Computer Engineering Commons^™

Wage Wizard, Jack Davey, Kyle Felip Mondina, Brett Rimmer

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Wage theft is a severe problem in Santa Clara County, with the Santa Clara Wage Theft Coalition identifying more than 25,000 local wage theft cases as of 20211. In this study we will be addressing the issue of wage theft particularly in the Santa Clara County caregiving industry. Wage theft is prevalent in the caregiving industry for several reasons. First, the industry employs many migrant Filipino workers who are unaware of their legal rights and protections or even the fact if they are experiencing wage theft or not. Second, the sizable undocumented portion of these workers are coerced to lower …

Machine Learning Fmri Autism Classifier, Nicholas Luckenbach

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is typically understood by observing patient behaviors. Advances in neuroimaging research and data collection have made it possible to investigate the neurobiological basis for ASD, and differences between subjects with ASD and healthy controls (HC) have been found using a variety of methods. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in particular has provided evidence for and against certain cognitive models of ASD based on measuring the functional connectivity of subjects’ brains. Various techniques have been explored for applying machine learning (ML) to fMRI data in order to find unique patterns and differences between ASD and HC subjects. …

A Low-Cost, Long-Range, And Solar-Based Iot Soil Quality Monitor, Salvador Garcia, Trina Nguyen, Julian Wong

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The project objective is to create a low-cost, long-range, and solar-based IoT soil quality monitoring system. The system must transmit packages of data gathered from separate nodes, consisting of two dierent types of sensors, to a centralized gateway receiver to be displayed to the user in an elegant and readable manner. The end goal of the project is to supplement produce grown by large agricultural bodies around the United States without the misuse of water resources. This report presents the need for this system, details the components of the system, and the rationale behind design choices. It serves as a …

Crossroad - Avoid Crowd Intelligence, Xukun Zhang, Yuzheng Wu, Haochen Zhang

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Nowadays, waiting takes big chunks of daily-life activity. People may always find themselves facing long queues, waiting in a crowded facility, even when they have tried to avoid peak hours. Heading to a highly populated public area may have felt like heading to a battlefield. Without access to the real-time information of the facility, people start to discover that waiting starts to become an unpredictable event that can sometimes delay their schedule or even worse. This project serves as a solution to tackle this lack of transparency. Crossroad aims to combine facilities’ cameras with micro-controller to see the engagement of …

Jamming Attack Workaround Study, Soren Madsen, Jack Schoen

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a fast growing industry with strong footholds in the smart home market featuring devices such as the Amazon Echo, Ring security cameras, smart TVs, and much more. However, it doesn’t stop there; the industrial sector has begun using smart devices for measurement, automated tasks, and time sensitive communication. Many of these devices have become reliant on WiFi technology and are vulnerable to attacks on the security of the protocols involved.

In this paper, we discuss the details of the deauthentication attack on WPA and WPA2 systems and propose a solution for detection and recovery …

Lactic Acid Threshold Stimulator, Justin Brackett, Karen Carreon, Fernando Guerra, Malyna Sanchez

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

As a person works out, the threshold of lactic acid will build causing anywhere from discomfort to pain. Reducing the discomfort caused by lactic acid could greatly improve an individual’s performance while working out. Reducing this discomfort may be done through Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS), which is the procedure of contracting muscles through sending electrical signals. Our team’s goal is to create LATS, a wearable and mobile application that alleviates discomfort and aids muscle recovery during the intense parts of a workout. The system consists of a heart rate monitor to measure lactic acid levels, a garment that is worn …

Cryptki: Mobile Hardware Wallet, Derrick Chan, Rowan Decker, William Nguyen, Yuya Oguchi

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Cryptocurrencies are rapidly receiving mainstream attention and adoption. As a result, new technologies are developing to store and transact cryptocurrencies to keep up with a rapidly developing market. We have developed a way to utilize a mobile phone to communicate with the Ethereum blockchain in order to monitor and initiate cryptocurrency transactions. The project allows users to create new Ethereum addresses and to send arbitrary amounts of Ether to existing Ethereum addresses, while maintaining security for the end user. We conclude that this method of communication with the Ethereum blockchain is viable and is an avenue for exploration in the …

Camera-Based Distance Sensor, Kai Schmidt, Evan Holmes

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

While working on a robotics project at the electrical contracting company for which we work, we discovered a gap in the electronic distance sensor market in terms of range, accuracy, precision, and cost. We designed and constructed a prototype for an electronic distance sensing component which utilizes a camera, laser, and image processor to measure distances. The laser is pointed at a surface and an image of the laser dot is captured. An image processing algorithm determines the pixel position of the dot in the image, and this position is compared to a lookup table of known values to determine …

B.O.G.G.L.E.S.: Boundary Optical Geographic Lidar Environment System, Miguel Chapa, Evan Hoerl, Isaac Jorgensen, Carl Maggio

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pseudo X-ray vision system that pairs a Lidar scanner with a visualization device. The system as a whole is referred to as B.O.G.G.L.E.S. There are several key factors that went into the development of this system and the background information and design approach are thoroughly described. B.O.G.G.L.E.S functionality is depicted through the use of design constraints and the analysis of test results. Additionally, many possible developments for B.O.G.G.L.E.S are proposed in the paper. This indicates that there are various avenues of improvement for this project that could be implemented in the …

Halo - A Personal Iot Air Monitor Powered By Harvested Energy, Benjamin Lampe, Taylor Mau, Samantha Morehead, Naeem Turner-Bandele

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Urban air pollution leads to widespread respiratory illness and millions of deaths annually. PM2.5, particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers, is the product of many common combustion reactions and poses a particularly serious health risk. Its small size allows it to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. Existing air quality monitors are aimed at scientific research, di↵erentiating between pollutants and providing high accuracy in measurement. These devices are prohibitively expensive and cannot easily be carried around. Due to the highly localized nature of air pollution, and in order to allow individuals and institutions to …

Rf Roaming System Locator: A Modular Omnidirectional Antenna System, George Stathakis, Josh Sullivan, Christian Ayscue

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Drones are increasingly common in everything from entertainment to delivery services. Currently, GPS and wireless triangulation are the two main methods of tracking drones and collision avoidance. The main problem with these two methods are accuracy and mobility. This thesis goes into building a system that is able to solve the two main drawbacks, by using a completely contained antenna system. The system is robust and can work in a variety of environments and situations. While the thesis focuses on drone tracking, the system is built with modularity in mind and can be adapted to track other RF signals with …

Pressure Ulcer Prevention System, Rey-David Palomares, Ojus Rao

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Pressure ulcers, also known as bedsores, are a widespread but often understated problem. A pressure ulcer is an injury that develops with constant pressure on an area of skin for a long time. They range from bruises to open wounds to even exposed bone. These injuries especially impact bedridden and elderly hospital inpatients, since these people must depend on nursing staff for mobility.

Pressure ulcers can seem to be a solved problem. Solutions that completely eliminate pressure ulcers do exist. These solutions, however, are too expensive for widespread use, at thousands of dollars per bed. Other solutions, such as relying …

The Human Keyboard, Derek Char, Thomas Chung, Alexander Mckee, Allen Pai

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Most products that implement features for user interactions utilize buttons or switches for the user to command to select actions to perform. Such designs are typically controlled with direct motions, such as touch or voice and are seldom designed in consideration of those unable to utilize direct control. In this project, we designed technology that reads naturally occuring biosignals from the body, which then can be apply those signals with any interface. For our specific application in this project, we decided to implement a keyboard. Instead of teaching the fingers how to type on a mechanical keyboard, the body can …

Low Cost Sms-Enabled Ekg For Use In Developing Countries, Gabriel Christ, Shachi Kakkar, Michael Mcelroy, Augustus Boling

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

According to official estimates, cardiovascular disease will become the leading cause of death in the developing world by 2020 [1]. This makes regular screening and early detection a priority for these regions. At present, such screening relies on stationary electrocardiogram (ECG) machines, but this technology has several drawbacks. Most machines are costly, stationary, and require a physician onsite to collect and interpret the data; as a result many isolated rural communities lack access to basic heart disease screening. In order to better meet the screening needs of these populations, we propose a twopart solution involving a simplified, inexpensive ECG device …

Rf Location Tracking: A Modular Antenna System Implementation, Alan Tao Feng, Razma Mogharrab, Carlos Rivera

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

From the Amazon Prime Air drone delivery service to the usage of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in military operations, recent years have seen the development of autonomous flight technologies becoming one of the major research topics in the drone industry. Tracking the geographic position of drones is a crucial part of any autonomous flight, but the common methods of drone location tracking either have too large of an error margin or require extensive environmental setup. The aforementioned issues are major roadblocks in the advancement of autonomous flight operations. The proposed solution is a new and improved method to track the …

Curipilot, Gregory Cusack, Karan Daryanani, Nathaniel Tucker

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The drone industry has rapidly grown over the last three years and many large companies have determined that the phenomenon is worth investing in. Recently, Intel has shown interest in this growing industry. Intel developed a next generation processor to be used in drones in addition to investing in the Chinese drone hardware company, Yuneec. Contracted by Intel, the CuriPilot team laid the foundation for linking the hardware and software layers of Intel's drone technology by designing the stabilization control system for the next generation of processors and drones. The CuriPilot team built a foundation for future drone development and …

Pcb Prototyping, Kasey Chun, Dylan Hack, Ilja Medan, Michael Rudolf, Ryan Sidley

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

In today’s world, Printed Circuit Boards, also known as PCBs, are part of our daily lives. However, it is currently difficult for students in university classes or hobbyists to quickly produce custom made PCBs since no system exists where every step in the production process is on one platform. There are four main steps that go into manufacturing a PCB once it is fully designed which are: milling, solder dispensing, component placement, and a reflow process. The goal will be to create various toolheads and place them onto a single platform allowing the user to perform the aforementioned production processes. …

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

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 …

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

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.

Distributed Smart Camera Network For Safety And Security, Nathan Fox, Matthew Kelley, Christopher Rapa, Christopher Yarp

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Current CCTV surveillance solutions are generally retrospective tools. Because real time use of CCTV requires human monitors to view a potentially exorbitant number of video feeds, CCTV is usually only useful after an incident has occurred. However, new technologies are making it possible for machines to perform some tasks that previously required a human monitor. The proposed project seeks to augment existing CCTV systems with behavioral analytics. The system uses a series of cameras, FPGAs, and computers to track object movement throughout a facility. This information is used to build a model of normal movement. Object movements are compared against …

Arsenic Detection Project: Electronics, Anthony Clemetson, John Barth

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

This project is a collaboration with a team of bioengineers to adapt the functionality of laboratory equipment onto a platform which could be used in the field to determine the concentration levels of toxins in ground water. To this end, using a set of printed electrodes, a device was designed and fabricated with the constraints of field use in mind: low power, low cost, with a mobile user interface. An Android phone served as the mobile user interface, and also as the power supply for the circuit and microcontroller that performed the test. This circuit applied a stimulus voltage across …

Wireless Impact Detection System, Shawno Auwae, Kyle Terriere

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Recently, brain trauma caused by multiple concussions has become a pressing issue for contact sports, mainly American football players. The severity of the impacts in these sports have led to discussion concerning the standard safety equipment used, as well as the rules enforcing a certain style of play. Multiple studies have shown that concussions have damaging long-term effects, including dementia and memory loss. The dominant professional football organization, the National Football League (NFL), employs qualified athletic trainers to diagnose and treat players with concussions, but many incidents still go undetected. This problem is magnified at the youth level, where the …