry. Further simplifications lead to an expression for the final velocity of the projectile and showcase the importance of the system resistance to projectile flux gain ratio. A Simulink simulation then incorporates the resulting non-linear differential equations and approximates the projectile velocity over time based on physical dimensions and material properties. Some equations derived can be found in …

Design Of An Integrated Acceleration Acquisition Subsystem To Satisfy High-Speed And Low-Area Requirements For Cubesats, Ryan J. Rumsey

Master's Theses

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s PolySat team is designing the Multipurpose Orbital Spring Ejection System (MOSES) in order to record acceleration data during the launch of CubeSats as well as to provide GPS coordinates to locate the position of CubeSats once they are injected into orbit. This work focuses on the design and development of the acceleration data acquisition (DAQ) subsystem of MOSES. This subsystem is designed around the need for a high-speed sampling system of at least 200 kHz across four channels of data, plus low-area limitations in the MOSES form factor which is roughly half the size of …