Electro-Mechanical Systems Commons^™

The Role Of Inter-Particle Behavior In Iron Oxide Nanoparticle Induction Heating, Hayden Seth Carlton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Due to their multi-functional nature, iron oxide nanoparticles present themselves in a myriad of scientific disciplines, but perhaps the most interesting property of these nanomaterials can be seen in their immense thermal response under the influence of alternating magnetic fields. Currently popularized as an alternative cancer treatment through localized hyperthermia, iron oxide nanoparticle induction heating presents an interesting physical phenomenon that distinguishes itself from macroscopic induction heating. Understanding how a single spherical particle behaves is relatively simple and remains well documented; however, magnetic interactions of a single particle often extend over many length scales, affecting numerous neighboring particles in the …

Design Of A Scara Based Mobile 3d Printing Platform, Zachary Hyden

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Currently 3D printers rely heavily on people to run them, there is no automatic way to start a new print after one has finished. On top of this 3D printers are limited in the area they can print on. Even though the additive manufacturing market is rapidly growing and is increasingly being used in product manufacturing there has yet to be a solution to this problem. This research proposes using mobile 3D printing robots to solve both of these issues. The proposed prototype utilizes a Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) based robot capable of cooperatively manufacturing parts. This allows …

3d Printing A Microfluidic Chip Capable Of Droplet Emulsion Using Ninjaflex Filament, Robert Andrews

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper details an investigation into methods and designs of 3D printing a microfluidic system capable of droplet emulsion using NinjaFlex filament. The specific field in which this paper’s experiment is rooted is dubbed “BioMEMS,” short for bio microelectromechanical systems. One prominent research area in BioMEMS is developing a “lab on a chip.” Essentially, the goal is to miniaturize common lab processes to the micro scale, rendering it possible to include these processes in a small chip. Reducing necessary sample sizes, shortening the reaction times of lab processes, and increasing mobility of lab processes can all be realized through microfluidic …

Duocel Metal Foam Display Cases, Kate Goldsworthy, Katherina Prodanov, Benjamin Swanson, Syed Hasan

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Review (FDR) report outlines the senior design project that was conducted by a team of four mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo for ERG Materials and Aerospace Corporation. The goal of this project was to design displays that showcase the properties of ERG’s Duocel® foam at tradeshows and client meetings. To better understand the needs of our sponsor, the team researched Duocel®’s capabilities, related technologies, and relevant standards and regulations. With this information, we further defined the problem by creating a problem statement and a set of engineering specifications through a Quality Function …

Autonomous Vehicles Operating Collaboratively To Avoid Debris And Obstructions, Toan T. Le, Cole W. Oppenheim, James H. Gildart, Kyle M. Bybee

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the safety and increased fuel efficiency of an automated collision avoidance system in collaborative vehicle platooning. This project was cosponsored by Daimler Trucks North America headquartered in Portland, Oregon, as well as Dr. Birdsong, and Dr. DeBruhl of Cal Poly. The mechanical engineering team consists of Cole Oppenheim, James Gildart, Toan Le, and Kyle Bybee who worked in coordination with a team of computer engineers. Vehicle platooning is a driving technique to increase the fuel efficiency of a group of vehicles by following a lead vehicle closely to reduce the drag experienced …

Adjustable Seating Systems, Grace Timken, Zachary Dworaczyk, Jasper Lewin, Eric Voss

Mechanical Engineering

The Adjustable Seating Systems team designed and prototyped a collapsible and nestable seat for use in transit vehicles to create more free space for more passengers and cargo. Our team is the second senior project group to have worked at solving this problem. The previous team established a unique seat folding method that is currently pending patent approval. Our team’s responsibility was to improve the ease of use and overall hardware design of the entire seating system. This document captures the efforts that our team has performed to organize an approach to completing a full design and working prototype this …

Danny’S Recumbent Bike Accessibility Device Final Design Report, Joseph J. Lee, Huy Nguyen, Jack Mcatee, John Kulick

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this document is to fully define our design solution and explain our manufacturing and testing results. Our project’s goal is to find a way to allow Danny Knutson, a retired Navy pilot and incomplete quadriplegic with limited use of his arms and an impaired sense of balance, to enter and exit his recumbent tricycle without any discomfort for him or his aide. We completed multiple interviews with Danny, patent research, existing product research, and other technical literature research in order to fully understand the problem. We synthesized this information to create a concrete list of customer wants …

Novel Low Temperature Cofired Ceramic Manufacturing Techniques For A Magnetron Field Emission Cathode, Daylon Michael Black

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Low Temperature Cofired Ceramic (LTCC) is a material system that is ideal for integrated microelectronic packaging technology, because of its rapid prototyping and easy integration of passive components such as resistors, capacitors, and conductors. LTCC’s electrical properties makes it especially suitable for high frequency applications such as magnetrons. Recently, there has been an increased demand for greater power capacities which is resolved by phase locking multiple low power (inexpensive) magnetrons together to achieve the same power as one high power (expensive) magnetron. The Vacuum Electron Devices (VED) and Ceramic Micro Electrical Mechanical Systems (CMEMS) labs at Boise State University have …

Comparison Of Lqr And Lqr-Mrac For Linear Tractor-Trailer Model, Kevin Richard Gasik

Master's Theses

The United States trucking industry is immense. Employing over three million drivers and traveling to every city in the country. Semi-Trucks travel millions of miles each week and encompass roads that civilians travel on. These vehicles should be safe and allow efficient travel for all. Autonomous vehicles have been discussed in controls for many decades. Now fleets of autonomous vehicles are beginning their integration into society. The ability to create an autonomous system requires domain and system specific knowledge. Approaches to implement a fully autonomous vehicle have been developed using different techniques in control systems such as Kalman Filters, Neural …

The Design Of An Innovative Automotive Suspension For Formula Sae Racing Applications, Jared Darius

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis details an analytical approach to an innovative suspension system design for implementation to the Formula SAE collegiate competition. It focuses specifically on design relating to geometry, mathematical modeling, energy element relationships, and computer analysis and simulation to visualize system behavior. The bond graph approach is utilized for a quarter car model to facilitate understanding of the analytical process, then applied to a comparative analysis between two transverse half car models. The second half car model contains an additional transverse linkage with a third damper, and is compared against the baseline of the first half car model without the …

Civilian Acquirer For Fire Safety (Cafs), Antara Das, Marcus Allen, Clark Shaver

Posters

The department of Electronics Engineering Technology (EET) of Pittsburg State University has designed a prototype of an autonomous rover to help firefighters to find lives trapped in a building during an event of fire. The rover prototype has been named CAFS, which is the abbreviated form for Civilian Acquirer for Fire Safety. This device intends to produce the first ever autonomous system to locate, record, and transmit people’s location from within a building to a user outside of the building. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), on 2017, 72% of the fire that happened in the USA was …

Micro-Contacts With 3-D Surfaces Made With Grayscale Lithography, Paul L.J. Michaud

Theses and Dissertations

MEMS switches show advantages over FET transistors and PIN diodes for switching applications due to low contact resistance, high linearity, low power use, better isolation and lower insertion loss. The switches have not replaced FETs or PIN diodes due to perceived limitations in their reliability and the need for stable contact resistance. In order to create switches acceptable for industry applications, research on micro-contact physics and failure mechanisms of micro-contacts is necessary to develop durable contact surfaces. The aim of this research was to design and fabricate micro-contacts with three-dimensional surfaces using grayscale lithography. The goal was to create devices …

Event-Based Visual-Inertial Odometry On A Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Kaleb J. Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Event-based cameras are a new type of visual sensor that operate under a unique paradigm. These cameras provide asynchronous data on the log-level changes in light intensity for individual pixels, independent of other pixels' measurements. Through the hardware-level approach to change detection, these cameras can achieve microsecond fidelity, millisecond latency, ultra-wide dynamic range, and all with very low power requirements. The advantages provided by event-based cameras make them excellent candidates for visual odometry (VO) for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation. This document presents the research and implementation of an event-based visual inertial odometry (EVIO) pipeline, which estimates a vehicle's 6-degrees-of-freedom …

A Mems Dual Vertical Electrometer And Electric Field-Mill, George C. Underwood

Theses and Dissertations

Presented is the first iteration of a Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) dual vertical electrometer and electric field-mill (EFM). The device uses a resonating structure as a variable capacitor that converts the presence of a charge or field into an electric signal. Previous MEMS electrometers are lateral electrometers with laterally spaced electrodes that resonate tangentially with respect to each other. Vertical electrometers, as the name suggests, have vertically spaced electrodes that resonate transversely with respect to each other. The non-tangential movement reduces damping in the system. Both types demonstrate comparable performance, but the vertical electrometer does so at a fraction of the …

Cal Poly Supermileage Electric Vehicle Drivetrain And Motor Control Design, Clarisa Joy Howe, Christopher Joseph Mclaughlin, Erik Alvarado, Enyi Liang

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Supermileage Vehicle team is a multidisciplinary club that designs and builds high efficiency vehicles to compete internationally at Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM). Cal Poly Supermileage Club has been competing in the internal combustion engine (ICE) category of the competition since 2007. The club has decided it is time to expand their competition goals and enter their first battery electric prototype vehicle. To this end, a yearlong senior design project was presented to this team of engineers giving us the opportunity to design an electric powertrain with a custom motor controller. This system has been integrated into Ventus, the …

Composite Recycler: Frame, Alfonso Olivera

All Undergraduate Projects

How can composites be recycled? The Composite Recycler is an ongoing project that started in September 2017. The purpose of this project was to create a machine that will delaminate the composites, cut them, and heat them up to separate the resin from the composites so they can be recycled. A group was put together for the 2018-2019 academic year to further the project as a whole improve the operation of the device. The existing base was used as well as the cutter and the power sources. The upgrades included; a housing to support the transport rollers and changing from …

Stair Climbing Hand Truck, James Mcpherson

All Undergraduate Projects

Abstract

Getting a heavy object up a flight of stairs usually requires a team of two or more people. Even with a team of people, the task is often still difficult, dangerous, and possibly insurmountable by one person. This problem is especially prevalent in for those who are moving into apartment complexes. Most apartment complexes have many buildings with two or more floors of living quarters, and elevators are often missing. This project sought to offer a solution to this problem. The solution in question; a motorized hand-truck with 2, trigonal planar pinwheels in place of the stock wheels. The …

Autojack - Hydraulic Powertrain System, Tyce Vu

All Undergraduate Projects

A primary problem for mechanics and automotive enthusiasts is the risk associated with lifting and securing a vehicle with conventional jack stands. Often times, improper jack-stand installation results in the vehicle collapsing unexpectedly, causing injury and/or death. This problem can be minimized through the application of a newly re-designed vehicle lifting system. The conventional method for lifting cars is time consuming and can be unsafe in many circumstances. A better, safer, and more efficient lift design was needed; the AutoJack. The approach of the AutoJack design was entirely focused on the safety of lifting a vehicle. Safety was improved by …

Development Of A Sensing System For Underground Optic Fiber Cable Conduit Mapping, Sherif Bakr

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The motivation of this research is to obtain an accurate three-dimensional (3D) layout of an underground conduit, which may be beneficial to optic fiber cable installers and engineers. A newly designed algorithm for 3D position tracking with the help of an inertial sensor and an encoder has been developed. Two types of representations (Euler angle and Quaternion) for orientation and rotation are also introduced, followed by several data pre-processing procedures. A sensing fusion method is utilized to overcome the accumulated errors introduced by the sensor drifting. Considering the application of 3D underground duct mapping in this research, a sensing system …

Indoor-Wireless Location Techniques And Algorithms Utilizing Uhf Rfid And Ble Technologies, Ann M. Whitney

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The work presented herein explores the ability of Ultra High Frequency Radio Frequency (UHF RF) devices, specifically (Radio Frequency Identification) RFID passive tags and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to be used as tools to locate items of interest inside a building. Localization Systems based on these technologies are commercially available, but have failed to be widely adopted due to significant drawbacks in the accuracy and reliability of state of the art systems. It is the goal of this work to address that issue by identifying and potentially improving upon localization algorithms.

The work presented here breaks the process of localization …