Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Engineering Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Lithium-Based Battery System Management And Balancing, William Joel Schmidt Iii Dec 2011

Lithium-Based Battery System Management And Balancing, William Joel Schmidt Iii

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

This thesis builds upon previous work completed for the design and evaluation of active lithium battery system management. Simulations were performed to provide a comparison for the hardware that was designed, built, and tested. An analysis of the simulation and hardware results was completed to support or disprove the initial hypothesis. A DC-DC converter was used as the source for the balancing current. Lithium polymer batteries with a 5Ah capacity were used for testing the designed hardware. The findings showed that there is a reduction in the system voltage swing during balancing as well as less time taken to decrease …


Miniature Mass Spectrometry: Rf Amplitude Control System Design, Matthew Allen Kirleis Jul 2011

Miniature Mass Spectrometry: Rf Amplitude Control System Design, Matthew Allen Kirleis

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

This thesis covers the methods used to construct and characterize a custom digital RF amplitude control system. Many types of mass spectrometers exist, but few have been miniaturized as much as the Mini instruments developed at Purdue University. The goal of this research was to improve upon an earlier amplitude control system consisting of analog circuits first implemented in the Mini 11.5 mass spectrometer developed at Purdue University.

A custom set of control and data acquisition electronics were developed for testing the digital and analog control systems in a Mini 11.5 mass spectrometer chassis. A MATLAB Simulink simulation was done …


Mechatronics Application To Solar Tracking, Danny L. Rodriguez Jr Apr 2011

Mechatronics Application To Solar Tracking, Danny L. Rodriguez Jr

Purdue Polytechnic Directed Projects

The purpose of this was to design and implement a two-axis solar tracking system utilizing the National Instruments C-Rio real time controller. In order to accomplish this a prototype was modeled in CAD. This prototype used two 12 V DC motors to change a solar panel's rotation and tilt based on feedback data from three cadmium sulfide photoresistors. This configuration was chosen for its ability to create both a left-right rotational and an up/down tilt differential. In Addition this approach uses National Instruments Labview to control a solar tracking system. Using Labview add uniqueness to this project by adding a …


Electric Motor & Power Source Selection For Small Aircraft Propulsion, Jeremy Fehrenbacher, David L. Stanley, Mary E. Johnson Dr., Jeffrey Honchell Apr 2011

Electric Motor & Power Source Selection For Small Aircraft Propulsion, Jeremy Fehrenbacher, David L. Stanley, Mary E. Johnson Dr., Jeffrey Honchell

Purdue Polytechnic Directed Projects

The research conducted in this project is on electrical propulsion in aviation. A Cessna 172K aircraft with a Lycoming O-320-E2D piston engine serves as a baseline measurement. Investigation of the components required for electrical flight is performed, and components are selected based on market availability and operational performance criteria.

This research focuses on electrical propulsion in the aviation industry, and is tailored to aircraft within the General Aviation sector leading to the following research question: Can current electric motor and battery technologies conceptually support flight operations for a Cessna 172K in terms of aircraft performance criteria?

The results explore the …


Using Smartphones For Indoor Navigation, Benjamin Thomas Loulier Jan 2011

Using Smartphones For Indoor Navigation, Benjamin Thomas Loulier

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

This directed projet is about the use of smartphones for indoor navigation.

Nowadays, indoor navigation is a real challenge, we are all familiar with the multiple applications of GPS based navigation but all these applications cannot be transfered in an indoor environment as we cannot receive a GPS signal inside.

The document is composed of three different parts related to indoor navigation using smartphones. The first part presents an inertial positioning system for pedestrians walking in an indoor environment, this system is implemented on an iPhone 4. In the second part we introduce a positioning system using RFID tags scattered …