Engineering Commons^™

Adaptive Vehicle Control, Brian L. Finger, Maria Vargas, Jacob T. Larson, Christopher J. Villa

Mechanical Engineering

This report presents the final design for our device made for Mrs. Laura Jagels. Mrs. Jagels, who has an above the knee amputation, needed a device that would allow her to operate a manual car in a safe and reliable way that still gives her the traditional driving experience. This report takes into consideration the shortcomings of current market devices that enable amputees to operate vehicles. From this research and through interviews with Mrs. Jagels, we were able to decide on our device specifications, giving us a basis to objectively evaluate designs. Ideation and concept prototype building was performed for …

Design Of A Printed Circuit Board For A Sensorless Three-Phase Brushless Dc Motor Control System, Joshua Castle

Master's Theses

The use of brushless motors has increased in recent years due to superior performance characteristics compared with alternatives. The operation of a brushless motor is dependent upon a separate controller which is often in the form of a printed circuit board. As such, the size and performance capability of the controller can restrict the performance of the overall motor control system so advancements of these controllers further the potential use of BLDC motors. This project outlines the design of a PCB based, sensorless motor controller for operation of a three-phase BLDC motor powered by a 24 V, high current external …

2-Axis Electric Off-Road Bucket Seat Bases, Brennan K. Slater, Alexander P. Croteau, Spencer M. Kubik

Mechanical Engineering

Off-road vehicle bucket seats are currently restricted to a single position relative to the floor of the vehicle. Drivers and riders desire the ability to adjust their seat position to increase comfort and allow for a greater size range of riders to fit safely within the cabin or roll cage. To develop a viable solution, the team has gone through an extensive design process and has constructed a functioning prototype. This Final Design Report encapsulates the entire design process and concludes with recommendations for changes we would make looking both back in review as well as moving forward with further …

Cal Poly Supermileage Electric Vehicle Drivetrain And Motor Control Design, Clarisa Joy Howe, Christopher Joseph Mclaughlin, Erik Alvarado, Enyi Liang

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Supermileage Vehicle team is a multidisciplinary club that designs and builds high efficiency vehicles to compete internationally at Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM). Cal Poly Supermileage Club has been competing in the internal combustion engine (ICE) category of the competition since 2007. The club has decided it is time to expand their competition goals and enter their first battery electric prototype vehicle. To this end, a yearlong senior design project was presented to this team of engineers giving us the opportunity to design an electric powertrain with a custom motor controller. This system has been integrated into Ventus, the …

Passive Balancing Battery Management System For Cal Poly Racing's Formula Sae Electric Vehicle, Alvin Joseph Ha

Electrical Engineering

This senior project aims to replace the current battery management system (BMS) on Cal Poly’s Formula SAE electric vehicle with a more versatile, advanced, and reliable system. A BMS manages a rechargeable battery by ensuring the battery device operator’s safety, protecting battery cell integrity, prolonging battery lifetime, maintaining functional design requirements, and sending optimal usage information to the application controller. Passive balancing maximizes a battery pack’s capacity by dissipating excess energy through heat to regulate cell state of charge.

M3 Pi: Obd-Ii Touchscreen Car Computer, Geoffrey Wacker

Computer Engineering

There are a wide range of off-the-shelf OBD-II car computers available for purchase, but the majority of them are either prohibitively expensive or simply unreliable. Furthermore, almost all of these devices are closed-box systems that cannot be expanded or modified. As such, this project aims to create a Raspberry Pi-powered OBD-II car computer that will allow data from the ECU of a 1997 BMW M3 to be displayed on an interactive touchscreen GUI. This will allow the user to quickly monitor important information about the vehicle during high performance applications such as track use. The end product should be low-cost, …

Electric Porsche Drivetrain Re-Design, Taylor Carlson, Quinton Petty, Spencer Treffry

Mechanical Engineering

The objective of this project was to redesign the drivetrain of the electric 1977 Porsche 911 Targa S with the goal of optimizing the drivetrain for motor efficiency and performance. The focus was to redesign the interface between the electric motor and rear wheels to maximize the efficiency of power transmission from the motor to the ground.

Two systems were proposed, a fixed gear reduction and two motors with an electronic differential. The fixed gear reduction was chosen to be designed and built by replacing the stock Porsche transmission with a differential featuring a favorable gear ratio for the electric …

Engine Control Unit Tuning Module Test System, Efren Alonzo Cabebe Jr.

Computer Engineering

A test system has been developed to provide quality assurance and functional testing for soon-to-be mass produced engine tuning modules. The system is comprised of two halves: the front-end graphical user interface and back-end microcontroller platform. The use of the interface is intuitive in starting tests and reporting the status of completed tests. The back-end microcontroller platform performs the physical tests. Two high precision analog-to-digital converters and two digital-to-analog converters provide the inputs to and receive the outputs from the module, with another pulse-width-modulated pin tied to the tachometer input. Alongside the test system infrastructure, a simple suite of tests …