Computer Engineering Commons^™

Sel4 On Risc-V - Developing High Assurance Platforms With Modular Open-Source Architectures, Michael A. Doran Jr

Masters Theses

Virtualization is now becoming an industry standard for modern embedded systems. Modern embedded systems can now support multiple applications on a single hardware platform while meeting power and cost requirements. Virtualization on an embedded system is achieved through the design of the hardware-software interface. Instruction set architecture, ISA, defines the hardware-software interface for an embedded system. At the hardware level the ISA, provides extensions to support virtualization.

In addition to an ISA that supports hypervisor extensions it is equally important to provide a hypervisor completely capable of exploiting the benefits of virtualization for securing modern embedded systems. Currently there does …

Addressing Security Challenges In Embedded Systems And Multi-Tenant Fpgas, Georgios Provelengios

Doctoral Dissertations

Embedded systems and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have become crucial parts of the infrastructure that supports our modern technological world. Given the multitude of threats that are present, the need for secure computing systems is undeniably greater than ever. Embedded systems and FPGAs are governed by characteristics that create unique security challenges and vulnerabilities. Despite their array of uses, embedded systems are often built with modest microprocessors that do not support the conventional security solutions used by workstations, such as virus scanners. In the first part of this dissertation, a microprocessor defense mechanism that uses a hardware monitor to protect …

Design Project: Smart Headband, John Michel, Jack Durkin, Noah Lewis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Concussion in sports is a prevalent medical issue. It can be difficult for medical professionals to diagnose concussions. With the fast pace nature of many sports, and the damaging effects of concussions, it is important that any concussion risks are assessed immediately. There is a growing trend of wearable technology that collects data such as steps and provides the wearer with in-depth information regarding their performance. The Smart Headband project created a wearable that can record impact data and provide the wearer with a detailed analysis on their risk of sustaining a concussion. The Smart Headband uses accelerometers and gyroscopes …

Polyone Smartphone, Joshua Zalmanowitz, Chi Nguyen, Gerome Cacho, Chris Lim

Electrical Engineering

The Poly One Smartphone is a student designed smartphone built to explore the implementation of 5G, provide a hardware solution to ensure personal information security and privacy, and provide longer battery life. The key features of this smartphone include but are not limited to a main cpu, some form of network connectivity in the form of Wi-fi or Cellular Data, calling functionality, a rechargeable battery that works with common power connection protocols, and compatibility with popular applications.

Uncertainty Aware Mapping Of Embedded Systems For Reliability, Performance, And Energy, Wenkai Guan

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Due to technology downscaling, embedded systems have increased in complexity and heterogeneity. The increasingly large process, voltage, and temperature variations negatively affect the design and optimization process of these systems. These factors contribute to increased uncertainties that in turn undermine the accuracy and effectiveness of traditional design approaches. In this thesis, we formulate the problem of uncertainty aware mapping for multicore embedded system platforms as a multi-objective optimization problem. We present a solution to this problem that integrates uncertainty models as a new design methodology constructed with Monte Carlo and evolutionary algorithms. The solution is uncertainty aware because it is …

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 …

Microcontroller Application For Linear And Rotational Motion Sensing, Zachary Mintzer

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

Design And Verification Environment For High-Performance Video-Based Embedded Systems, Michael Mefenza Nentedem

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, a method and a tool to enable design and verification of computation demanding embedded vision-based systems is presented. Starting with an executable specification in OpenCV, we provide subsequent refinements and verification down to a system-on-chip prototype into an FPGA-Based smart camera. At each level of abstraction, properties of image processing applications are used along with structure composition to provide a generic architecture that can be automatically verified and mapped to the lower abstraction level. The result is a framework that encapsulates the computer vision library OpenCV at the highest level, integrates Accelera's System-C/TLM with UVM and QEMU-OS …

Digital Control Board For Phased Array Antenna Beam Steering In Adaptive Communication Applications, Mayur Bansal

Master's Theses

The application of adaptive communication techniques for mobile communications has attracted considerable interest in the last decade. One example of these techniques is spatial filtering through planar antenna array beam forming.

This thesis describes the development of a digital system that adaptively controls a phased array antenna. The radiating structure of the phased antenna array is tetrahedral-shaped and contains four antenna elements on each of its three faces. The overall system comprises of a digital control board with an external computer interface, an RF control board, and the phased antenna array. The RF controls the main lobe direction on the …

Wireless Sensor Network For Wine Fermentation, Kerry Scharfglass, Andrew Lehmer

Computer Engineering

This project implements an automated temperature monitoring system for wine fermentation which is affordable, easy to use, and scalable to typical small winery setups. To realize these requirements, we implemented the system as a wireless sensor network utilizing commercial off-the-shelf hardware. Temperature and system diagnostic information is communicated wirelessly in a peer-to-peer network topology such that all information flows toward an aggregating server. The server makes the temperature information available over the Internet via a web application and alerts the winemaker by email when the temperature has left acceptable bounds that the winemaker may configure. This project also involved materials …

Fault Tolerant And Flexible Cubesat Software Architecture, Greg D. Manyak

Master's Theses

The CubeSat pico-satellite is gaining popularity in both the educational and aerospace industries. Due to a lack of experience and constrained hardware capabilities, most of the university missions have been educational in nature. Cal Poly's project, PolySat, has gained significant experience from the launch of five CubeSats and has designed an entirely new hardware platform based on the knowledge gained from these missions. This hardware is a significant upgrade from what the previous missions used and has greatly increased the capabilities of the software, including supporting the use of the open source operating system Linux.

Leveraging the previous PolySat experience, …

Global Positioning Logger, Matthew Hall

Computer Engineering

The Global Positioning Logger (GPL) is a mobile embedded device that utilizes GPS technology. The GPS data is used to display current speed and past global locations.