Hardware Systems Commons^™

Parallel Computation Using Mems Oscillator-Based Computing System, Xinrui Wang, Ilias Bilionis, Salar Safarkhani

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In recent years, parallel computing systems such as artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been of great interest. In these systems which emulate the behavior of human brains, the processing is carried out simultaneously. However, it is still a challenging engineering problem to design highly efficient hardware for parallel computing systems. We will study the properties of networks of Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) oscillators to explore their capabilities as parallel computing infrastructure. Furthermore, we simulate the time-variant states of MEMS oscillators network under various initial conditions and performance of certain tasks. Recent theoretical results show that networks of MEMS oscillators have some …

Introduction To Signal Timing & Traffic Control, Sarah V. Hernandez, Mariah Crew, Karla Diaz-Corro, Taslima Akter

Civil Engineering Teaching and Learning

The purpose of these lesson plans is to introduce students to traffic signalization basics. Students will be lead through a series of mini-lectures on traffic control and signalization including a discussion on the limitations and benefits of traffic signalization. The lesson plans compliment a computer simulation “game” in which students act as manual operators for a single up to four by four gridded intersection. Students attempt to control the progression of signals to understand the relationship between signal timing and user delay. Through experimentation with the simulation, students generate a presentation discussing the benefits and drawbacks of signal timing and …

One-To-Cloud One-Time Pad Data Encryption: Introducing Virtual Prototyping With Pspice, Paul Tobin, Lee Tobin, Roberto Gandia Blanquer Dr, Michael Mckeever, Jonathan Blackledge

Conference papers

In this paper, we examine the design and application of a one-time pad encryption system for protecting data stored in the Cloud. Personalising security using a one-time pad generator at the client-end protects data from break-ins, side-channel attacks and backdoors in public encryption algorithms. The one-time pad binary sequences were obtained from modified analogue chaos oscillators initiated by noise and encoded client data locally. Specific ``one-to-Cloud'' storage applications returned control back to the end user but without the key distribution problem normally associated with one-time pad encryption. Development of the prototype was aided by ``Virtual Prototyping'' in the latest version …

Skin Tone Tracking Device (Chromaband), Ziyang Bian

Computer Engineering

It’s long been said that your skin is a window into your health and with many illnesses the first signs of trouble actually show up in your skin. So if we have this natural warning system, then why isn’t anyone able to effectively use it to predict changes in our health? The problem is that currently there is no reliable way to accurately measure the change in skin tone and how these changes may or may not change with variations in health. This project’s aim is to design and develop a device that will record the changes in a user’s …

Smartfarm, Nathan A. Oto, Caleb Fink

Computer Engineering

The overall expectation of this product is to create an autonomous Arduino library that accurately and robustly collects plant environment data from the Smart Farm board. The Smart Farm PCB is split into two primary functions: Data Acquisition(DAQ) and Power Control. Each function of the PCB is controlled by an Atmega 328P Microcontroller. The primary concern for this report is the functionality of the DAQ microcontroller.

Smartgarden, Samuel S. Lees, Matthew T. Lindly

Computer Engineering

The problem that the SmartGarden project seeks to solve is the challenge of watering succulents correctly and maintaining consistent plant health. Too much water can cause root rot and drowning while too little water can cause dehydration and starvation.
The SmartGarden solves this common problem by configuring a Raspberry Pi to measure soil moisture, store the data to an AWS server in the cloud, and water the succulent when necessary, informing the user by providing both a web-interface and a variety of notifications.

Joe On The Go, Nico Ledwith, Grayson Meurrens

Computer Engineering

The ultimate goal for this project is to design an automatic, large capacity coffee maker. The system should be able to detect when a cup or mug is in position to receive coffee, then dispense a cup’s worth (~ 8oz) of coffee. When the coffee in the urn is getting low, our system should be able to allow a person to put new coffee grounds in the top, then push a button to start the coffee brewing process. More specifically, we had to accomplish the following tasks in order to meet our goals: solving the issue of transporting water from …

Mr. Mix: The Automated Home Bartender, Brian Moore, Robert Hulbert

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

Daily Dose, Ken H. Yasui, Joey M. Angeja

Computer Engineering

The project goal is to develop a medication and vitamin management device that will sort and dispense pre-configured amounts of pills at designated times . The main clientele of this device is the elderly community with a secondary client base of the general public. The entire system is designed from scratch, powered by US standard line voltage. The main functionalities of the device are the ability to store multiple types of pills and the ability to accurately handle user input and data transfer. The two engineering specifications that were not met included the desired pill pick up rate and dimensions …

Blend It Wine Blending Distribution System, Connor Clarry, Russell Temple, Matt Moren

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Micro-Spi Sediment Profile Imaging Micro-Inspector, Andrew P. Corvin, Caleb T. Davies, Matt R. Ferrari

Mechanical Engineering

This project was proposed by Dr. Brian Paavo through a desire to more easily study the benthic sediment layers of the ocean. To do so, he asked us to build a simple and compact machine for use in sediment profile imagery (SPI). Although devices like this already exist, they are all large scale devices that require a ship with a crane to deploy, which is expensive and time consuming. Instead, he desired a “micro” SPI, which is capable of being deployed from a small vessel that can easily navigate shallow waters. Our interpretation of these requirements was as follows: a …

Solid State Drive, Shaun A. Steele

Electrical Engineering

This project documents the design and implementation of a solid state drive (SSD). SSDs are a non-volatile memory storage device that competes with hard disk drives. SSDs rely on flash memory, a type of non-volatile memory that is electrically erased and programmed. The appeal of SSDs lies in the fact that they allow a fast, reliable, and durable memory storage device. The goal of this project is to have a working external SSD built from scratch.

Demo: Deepmon - Building Mobile Gpu Deep Learning Models For Continuous Vision Applications, Loc Nguyen Huynh, Rajesh Krishna Balan, Youngki Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Deep learning has revolutionized vision sensing applications in terms of accuracy comparing to other techniques. Its breakthrough comes from the ability to extract complex high level features directly from sensor data. However, deep learning models are still yet to be natively supported on mobile devices due to high computational requirements. In this paper, we present DeepMon, a next generation of DeepSense [1] framework, to enable deep learning models on conventional mobile devices (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S7) for continuous vision sensing applications. Firstly, Deep-Mon exploits similarity between consecutive video frames for intermediate data caching within models to enhance inference latency. Secondly, …

Scan: Multi-Hop Calibration For Mobile Sensor Arrays, Balz Maag, Zimu Zhou, Olga Saukh, Lothar Thiele

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Urban air pollution monitoring with mobile, portable, low-cost sensors has attracted increasing research interest for their wide spatial coverage and affordable expenses to the general public. However, low-cost air quality sensors not only drift over time but also suffer from cross-sensitivities and dependency on meteorological effects. Therefore calibration of measurements from low-cost sensors is indispensable to guarantee data accuracy and consistency to be fit for quantitative studies on air pollution. In this work we propose sensor array network calibration (SCAN), a multi-hop calibration technique for dependent low-cost sensors. SCAN is applicable to sets of co-located, heterogeneous sensors, known as sensor …

The Replacement Of Network Switches, Sean Fenton

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Networking equipment often has to be replaced every few years in order to keep up with network speed demands and bandwidth, as well as the expiration of equipment. Gallaudet’s network switches were approaching their End of Life (EoL) and the Gallaudet networking team decided to replace the networking equipment to improve the network efficiency at Gallaudet. After much research and debate, the decision was made to replace current Cisco networking equipment with Juniper in order to optimize the network speed for Internet traffic. Cisco and Juniper are competing brands for a wide range of networking equipment. The capstone project is …

Project Pradio, Trigg T. La Tour

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper examines the design and manufacturing of a device that allows two or more users to share a wireless audio stream. Effectively, this allows a group of people to listen to the same audio in a synchronized manner. The product was unable to be completed in the allotted time. Regardless, significant progress was made and valuable insight into the circuit board design process was gained.

Automation In Entertainment: Concept, Design, And Application, Ryan Thally

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The focus of this thesis is to explore the automation technology used in the modern entertainment industry. Upon completion of my thesis, I will deliver a working prototype of the chosen technology and present its capabilities in a choreographed show.

Software Updates To A Multiple Autonomous Quadcopter Search System (Maqss), Jared Speck, Toby Chan

Computer Engineering

A series of performance-based and feature implementation software updates to an existing multiple vehicle autonomous target search system is outlined in this paper. The search system, MAQSS, is designed to address a computational power constraint found on modern autonomous aerial platforms by separating real-time and computationally expensive tasks through delegation to multiple multirotor vehicles. A Ground Control Station (GCS) is also described as part of the MAQSS system to perform the delegation and provide a low workload user interface. Ultimately, the changes to MAQSS noted in this paper helped to improve the performance of the autonomous search mission, the accuracy …

A Hybrid Partially Reconfigurable Overlay Supporting Just-In-Time Assembly Of Custom Accelerators On Fpgas, Zeyad Tariq Aklah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The state of the art in design and development flows for FPGAs are not sufficiently mature to allow programmers to implement their applications through traditional software development flows. The stipulation of synthesis as well as the requirement of background knowledge on the FPGAs' low-level physical hardware structure are major challenges that prevent programmers from using FPGAs. The reconfigurable computing community is seeking solutions to raise the level of design abstraction at which programmers must operate, and move the synthesis process out of the programmers' path through the use of overlays. A recent approach, Just-In-Time Assembly (JITA), was proposed that enables …

Exploiting Hardware Abstraction For Parallel Programming Framework: Platform And Multitasking, Hongyuan Ding

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the help of the parallelism provided by the fine-grained architecture, hardware accelerators on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) can significantly improve the performance of many applications. However, designers are required to have excellent hardware programming skills and unique optimization techniques to explore the potential of FPGA resources fully. Intermediate frameworks above hardware circuits are proposed to improve either performance or productivity by leveraging parallel programming models beyond the multi-core era.

In this work, we propose the PolyPC (Polymorphic Parallel Computing) framework, which targets enhancing productivity without losing performance. It helps designers develop parallelized applications and implement them on FPGAs. …