Digital Commons Network^™

Lora Radio Propagation & Antenna Design For Freight Trains, Cesar Chavez, Marlon Jennson Hernandez

Electrical Engineering

Freight-train environments present significant challenges for wireless communication due to large metallic structures, varying cargo types, and changing antenna orientations that can degrade radio-frequency propagation. This project evaluated the performance of LoRa-based communication links intended for End-of-Train (EOT) and Head-of-Train (HOT) systems operating at 915 MHz. Field testing was conducted to characterize antenna performance using metrics including received signal strength indicator (RSSI), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and communication range. Experimental results showed that antenna polarization and directivity significantly affect communication performance in freight-train environments. Directional antennas provided improved signal strength when properly aligned but experienced performance degradation as antenna orientation changed. …

Cal Poly Mars Rover Battery Management System, Lawrence Nichols, Caleb Michael King, Thomas Anh Khoa To, Angel Soto

Electrical Engineering

The exploration of space has consistently been one of the most expensive endeavors humanities has undertaken in its journey to expand ever further. The PolyRover project aims to not only cheapen that expense through student-based research but also provide a better bang for buck as more unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) can be utilized on planets in concert. In order to do so, the rovers need a robust, yet compact battery management system that can fit within the wheel well. Our system will consist of six commercially-available 18650 batteries in series, organized in a hexagonal fashion around the motor. The BMS …

A Workflow For Automating Geospatial And Data Visualizations For Post-Earthquake Building Damage Data, Alejandra Bravo

Architectural Engineering: Graduate Reports

After major seismic events, reconnaissance efforts of various types are made to gather data. Coarse data can be collected with satellite imagery, mid-scale data can be recorded by capturing thousands of images, and granular data is typically documented manually by humans. Post-earthquake reconnaissance teams can be deployed by universities, research organizations, professional associations, and private firms. Academics, engineers, and students with varying degrees of expertise are tasked with collecting building metadata and damage data, typically in a short period of time. This data can be of various types including numerical (i.e. number of stories, height, etc.), categorical (i.e. damage level, …

Formula Sae Planetary Gearbox Characterization Dynamometer, Trevor Marco Toma, Thomas Welden Pierce, Ethan Liu

Mechanical Engineering

This report outlines a custom hub motor dynamometer requested by the Cal Poly Racing FSAE team. The need for this testing platform is to characterize an existing Formula SAE planetary gearbox for a proposed 4WD powertrain. Hub motors, compact electric machines integrated directly into each outboard wheel, offer significant advantages in efficiency, traction, and chassis packaging compared to conventional RWD drivetrains. By mapping torque capacity, efficiency, lubrication method effectiveness, and fatigue life, the team can validate gearbox design and performance.

This senior project group designed and built a dynamometer according to these specifications which will allow for successful testing to …

Trim-Transfer: A Transfer Learning Approach For Cross-Trim Level Can Intrusion Detection, Baylor J. Whitehead

Master's Theses

Modern vehicles contain many Electronic Control Units (ECUs) that communicate through CAN. While CAN enables efficient data communication, it lacks built in authentication and encryption, allowing adversarial actors to inject malicious CAN messages. This limitation has motivated the development of CAN intrusion detection systems (IDS). However, deploying IDS across a vehicle lineup requires collecting large labeled datasets and retraining models, increasing development cost and limiting scalability.

This thesis investigates the use of transfer learning with LSTM-based deep neural networks to reduce retraining cost while maintaining model detection performance. A baseline LSTM model is trained using CAN data from a base …

A Comparative Study Of Model Predictive Control And The Stanley Method For Vehicle Path Tracking Applications, Noah S. Fitzgerald

Master's Theses

This thesis compares a model predictive controller (MPC) and a lateral Stanley controller for vehicle path-tracking applications under simulation-based and perception-driven operating conditions. Both controllers were evaluated in simulation using a nonlinear dynamic bicycle model executing single and double lane change maneuvers. Following simulation-based evaluation, both controllers were implemented on hardware within a perception-driven steering-control pipeline. This pipeline utilized recorded sensor data from the MXcarkit 1/8^th-scale autonomous vehicle platform, incorporating lane instance segmentation and homography-based roadway estimation.

Under idealized simulation conditions, the MPC demonstrated improved trajectory-tracking performance during aggressive maneuvers while requiring greater steering activity and computational effort …

A Study On Quantization And Hardware Cost Tradeoffs In A 5g Nr Ldpc Decoder On Fpga, Giancarlo Acosta

Master's Theses

The fixed-point implementation of a 5G New Radio LDPC decoder forces a tradeoff between precision and hardware cost, governed by the variable node word length W_L, the check node message width W_R, and the normalized min-sum correction factor α. This thesis characterizes how these three parameters affect both error correction performance and FPGA resource utilization for an LDPC decoder on an established LDPC decoder architecture. A bit-accurate MATLAB core model records bit error rate (BER) and frame error rate (FER) while a verified HDL Coder model generates synthesizable VHDL for Vivado synthesis, and both are swept …

Reproducing And Evaluating Charger Surfing: Robustness Of Smartphone Charging-Line Side-Channels, Colby M. Watts

Master's Theses

Smartphones are frequently connected to external, untrusted charging hardware, creating opportunities for side-channel attacks that do not require malware or direct access to device data. Charger Surfing, a recently proposed charging-line power analysis side-channel attack, reported high accuracy in inferring touchscreen input from voltage measurements collected from a smartphone’s charging cable; however, the reproducibility and robustness of these results under different conditions remain unclear. This thesis presents an independent replication and evaluation of Charger Surfing, including the development of an end-to-end data collection pipeline consisting of a modified charging cable, oscilloscope-based recordings, custom Android app, automated trace processing, and convolutional …

Preserving Structural Alias Information Across The Mlir-To-Llvm Lowering Boundary, Shravan Sheth

Master's Theses

Machine learning training and inference workloads run at massive scale, where the efficiency of generated machine code directly affects throughput and energy consumption. The compilers that lower model specifications to hardware instructions rely on optimization passes that can only exploit information visible in the representations they operate on. MLIR, the intermediate representation framework underlying production machine learning compilers such as IREE and Triton, is designed so that each abstraction level can encode semantics that lower levels cannot represent. One example is memref.subview, which partitions a buffer into typed regions with explicit offsets and sizes, making structural non-overlap provable from the …

Design And Analysis Of A Customizable 6-Dof Force/Torque Sensor, Pyeongkang Kim

Master's Theses

This thesis presents the design, development, calibration, and testing of a novel customizable six-degree-of-freedom force/torque sensor, called the Kustom Force/Torque Sensor (KFTS), for use in the Cal Poly Low Speed Wind Tunnel (LSWT). The KFTS was developed as an alternative to commercial multi-axis force/torque sensors that feature fixed specifications. The swappable components and configurable structure of the KFTS enables changes to the sensor sensitivity, sensing range, and frequency response. Experimental testing verified that the sensor behaved as a linear time-invariant system, enabling calibration through the method of least squares and allowing the applied forces and moments to be reconstructed as …

Praxsmith: An Actor-Centric Domain Specific Language For Emergent Narratives In Video Games, Jacob C. Kelleran

Master's Theses

The video game industry is rapidly growing, and interest in game development is growing alongside it. Among this growing interest is a desire to include branching and emergent narratives in games. This subject is understood to be difficult, as every possible trajectory within the story creates exponential complexity. Large studios are sometimes able to create convincing implementations, but that is often with hundreds of developers and writers. Over the years, various solutions have been proposed to create frameworks and languages that aim to tackle this problem, with varying degrees of success. Some frameworks attempt this by placing the focus on …

Building And Facility Asset Inventory Assessment And Maintenance, Catherine Keathley, Bethany Paris, Jon Wilcoxson

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) manages approximately 1,500 buildings statewide, including facilities such as office buildings, maintenance and equipment garages, and storage sheds. Because managing buildings and properties requires considerable effort, agency decision makers need reliable monitoring and management tools that generate and organize data which can be used to determine the best course of action for facility maintenance and replacement. In addition to assessing the Cabinet’s building inventory, this report advances recommendations to improve the collection, management, and reporting of facility-related data. Assessment of the inventory managed by KYTC included geolocation of all properties and the buildings therein. Once …

Fairlinked: Data Fairification Tools For Materials Data Science, Van D. Tran, Brandon Lee, Ritika Lamba, Henry Dirks, Quynh D. Tran, Balashanmuga Priyan Rajamohan, Ozan Dernek, Laura S. Bruckman, Yinghui Wu, Erika I. Barcelos, Roger H. French

Student Scholarship

FAIRLinked is a software package created to support the FAIRification of materials science data, ensuring proper alignment with FAIR principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. It is built to be compatible with MDS-Onto, an ontology designed to capture the semantics of various types of materials data, enabling integration and sharing across different research workflows. The package is subdivided into three subpackages: InterfaceMDS, RDFTableConversion, and QBWorkflow. The first subpackage, InterfaceMDS allows users to search for terms using either string search or various filters, explore different domains and subdomains, and add terms to MDS-Onto. RDFTableConversion is used for serialization and deserialization of …

Kytc Crash Modification Factor Recommendation List Online Tool, William Staats, Reginald Souleyrette, Teng Alex Wang, Mohammad Zana Majidi

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Transportation practitioners use crash modification factors/functions (CMFs) to calculate the number of crashes expected once a countermeasure has been implemented. When evaluating design alternatives, CMFs can be used in conjunction with safety performance functions (SPFs) to derive crash predictions. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) maintains the CMF Clearinghouse as a repository for CMFs. Contributions are submitted by researchers across the U.S., Canada, and throughout the world. Typically, individual countermeasures are associated with multiple CMFs. Some CMFs only apply to a specific facility or crash types. CMF quality varies, and some only apply to a specific facility and/or crash types, regions, …

Me3329 Modular Phonograph Gearbox, Garrett Andrik Leighton, Preston Robert Hupe, Gavin Carter Ebner, Andrew Renato Reyes

Mechanical Engineering

The Mechanical Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), seeks to develop a laboratory tool allowing students to reinforce concepts of gears for Mechanical Systems Design (ME329). Some current laboratories do not provide students with hands-on interaction, and the department lacks equipment and documentation to support a standardized lab. With ME329 expanding from ten to fifteen weeks, there is an opportunity to create a physical gearbox design lab allowing students to reinforce lecture material in engaging ways, while standardizing student learning. This senior project is presented and sponsored by Professor Alan Zhang. It will be …

Western Kentucky University Stormwater Utility Survey 2026, Warren Campbell

SEAS Faculty Publications

In the U.S., more than 2200 stormwater utilities have been enacted. This year, we have expanded the survey to include stormwater utilities in other countries. Many of these stormwater assessments are called taxes, but if the assessment is recurring, is not an ad valorem tax, and is dedicated to stormwater purposes, we call it a stormwater utility. With the help of ChatGPT we have been able to identify 25 stormwater fees in Australia. We were also able to identify 3 in New Zealand, and some in Europe as well.

Matlab Shake Table Control And Data Acquisition System, Abigail Austin

Architectural Engineering

The College of Architecture and Environmental Design’s (CAED) seismic laboratory shake table is used for earthquake engineering education and experimental testing. However, the existing control system is outdated and difficult for students unfamiliar with the system to operate. The objective of this project was to develop a MATLAB-based control and data acquisition application to simplify shake table operation and improve accessibility, of both operation and output, for student users.

The developed application imports earthquake acceleration records, scales the input motions to the operational limits of the shake table, and executes the desires motion through the existing hardware system. Experimental data …

Development Of Kytc’S Context Classification Network, Jill Asher, Megan White, Eric Green, Christopher Van Dyke

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Transportation agencies have adopted context-based classification systems that classify roadways based on the surrounding environment and user types. This offers a more comprehensive and multimodal perspective than traditional functional classification. While the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) has begun using project-level context classification, the agency will benefit from introducing network-level context classification. This will improve guidance, enhance project prioritization, and support the development of projects that better address the needs of all users. Responding to this need, Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers, in conjunction with KYTC staff, created a GIS-based model to build a context classification network that covers all state-maintained …

Develop & Test Radar Assignments For Future Graduate Curriculum, Thomas Ky Hong, Christopher William Hoferer

Electrical Engineering

With Cal Poly’s switch to semesters, many upper-level electives lack enough depth and structured content for the new 15-week format. In addition, while the Electrical Engineering department currently offers approximately five weeks of RADAR-focused laboratory material within EE 424: Intro to Remote Sensing, this limited exposure is insufficient to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of RADAR theory and practical applications. The semester conversion presents a timely opportunity to expand this existing five-week RADAR segment into a full 15-week course that integrates both lecture and laboratory content. To address the current curriculum gap, we have seamlessly extended the RADAR exercises …

Vision-Guided Motion Planning For Autonomous Catch With A Robotic Arm, Kayla Go-Oco, Ashik K. Islam, Raegan Gritzmacher

Electrical Engineering

Modern robotic systems are often evaluated using static and highly controlled tasks, such as pick-and-place demonstrations, which do not fully represent the uncertainty and adaptability required in real-world environments. A major challenge in robotics research is enabling robotic systems to perceive, track, and respond to dynamic objects in real time while maintaining accurate and reliable motion control. This project addresses these challenges by developing an autonomous robotic platform in which an OpenMANIPULATOR-Y robotic arm detects, tracks, and attempts to catch a moving tennis ball using a vision-guided control system. The system integrates YOLO-based object detection with an Intel RealSense D455 …

Teaching Learning Newsletter Vol 6 Issue 1, Sastra Deemed To Be University

TLC Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Data Analysis Study Of Temperature Based On California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (Calcofi) Data., Afsana Mimi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research presents an integrated analytical framework for predicting ocean temperatures using long-term observations from the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) data files. The study applies advanced data engineering and statistical modeling to assess how a variety of indicators, such as salinity, dissolved oxygen, key nutrients, and ocean depth shape oceanic temperature patterns along the California coastline. Using Microsoft SQL Server software for large-scale data integration and the R for statistical packages (R Core Team, 2025) for statistical computation, I developed and compared multiple regression models, including the ridge regression model, to evaluate the relative influence of physical and …

Low-Cost Path-Loss Characterization For Underground Mine Tunnels Using Lora Transceivers At 915 Mhz, Hilary Kelechi Anabi, Samuel Frimpong, Muhammad Azeem Raza

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Accurate path-loss models are essential for planning reliable wireless networks in underground mines, yet existing characterization studies rely on specialized channel sounders and vector network analyzers costing tens of thousands of dollars, placing them beyond the reach of most mine operators. This paper demonstrates that LoRa transceivers costing approximately US $15 per node can serve as a self-contained path-loss measurement instrument, logging the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) directly to a CSV file over a standard USB serial connection. A measurement campaign conducted at the Missouri S&T Experimental Mine on 31 March 2026 collected 4801 packets …

Thermodynamic Modeling Of Ph Impacts On Subsurface Microbial Consortia, Jackfin K C

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Underground hydrogen storage is affected by microbial consumption, and the different minerals present in the subsurface. However, most studies consider either biotic or abiotic factors in isolation and hence, the conditions that drive a self-sustaining storage remain poorly understood. This thesis uses a genome-informed thermodynamic model developed by Kharel et al. (2026) in which pH is the central variable coupling hydrogenotrophic microbial metabolism, inter-species competition, and carbonate mineral buffering. The model includes four hydrogen-consuming species: methanogen (Methanobacterium), acetogen (Acetoanaerobium), aerobic acetate oxidizer (Pseudomonas stutzeri), and sulfate reducer (Nitratidesulfovibrio) by conditioning each organism's …

Robotic-Assisted Pedicle Screw Placement Achieves High Accuracy And Narrows The Experience Gap: A Preclinical Evaluation, Anna T. Reza, Matthias Walper, Mitchell K. Ng, Paul G. Mastrokostas, Andrew S. Lee, Rafael G. Rafael, Kornelis A. Poelstra, Ratliff K. John, Rajiv K. Sethi, Michael A. Mont

Rothman Institute Papers

To assess a robotic-assisted system versus open manual techniques to: (1) compare pedicle screw accuracy between fellows and attendings with and without robotic assistance, and (2) evaluate executed versus planned trajectory fidelity relative to prior reports. Robotic-assisted spine systems aim to improve the accuracy, reproducibility, and safety of pedicle screw placement. Limited evidence compares outcomes across differing surgeon experience levels. A total of 255 thoracolumbar pedicle screws were placed in synthetic torsos simulating adult degenerative anatomy. Four surgeons (two fellows, two attendings) each placed half their screws using open fluoroscopy-guided techniques and half using a minimally invasive percutaneous approach with …

Compressor Rotor Joints And Interference Fit Study, Isabela Jimenez, Aubrey Perez, Isaiah Guerrero, Jireh Velasquez

Mechanical Engineering

Solar Turbines need a comprehensive study on the effects axial and radial inference fits have on turbine compressor rotor stiffness. The aft weldment of the compressor has press-fit dowel pins and pilot joints to connect one weldment section to another. These fits need to be assessed through a finite element modal analysis, as well as practically tested through modal impacts to investigate how the fits affect the stiffness of the turbine’s connected weldments. The experimental data will be used to validate the finite element analysis (FEA) model.

Raytheon Rtx Autonomous Vehicle Competition (Avc) - Unmanned Ground Vehicle (Ugv), Bryant Jonathan Martinez-Bautista, Geovanni Lara, Jared Herrera, Jose Barrera

Mechanical Engineering

Raytheon RTX has four universities participating in a competition to successfully complete various challenges with a UAV and UGV including navigation and landing. The students must work collaboratively to integrate and manufacture a working UGV that is compatible with the UAV.

Our sponsor is Raytheon, more specifically Mr. Luis Esparza. Important stakeholders also include Cal Poly and the entire team of ME & CPE working on the project. Raytheon and Luis are looking for innovative solutions that can be applied for real world scenarios where UAV’s and UGV’s are applied. Cal Poly is gaining recognition, and the team is gaining …

Buell Motorcycle Extended Swing Arm, Joseph Camuccio, Riley Clark, Vincent Sclimenti, Tristan Turcios

Mechanical Engineering

Buell motorcycle riders, including our sponsor Rick Lasko, need a way to easily and affordably manufacture and replace their swing arms with extended versions (4”, 8”, 12”, and 16”) that maintain the stock Buell aesthetic while also meeting the safety standards required for performance-intensive applications, such as drag racing. Each extended swing arm must be just as safe, strong, and rigid as the original swing arm. Currently, there is no convenient and affordable solution to this problem, which is why our sponsor, Rick Lasko, wanted a validated, repeatable manufacturing process and design that would allow riders to safely and consistently …

Guitar Pickup Testing Fixture, Koen Graue, Ethan Rezentes, Max Schecter, Timothy Webb

Mechanical Engineering

Small guitar pickup manufacturers and hobbyists have an interest in developing guitar pickups with unique tonal characteristics and responses, but currently lack a reliable way to test these pickups and characterize their sound. I.M. Bohannon Mechanical Design approached the team to develop a solution to this problem. In response, the team researched current technologies, customer needs, and existing products on the market to define the scope and requirements for a guitar pickup testing fixture. This report documents the work completed during the project scope and definition phase of Cal Poly's senior project process. It discusses researched topics and existing solutions, …

Xylem: A Comparative Analysis Of Gpu Dispatch Pipelines For Large-Scale, Procedural Environments, Srinivas Sundararaman

Master's Theses

The real-time rendering of large-scale, procedural scenes presents a significant performance challenge for traditional CPU-bound rendering pipelines. The high volume of draw calls and the need for complex culling and level-of-detail management create bottlenecks that limit scene complexity and visual fidelity. This thesis investigates the evolution of GPU-driven rendering paradigms via the Xylem renderer within NVIDIA’s Donut rendering framework as a solution to these challenges.

A comprehensive benchmarking framework is developed to implement and quantitatively analyze three distinct rendering strategies for a procedurally generated, parameterizable, large-scale forest scene. The evaluated pipelines include: (1) traditional instanced rendering, (2) compute-driven indirect rendering …