Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Ionic Conductivity, Li+ Transference Number, And Diffusion Coefficient Of A Solid-State Electrolyte Composite, Lizbeth Zurita

Reviews, Analyses, and Instructional Studies in Electrochemistry (RAISE)

The design of solid-state electrolyte (SSE) composites involves the fundamental study of transport properties, such as ionic conductivity. This transport property is influenced by the transport mechanisms of the charge species inside the composite, such as diffusion and migration. In this work, we perform the measurement of these three parameters through defined techniques. The resulting parameters were: ionic conductivity, the diffusion coefficient, and the Li+ transference number.

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

High Level Gesture Control For Uavs, John Akagi, Brady Moon, Jared Paxton, Dr. Cammy Peterson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The usage and application of small unmanned aircraft has grown in recent years, but training, and constant attention is often required for controlling an aircraft in even the simplest of tasks. Our research seeks to reduce the complexity in controlling drones by sending high level commands to them using unique hand gestures captured by a glove with an inertial measurement unit (IMU). This would allow the aircraft operators to maintain focus on a primary task while easily supplementing decisions and actions with aircraft data. In contrast to low level commands, such as directing drone velocities and control surfaces, high level …

Building And Improving A Low Cost Holographic Video Monitor, Parker Awerkamp, Daniel Smalley

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Since the development of the television, the world has been seeking to improve the realistic qualities of video. However, the biggest shortcoming of video is yet to be fully resolved: how to recreate a three-dimensional (3-D) image electronically. While some techniques have been developed in an attempt to resolve this problem, they fail to fully represent a 3-D image and often require glasses or other visual aids. Holographic monitors are capable of reproducing fully 3-D images to the naked eye at standard video framerates and are the solution to the demand for advanced 3-D technologies. Working with Dr. Smalley, I …

Intensive Mentoring And Micro-Electronics Research For Students In Engineering (Immerse) 2016 Mentoring Environment Grant, Aaron Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The MEG funds used for this projects supported undergraduate students working in the IMMERSE program starting in the Summer of 2016. IMMERSE employed a total of 49 students. Portions of the hourly wages charged by these students for their research work came from this MEG grant.

An Ultra-Low Power Analog-To-Digital Converter For Neural Signal Recording: Comparator Research, Alexander Petrie, Dr. Shiuh-Hua Wood Chiang

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Brain diseases, such as depression and strokes, affect an ever-increasing number of the human population. Much scientific research has been devoted to finding ways towards alleviating the negative symptoms of these diseases. However, much more research must be conducted before these maladies are no longer a problem. Neural implantable devices are an essential part of such research. These tiny, electronic devices monitor electrical brain activity and wirelessly transmit the collected data to computers so scientists can analyze it. A common issue with these neural recording devices is battery life. Current technology allows for a battery to last only 3-5 years. …

Intensive Mentoring And Micro-Electronics Research For Students In Engineering (Immerse) 2014, Stephen Schultz

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The MEG funds used for this projects supported undergraduate students working in the IMMERSE program starting in the Summer of 2015. IMMERSE employed a total of 35 students, with 14 of them being supervised directly by Dr. Aaron Hawkins and Stephen Schultz. The students working for Drs. Hawkins and Schultz were paid hourly wages for their research work from this MEG grant.

Development Of Poisson Optical Trap For Volumetric Display, Jeremy Goodsell, Daniel Smalley

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to develop a new type of optical trap based on Poisson’s famous “Poisson Spot” experiment. The two main methods currently for creating a photophoretic trap are to use dark spots created by spherical aberration (see Fig. 1) or to use vortex beams. In the case of a trap caused by spherical aberration which occurs when using spherical lenses to focus a beam, the particle stays in the dark regions due to photophoretic forces [1,2]. Vortex beams are created by doughnut modes of a laser beam. These are modes of the laser which can be …

The Effect Of Soaking Time On The Accuracy Of A Vertical Impedance Spectroscopy Probe, Jared Baxter, Brian Mazzeo

Journal of Undergraduate Research

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, nearly 10% of the nation’s 611,845 brides are structurally deficient. (https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/defbr15.cfm) This means that nearly 60,000 active bridges are unsafe. This is a major problem, and one that is not easily solved. Many of these bridges are of significant importance to the nation’s highways and cannot be retired without inconveniencing millions of people. Furthermore, to repair or rebuild all of these bridges would take billions of dollars, a cost that far exceeds Federal Highway Administrations (FHWA) funding.

Time-Difference Amplifier For Time-To-Digital Converters, Matthew Padilla, Dr. Shiuh-Hua Wood Chiang

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Currently most digital converters convert from an analog voltage signal to a digital signal. In recent years some progress has been made in converting from an analog time signal to a digital signal. The purpose of this project is to improve upon current designs of time-to-digital converters by making a time-difference amplifier that is more power efficient and less sensitive to variation.

Currently time-to-digital converters are commonly implemented similarly to analog voltage-to-digital converters, using a two-step architecture [1]. In a voltage-to-digital converter, the first stage is a coarse quantizer, and the difference between the voltage signal and the quantization is …

Charge-Steering Cmos Amplifier Design And Testing Final Report, Nathan Whitehead, Shiuhua Wood Chiang

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The goal of this research was to demonstrate that the complementary and 4-stage amplifiers can achieve superior gain or speed over the 2-stage charge-steering amplifier in [1], and the conventional differential amplifier introduced in the ORCA grant proposal. The completion of this project has involved schematic design, layout, test bench setup, amplifier measurements, and characterization.

Intensive Mentoring And Micro-Electronics Research For Students In Engineering (Immerse) 2014, Aaron Hawkins, Stephen Schultz

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The MEG funds used for this projects supported undergraduate students working in the IMMERSE program starting in the Summer of 2014. IMMERSE employed a total of 35 students, with 14 of them being supervised directly by Dr. Aaron Hawkins and Stephen Schultz. The students working for Drs. Hawkins and Schultz were paid hourly wages for their research work from this MEG grant.

Single Ion Detection For Mass Spectrometry Using Low Capacitance Mosfets, Matthew Hamblin, Aaron Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Mass spectrometry is an important tool for analytical chemistry that allows the chemical composition of a compound to be determined. In order to do so, it separates the compound into ions, and then detects the number of ions of different masses.

The charge on a single ion is very small, making it difficult to measure. In order to overcome this, current mass spectrometers must use methods such as electron multipliers to create a cascading effect of electrons until a measurable charge is reached or cryodetectors that measure the thermal change of an ion hit at low temperatures.¹ Using methods …

High-Resolution Soil Moisture Estimation Using Ascat, Kevin Tew, Michael Scott

Journal of Undergraduate Research

NASA’s Decadal Survey emphasizes the importance of soil moisture measurements, citing their significance in predicting natural hazards and the role of soil moisture levels in the water and carbon cycles [1]. Soil moisture estimates are used for a variety of applications including drought detection, flood and landslide forecasts, crop yield monitoring, and rain precipitation models [1]–[4]. Orbiting sensors provide an effective way to measure soil moisture globally because measurements of each area can be taken at a relatively high revisit frequency (typically one to two days). These sensors are generally able to measure soil moisture parameters despite cloud coverage and, …