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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Smart Thermostat, Matt Allen, Sam Billett, Kevin Read
Smart Thermostat, Matt Allen, Sam Billett, Kevin Read
Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses
The current thermostat marketplace is dominated by programmable thermostats that are engineered to give the user as much control as possible. However, not all users program these thermostats optimally. Some prefer comfort over energy efficiency and will heat an empty house. Others do not care to program their thermostat and leave it at a set temperature. The Smart Thermostat that we have created is engineered to optimize the temperature for the user, using the common sense of the engineer to lower energy consumption. It uses a Raspberry Pi as a platform to implement a fuzzy logic control System. By removing …
Pilot-1: Autonomous Fixed-Wing Aircraft Control System, Chris Millsap, Nathan Garvey, Faisal Hayat
Pilot-1: Autonomous Fixed-Wing Aircraft Control System, Chris Millsap, Nathan Garvey, Faisal Hayat
Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses
In the past decade, the personal ownership of unmanned aerial vehicles has exploded in the US and around the world. The rapidly declining size and cost of integrated circuits, sensors and embedded micro-controllers has lead to a flourishing community of hobbyists designing flight controllers with levels of sophistication approaching those for government and military applications. The typical flight assisted controllers integrate data from the user's control system and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) in order to keep the craft level and on course. Deriving mostly from the radio controlled (RC) hobby industry, the flight control technologies for both rotary and …
Rsl Autonomous Rover, Cris Madrigal, Jiachi Zhang, Nicholas Peacock, Brogan O'Hara
Rsl Autonomous Rover, Cris Madrigal, Jiachi Zhang, Nicholas Peacock, Brogan O'Hara
Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses
Autonomous vehicles are useful for a variety of applications such as military, urban, and agricultural environments. This paper discusses adding an autonomous navigation system to an all-terrain vehicle by implementing controllers that interface with its current system, installing sensors on the vehicle for obstacle detection, and developing effective safety mechanisms to prevent injury to others. The result is a vehicle capable of waypoint navigation and obstacle avoidance. Testing the vehicle showed that the LIDAR and the autonomous navigation system were integrated seamlessly, and that the sensor output signals were successfully translated into vehicle commands the existing system uses. This system …
Might-E Wheel, Abigail Grills, Daniel Doke, Jared O'Rourke, Zach Jesberger
Might-E Wheel, Abigail Grills, Daniel Doke, Jared O'Rourke, Zach Jesberger
Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses
Electric bikes are proving to be an increasingly reliable source of transportation, but with large price tags and existing conversion kits proving too complicated and unapproachable for the average user, commuters are failing to consider electric bicycles as an option. A prototype of a wireless, rear-wheel replacement to convert a bicycle from manual to full-power electric was built. This motorized wheel is called Might-E Wheel. Might-E Wheel was designed as the most approachable and user-friendly way to convert a bicycle from manual to full-power electric. Might-E Wheel was able to achieve a top speed of 27.5 km/h, a range of …
Mobile Music: A Musical Therapy Assistance Device, Alex Hildebrand, Tanner Malkoff
Mobile Music: A Musical Therapy Assistance Device, Alex Hildebrand, Tanner Malkoff
Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses
Children suffering from Cerebral Palsy often undergo gait therapy in order to strengthen and coordinate their trunks and legs. The patients often feel unmotivated to perform their gait training because the physical movements associated with it are difficult and there is no immediate reward. Physical therapists (PT) will often play music as an incentive to get the children focused on their physical therapy, but this is inefficient and impedes the PT from analyzing and tuning the patients' gait. Mobile Music is a small device designed for automating musical therapy during gait training. In this paper, we go through several design …
Uavino, Matthew Belesiu, Aaron Chung, Kirby Linvill, Nathan Carlson, Phillip Coyle, Megan Peekema
Uavino, Matthew Belesiu, Aaron Chung, Kirby Linvill, Nathan Carlson, Phillip Coyle, Megan Peekema
Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses
UAVino is a drone solution that uses aerial imagery to determine the overall plant health and water content of vineyards. In general, the system focuses on automating crop inspection by taking aerial imagery of a vineyard, conducting post-processing, and outputting an easily interpreted map of the vineyard's overall health. The project's key innovation is an auto-docking system that allows the drone to automatically return to its launch point and recharge in order to extend mission duration. Long term, UAVino is envisioned as a multi-year, interdisciplinary project involving both the Santa Clara University Robotics Systems Laboratory and local wineries in order …
Aquasift: Point-Of-Use Microfluidic Detection System, Daniel Beyers, Jasper Tan, Brandon Young
Aquasift: Point-Of-Use Microfluidic Detection System, Daniel Beyers, Jasper Tan, Brandon Young
Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses
AquaSift is a portable, affordable, point-of-use system that performs microfluidic detection of contaminants in drinking water. It comprises four main components: a three-electrode sensor, a potentiostat circuit device, an Android application, and an online database. It utilizes three-electrode voltammetry by applying a voltage stimulus across the electrodes and reading the induced current on the water sample. Testing has shown that our system is able to detect arsenic in solution samples. The Android application serves as the user interface to the system, and the online database allows the mapping of test results on an easy-to-use website.
Dynamic Capacitor Bank, J. Daniel Mendoza, Peter Roguski
Dynamic Capacitor Bank, J. Daniel Mendoza, Peter Roguski
Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses
Low power factor systems run inefficiently and cause power companies to lose thousands of dollars with wasted power. Correction systems currently implement static capacitor solutions to offset this power factor; however, companies where the power factor varies significantly need a better solution. In this paper, we discuss a reactive power factor correction system that could greatly benefit companies with this problem. The system is in its prototype state, which comprises of a capacitor bank, sensing circuit, a switching circuit and a microprocessor; we named it the Dynamic Capacitor Bank. During our project, we were able to get a sensing circuit …
Thin Film Based Biocompatible Sensors For Physiological Monitoring, Yihao Zhu
Thin Film Based Biocompatible Sensors For Physiological Monitoring, Yihao Zhu
Theses and Dissertations
The development and evolution of physiological sensors, from wearable to implantable, has enabled long term continuous physiological monitoring, making possible for the out-of-clinic treatment and management of many chronic illnesses, mental health issues and post-surgery recovery. This technology advance is gradually changing the definition of health care and the way it is delivered, from clinic/emergency room to patient’s own environment. In this dissertation, three general types of sensors have been proposed for physiological monitoring of blood pressure, oxygen content and electrolyte ion concentration level in human body, respectively. The study proved the device concepts and shows promising results with the …
Synchrophasor Assisted Efficient Fault Location Techniques In An Active Distribution Network, Anil Khanal
Synchrophasor Assisted Efficient Fault Location Techniques In An Active Distribution Network, Anil Khanal
Dissertations
Reliability of an electrical system can be improved by an efficient fault location identification for the fast repair and remedial actions. This scenario changes when there are large penetrations of distributed generation (DG) which makes the distribution system an active distribution system. An efficient use of synchrophasors in the distribution network is studied with bidirectional power flow, harmonics and low angle difference consideration which are not prevalent in a transmission network. A synchrophasor estimation algorithm for the P class PMU is developed and applied to identify efficient fault location. A fault location technique using two ended synchronized measurement is derived …
Defect Characterization Of 4h-Sic By Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (Dlts) And Influence Of Defects On Device Performance, Mohammad Abdul Mannan
Defect Characterization Of 4h-Sic By Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (Dlts) And Influence Of Defects On Device Performance, Mohammad Abdul Mannan
Theses and Dissertations
Silicon carbide (SiC) is one of the key materials for high power opto-electronic devices due to its superior material properties over conventional semiconductors (e.g., Si, Ge, GaAs, etc). SiC is also very stable and a highly suitable material for radiation detection at room temperature and above. The availability of detector grade single crystalline bulk SiC is limited by the existing crystal growth techniques which introduce extended and microscopic crystallographic defects during the growth process. Recently, SiC based high-resolution semiconductor detectors for ionizing radiation have attracted world-wide attention due to the availability of high resistive, highly crystalline epitaxial layers with very …