Digital Commons Network^™

Open Source Microgrid Integration, Zachary J. Kwast

Master's Theses

Microgrids are small-scale electrical systems that operate in tandem with a centralized grid to provide power to a smaller group of target devices. These microgrids are used for a wide range of different purposes, which invites the need for a generalized model that can be tweaked for a variety of uses. This document goes over the theory used to design an open source AC and DC microgrid meant for use by anyone. The microgrid is created using a Raspberry Pi that controls two different power converters so that a wide range of voltage and current characteristics can be achieved. These …

Statistical Investigations Of Strategies In The Game Ecosystem, Dylan Li

Master's Theses

This work provides a probability-based analysis of strategies in the board game Ecosystem. Ecosystem is a turn-based multiplayer tiling game, where players take turns picking a wildlife card from a limited pool of cards then placing that card on their personal 4x5 grid. The objective of the game is to place the wildlife cards to maximize your score, as each card’s scoring condition depends on the presence or absence of certain cards surrounding it. The goal of this project is to determine optimal strategies for tiling your grid using techniques such as simulation to find optimal grid arrangements and clustering …

When Trees Disappear: Understory Successional Implications Of Sudden Oak Death And High-Severity Wildfire In Big Sur, California, Sam J. Balthazard

Master's Theses

The rapidly emerging disease sudden oak death, caused by the non-native pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, is transforming coastal California forests by driving extensive mortality of tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) and increasing fire severity. As a novel disturbance, sudden oak death and its interaction with wildfire may catalyze unexpected shifts in successional trajectories and reconfigure forest understory communities. Furthermore, how tanoak influences the forest understory and how its decline might reshape understory dynamics remain poorly understood. We hypothesize that disease alone and the compounding disturbances of disease and wildfire alter successional dynamics, and that the potential functional extinction of N. …

Eeri 2024: Seattle Solstice, Elizabeth P. Splees

Architectural Engineering

This senior project documents the design, analysis, construction, and testing of Seattle Solstice, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s entry to the 2024 EERI Seismic Design Competition. Developed through ARCE 453, the interdisciplinary effort involved architectural, structural, and geotechnical coordination in response to a fictional client brief set in downtown Seattle. The team designed a five-foot-tall balsa wood tower with a shifting vertical massing, integrating sustainability features and public use spaces while addressing seismic challenges such as center of mass vs. rigidity alignment, overturning risk, and off-grid load paths. The structure was modeled using ETABS and evaluated using both numerical …

Prepare Lora Physical Layer For Testing In Low Earth Orbit On A Cubesat, Sammy Brunton

Electrical Engineering

This project is a collaboration with OWL Integrations, a company that specializes in adaptable, low-cost communication systems. OWL has developed a board specifically designed for space applications called the Space Quacker Advanced Development (SQuAD), which is an adaptation of their existing board called the Quaker Advanced Development (QUAD).

This project focuses on testing the existing SQuAD board design to make sure that it is flight-ready for deployment on Cal Poly CubeSat’s satellite, SAL-E. To achieve this, the project must ensure compatibility with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) conditions by testing the integrated high-power long-range (LoRa) receiver and enhanced hardware to meet …

2024 – 2025 Cal Poly Wind Power Ac-Dc Rectification Subsystem For Collegiate Wind Competition 2025, Ryan Rayos, Annabella Piercey, Alex Liu

Electrical Engineering

This project focuses on the design and development of a bidirectional AC-DC rectification subsystem for a wind energy conversion system (WECS), tailored for the 2025 Collegiate Wind Competition. The subsystem is defined by its core inputs and outputs where it receives AC power from the wind turbine generator and delivers stable DC power to auxiliary electronics and variable loads. Conversely, the system can also accept DC power, such as from wall power, and output AC power to drive the permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) as a motor, overcoming cogging torque and initiating turbine blade rotation. This bidirectional functionality is enabled …

Expeditionary Ocean Power Generator, Ethan Gossard, Julian Steele, Alex Gray, Hunter Herring-Alderete

Electrical Engineering

Point Absorber Wave Energy Converters are currently being explored as a new form of energy harvesting. The Naval Facilities' Expeditionary Ocean Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC) has commissioned an interdisciplinary project for students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, to design a prototype Expeditionary Ocean Power Generator (ExOPG) for charging batteries in the ocean.

The Mechanical Engineering team is responsible for assembling the prototype chassis, which converts the vertical bobbing motion of a buoy into kinetic rotational energy that can be used to rotate a generator shaft. They are additionally tasked with isolating the electrical components from the harsh …

The Gauge/Gravity Holographic Duality Between String Theory And Quantum Field Theory: A Full Introduction, Alex A. Short

Physics

The Anti-deSitter Spacetime / Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence is a well known holographic duality between ten dimensional superstring theories and conformal quantum field theories. The existence of such a correspondence is fascinating and the duality provides a powerful tool-set for working out problems in both string theory and quantum field theory. The correspondence defines a dictionary of terms that exist dual to one another in each theory, allowing theorists to understand the dynamics in one system based on quantities from another. Furthermore, when one side of the duality has strong coupling (meaning the approximations of perturbation theory are no …

Biofeedback For Upper Limb Bionics, Arissa Anaya, Adam Moger, Connor Bly, Theodore R. Hughes

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of this document was to present a senior design project from Cal Poly sponsored by Matt Robinson at the Hanger Clinic in San Luis Obispo to provide biofeedback for users of upper limb protheses. This project focuses on individuals with trans-radial upper limb amputations, including patients with congenital limb deficiencies who use trans-radial prosthesis, who receive very little or no sensory feedback from their prosthetic device. This sensory feedback device was intended to be used as a training tool with a myo-electric hand-like upper limb prosthesis in a clinical setting. This document provides an overview of the different …

Simulated Live Studio Audience, Theodore David Shellenberger

Computer Engineering

The Simulated Live Studio Audience is a Python based application that utilizes Vosk, Roboflow, and Llama 3.2 to provide a user with auditory feedback based upon both visual and audible input from their device's microphone and camera. This system functions with a custom trained computer vision model to detect a specified object and when individuals walk in and out of the camera frame, outputting sitcom style simulated crowd reaction sounds accordingly. The simulated studio audience program also takes in vocal input from users, converts it to text, and, using a large language model, analyzes it for content that can be …

High-Frequency Current And Voltage Sensing Buck Converter Compatible With Model Predictive Control, Cathy G. Chen, Lani K. Nguyen

Electrical Engineering

This paper presents the design and implementation of a high-frequency buck converter operating at 1 MHz, integrated with voltage and current sensing capabilities for enhanced output regulation. The primary objective is to minimize transient dips in output voltage commonly observed during load disturbances or switching events. The converter design is intended to be compatible with a Digitally Assisted Analog Computing Circuit (DAACC) for real-time model predictive control (MPC), which leverages fast analog elements with programmable digital components to solve a penalty-based reformulation of the quadratic optimization problem underlying conventional MPC.

Single-Sided Hearing Assistance Application, Harryson Nguyen, Jp Haratani

Electrical Engineering

The product is a hearing assistance smartphone application which aims to improve the quality of life of people with single-sided hearing loss/deafness by providing them with a cheaper and more reliable alternative to medically-prescribed hearing aids. Due to development setbacks, the product instead uses open-ear earbuds. Since the earbuds are not directly inserted into the user’s ear canals, they will not obstruct the hearing of the user’s non-deaf ear, and the user will still be able to hear the sounds that come from their non-deaf side. Some users may find that Bluetooth earbuds can be quite expensive, but are ultimately …

Wireless Communication In Autonomous Vehicles, Ethan Paul Spalard, Alan Rubalcava, Jarnail Singh Sanghera

Electrical Engineering

This project focuses on building a realistic, standards based V2X communication platform using DSRC (IEEE 802.11p) to support future autonomous vehicle control research. The system is built around commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, specifically the NXP i.MX 8XLite – V2X Evaluation Kit, which integrates an automotive-grade processor and the SAF5400 V2X modem to handle low-level DSRC transmission in the 5.9 GHz band.

We successfully completed the hardware bring-up, verified over-the-air communication between two nodes, and performed initial RF characterization using a spectrum analyzer. The SAF5400 was confirmed to operate on all seven DSRC channels (172–184), maintaining the correct 10 MHz bandwidth …

Piezoelectric Actuator Driver System, Daniel Hoefer

Electrical Engineering

This work presents the design, fabrication, and testing of a high-voltage piezoelectric actuator driver system purposed for integration into defense and aerospace precision motion control applications, particularly those in laser optics. The core challenge addressed was the mismatch between the standardized 28V DC power bus used in military systems and the significantly higher voltage requirements of piezoelectric actuators. Existing commercial drivers were evaluated and found unsuitable for field deployment due to inadequate ruggedness, excessive complexity, or power limitations. Consequently, a modular system architecture was designed featuring four independent driver channels, each using a high-voltage, high-current linear amplifier topology to scale …

Direction Finding From Aerial Platforms With Amateur Radio Arrays, Ben Duval Iii, Esteban Perez

Electrical Engineering

This senior project presents the development of a communication network designed to remotely control and program a distributed digital antenna array for autonomous synchronization and calibration. The system facilitates command transmission using a custom BPSK communication protocol operating in the UHF band (430–450 MHz) and employs a two-tone waveform to extract frequency, phase, and timing offsets between array nodes. These offsets are critical for aligning received signals in preparation for digital beamforming. The array comprises four nodes: three aerial units and one ground-based control unit. Each node is built using a LimeSDR Mini 2.0, Raspberry Pi, portable battery pack, and …

Mesh-Networked Uav Swarm: Experimental Leader-Follower Formation Control, Toma Grundler, Jack Ryan

Electrical Engineering

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have demonstrated significant potential for multi-agent coordination applications, yet reliable formation control algorithms remain challenging to implement in real-world environments. This report presents the design, simulation, and hardware implementation of four leader-follower formation control strategies for UAV swarms. The implemented algorithms include a semi-rigid PI controller based on forward and lateral distance error, a hybrid PID controller utilizing mixed error signals with velocity and position feedback, a simplified velocity-based PID controller operating on individual coordinate components, and a GPS offset controller with direct positional control. MATLAB simulation validated controller performance in four different …

Framework For Multi-Agent Coordination And Distributed Localization In Micro-Uavs, Minwoo Park, Nikolas Tambornini

Electrical Engineering

Micro-UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) due to their inexpensive nature and compact form factor have shown an increase in prevalence throughout a multitude of applications including, but not limited to: search and rescue, military reconnaissance, and agriculture monitoring. However, for a majority of these high impact applications, a swarm of micro-UAVs are required and furthermore mandate that they are able to cooperatively and autonomously coordinate with each other. For long, controlling and communicating between a user and a singular micro-UAV has been a well known and solved problem, however the same can't be said for swarms of micro-UAVs. This project seeks …

Marine Energy Collegiate Competition - Polywave Energy, Beneda Loya, Isaiah Martinez, Emily Nicoletta, Michael Weber

Electrical Engineering

This document is the final Electrical Engineering senior project report for Cal Poly’s 2025 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC) team. The goal of this project is to build and test a wave-energy converter designed to address the need for sustainable power generation for remote coastal community microgrids. These existing systems often rely on costly, fossil-fuel generators, creating both logistical and environmental challenges. Our device aims to provide a renewable, low-maintenance solution that can operate reliably in offshore environments and serve commercial or research applications. The goal of the electrical engineering team was to develop a system that can convert rotational …

Synthetic Aperture Radar Processing For Increased Resolution Of Englacial Strata, Ava Stockman

Electrical Engineering

Glaciological research relies on a variety of remote-sensing methods to study the internal structure of glaciers and other bodies of ice. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) serves as one method for imaging large cross sections of englacial strata, reducing the need for labor-intensive, costly, and hazardous ice coring expeditions and operations. Characterizing englacial structures using SAR images allows scientists to learn about the ice dynamics of past and present which provides the basis for discoveries about climate history and glacial dynamics. This project explores the benefits of employing various SAR processing methods to raw phase history data acquired through the British …

Digital Drone Arrays: Two-Tone Communication, Armin Behbahani, Alejandro Martin Cosper, Landon Leroy John Foster, Mont Ziadoon Murad

Electrical Engineering

Over the last few years, there has been great interest in distributed antenna arrays. These arrays require each element to be precisely located and synchronized with each other in time, phase, and frequency. To this end, a drone-mounted, two-tone communication system was developed. It uses a transmit-retransmit-receive architecture, which obtains all of the necessary data required to compute and correct the phase, frequency, and time differences between each element while estimating distance. When integrated into a distributed array of drones, this two-tone communication system will be essential for reliable operation.

Test Equipment Automation And Remote Operation Curriculum Senior Project, Raheel Rehmatullah

Electrical Engineering

The goal of this project is to create new lab procedures and lab bench permutations for Cal Poly EE students to implement automated Test and Measurement equipment into their electrical engineering education. Currently EE students at Cal Poly have no classroom based opportunities to learn about leveraging software skills and test equipment knowledge in order to automate measurements, which is a valuable skill for an electrical engineer in the workforce. The curriculum outlined in this project will include three experiments, each leveraging an instrument controller, and Python as the primary scripting language. Each procedure will require students to write Python …

Autonomous Mapping Rover, Garrett Jones, Timothy Kyle Chu, Eugenio Caruso Pasos

Electrical Engineering

This report details the design, implementation, and evaluation of "Rovero," an autonomous mapping rover developed as a senior project. Rovero integrates state-of-the-art technologies, including ROS2 for communication, SLAM algorithms for mapping, and sensor fusion for accurate navigation. The project aimed to achieve robust autonomous operation in indoor environments, leveraging a combination of LiDAR, IMU, and encoder data for real-time decision-making. Key challenges addressed include path planning, obstacle avoidance, and integration of multiple sensor inputs. Results demonstrate successful mapping capabilities and efficient navigation performance.

An Analysis Of The Power Consumption Of Various Computer Vision Machine Learning Techniques On A Microcontroller Utilizing The Clusterduck Protocol, Kaveh Shafiei

Electrical Engineering

Constant data processing is essential for effective data collection, particularly in remote and hard-to-reach areas. The need for efficient, autonomous data acquisition and transmission is increasingly addressed by integrating machine learning within larger communication networks. This paper explores the application of machine learning techniques with Internet of Things (IoT) mesh networks. Utilizing the LoRa communication protocol, data is captured and analyzed on an edge device and transmitted to a larger communication network. The ClusterDuck Protocol (CDP), developed by OWL Integrations, serves as an IoT mesh network designed to allow for communication in areas lacking traditional static infrastructure such as WiFi …

Leader-Follower Platooning With Turtlebot3: A Low-Cost Ros Test-Bed Using Vision-Lidar Fusion, Patrick Kelly Crandall, Kalon Ma Bienz

Electrical Engineering

This report presents the design, implementation, and indoor validation of a two-robot leader–follower platoon built on low-cost Turtlebot3 platforms. Each robot runs ROS Noetic on an on-board Raspberry Pi 4, fusing a fisheye camera for HSV-based lane detection with an LDS-02 LiDAR for clustering-based leader identification. A dual-loop architecture (PD steering for lateral control and PID for longitudinal gap regulation) maintains a 0.40m headway and keeps the follower centered within +/- 5 cm of the lane midline, without any inter-vehicle communication or external localization. Track experiments at speeds up to 0.18m/s achieved mean gap error of +/- 3 cm and …

Advanced Light Dimming Power Converter, Jaden Nguyen, Edwin Lin, Alan Thai

Electrical Engineering

This senior project discusses and follows the development of the Advanced Light Dimming Power Converter meant to modernize the power electronics curriculum and improve student safety for a lab. The power converter attempts to replace the original experiment which includes a traditional TRIAC-based dimmer and focuses on demonstrating phase angle control for incandescent light bulbs. However, several drawbacks including high-voltage exposure and outdated technology warranted a revamp. The redesigned module includes a dual-experiment setup with an updated TRIAC-based dimmer circuit and a new AC-DC LED driver circuit with constant current control and PWM dimming capability. Both systems have been fabricated …

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez: Breaking Barriers In Tejano Music And Shaping Mexican-American Identity, Fatima Hernandez-Barajas

World Languages and Cultures

This project will focus on how Selena Quintanilla-Perez broke barriers in Tejano music for women and became a cultural icon representing the aspirations of the American Dream for the Mexican American community. The paper begins with a summary of Selena’s life and accomplishments, followed by an examination of the history of Tejano music, the role of women within the genre, Selena’s unique relationship with it, and how she embodies the pursuit of the American Dream while representing the Mexican-American identity within the community. Through this analysis, the project highlights how Selena’s success challenged traditional gender roles and bridged bicultural identities, …

Power Transmission System Demo, Jeremy Aiken, Shannon Robinson, Graham Dzengelewski

Mechanical Engineering

Professor Ramanan Sritharan and ME 329 students need a high-quality Power Transmission System, a detailed report, and robust Excel spreadsheet including all calculations that can serve as an example for students in the ME 329 lab.

Foot Pedal Assistive Device, Julian Rubinstein, Connor Jessen, Isabelle Utsler, Sydney Alexander

Mechanical Engineering

Individuals with lower-limb mobility problems may have trouble accurately locating the pedals of a three-pedal manual transmission car, and some medical conditions cause individuals to fatigue more quickly when driving. This project aimed to create a device that assists in locating the user’s feet, indicates to the user which pedals are currently in use, and provides a visual and physical warning if they are not in the correct place. The project sponsor, Alan Keizer, is the primary stakeholder in this project. This device will be designed specifically for Alan’s Subaru BRZ and will address Alan’s specific lower-limb mobility issues that …

Van Accessibility, Ann Larson, Camelia Anne Noureddine, Stephanie Rose Ruzicka, Kayla Joanne Gowey

Mechanical Engineering

The SLO Achievement House provides resources and activities for their clients, including daily trips to different parts of the community, to keep their clients connected to society. These trips require the clients, many of whom struggle with general mobility and strength, to step up to the high entrance of a van or company car. This daily activity poses a challenge both physically and emotionally for the clients. The current solution utilizes commercially available step stools, which lack handrails, overall stability, and adequate step depth. The Achievement House needs a stool or ramp tailored to their client’s needs and their specific …

7lr-C Upper Limb Dancing Prosthetic, Victor Ochoa, Zoe Kelemen, Ged Mulingtapang, Marley Paltiel

Mechanical Engineering

Ella Wallis, a student at Cal Poly and performer in the Cal Poly Drag Club with a trans humeral upper limb difference, wants a prosthetic device that allows for a large range of motion and high degree of articulation to help them better dance in the style of voguing, allowing them to express themselves further while performing. The prosthetic arm is body-driven and relies on momentum to reposition. It attaches to the user through a harness, which is clipped to a socket with elastic straps to not impede the shoulder’s range of motion. The design contains urethane resin, aluminum, stainless …