Digital Commons Network^™

Enhancing Fishnet For Wireless Network Simulation, Cameron J. Mcclure-Coleman

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This report documents the senior project focused on enhancing the Fishnet network simulation library used in Cal Poly’s CPE 464 (Introduction to Computer Networks) course. The primary goal was to implement features for simulating wireless networks and introducing discrete-event simulation (DES) capabilities to increase computational efficiency. These enhancements aim to better support the curriculum transition as Cal Poly switches from quarters to semesters. The project successfully established foundational components for wireless network simulation, including node positioning in three-dimensional space, signal propagation modeling, multiple interface nodes, and wireless collision domains. While the complete implementation of discrete-event simulation and YAML configuration features …

Open-Source Cubesat Flight Software And Simulation, James Gruber

Computer Engineering

An open-source FreeRTOS-based flight software framework for CubeSats, with an example flight software package and simulation demonstrating real-time attitude control.

2-Axis Solar Panel Tracker, Danica Wong, Oliver Barnaal, Anton Orme

Mechanical Engineering

Solar panels generate energy from sunlight. To do this it’s important that they remain pointed at the sun throughout the day. The Cal Poly Micro Grid Lab runs a class that uses a student made solar panel and tracking mount as an instructional tool. This project is beginning to show signs of wear from outdoor use and is unable to run without constant input due to some significant design flaws. The lab needs a new version of the mount to be made that is significantly more reliable and easier to use.

Low Earth Orbit Drag Sail Degradation Due To Atomic Oxygen And Ultraviolet Radiation, Hannah Rost

Master's Theses

As the orbital debris population increases, so does the risk of collisions with operational spacecraft. In response, the Federal Communications Commission has shortened the deorbit requirement from 25 years to five years. While natural atmospheric decay was sufficient under the previous guideline, many objects with low area to mass ratios can no longer passively comply. Smaller, non-propellant-carrying space objects such as CubeSats lack the ability to maneuver and must rely on alternative deorbit methods. One proposed solution is to deploy a drag sail at end of life to increase atmospheric drag and accelerate orbital decay. However, exposure to atomic oxygen …

In-Situ Defect Detection In Selective Laser Melting Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Ethan Gaigalas

Master's Theses

This thesis develops and trains a convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify defects in metal parts produced by selective laser melting (SLM) using acoustic emission (AE) data. The model successfully identified porosity and standard build layers with high accuracy but consistently struggled to classify lack of fusion (LOF) defects, regardless of input type, normalization, or class count. These results suggest that while AE signals contain distinguishable features for certain defect types, LOF signals may be too subtle or inconsistent for reliable detection. The study addresses the ongoing challenge of in-situ quality monitoring in metal additive manufacturing, where defects like cracks, …

Tuned Liquid Damper Design Using Liquid Sloshing In A Horizontal Cylindrical Tank, Vedant M. Patel

Master's Theses

Vibration isolation is an essential design requirement for several real word applications including industrial machinery, automobiles and building structures. Different techniques of vibration isolation are employed in each of these applications. One such vibration isolator used in tall buildings is known as the Tuned Mass Damper , where a mechanical mass (pendulum, bogey, cylinder) is located at the top portion of the building and is connected to the building through a suspension. This mechanical mass – suspension system is designed to oscillate out of phase with the building in order to dissipate the vibration. Several buildings such as, Taipei 101, …

A Decision Support System For Conference Session Selection Using Natural Language Processing, Tillman E. Erb

Master's Theses

Conference attendees are faced with selecting from hundreds to thousands of presentations and sessions in pursuit of new findings and methods relevant to their area of interest, an overwhelming amount of information from which to clearly make a decision. To address this, we developed a decision support system leveraging natural language processing (NLP) techniques such as semantic matching. By creating and matching embeddings of conference presentation abstracts and titles, the application provides improved query matching compared to keyword searching. We introduce Session Scout, a novel conference decision support system built upon a semantic retrieval framework. Session Scout is designed to …

Density-Based And Model-Based Clustering With Tidyclust In R, Brendan S. Callender

Master's Theses

Clustering is a fundamental technique in unsupervised learning that can be used to find hidden patterns and structures within unlabeled data. The tidyclust package in R provides a unified interface for applying various clustering techniques to data. This paper outlines the addition of density-based clustering with DBSCAN, and model-based clustering using Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) to the tidyclust package. DBSCAN can be performed using the db_clust() function and makes use of the dbscan package implementation as its engine. GMMs can be fit using the gm_clust() function which makes use of the mclust package implementation. This paper highlights the changes made …

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 …

Bandwagon Behavior In Major League Baseball, Daniel E. Erro

Master's Theses

This study investigates “bandwagon” behavior among Major League Baseball (MLB) fans by analyzing Google search interest data from 2004 to 2019. Drawing on publicly available information from Google Trends, the analysis explores how fluctuations in search activity align with team performance during both the regular season and postseason. Hierarchical linear models are used to estimate expected levels of fan interest based on team performance and market characteristics. Deviations from these expectations during the regular season are interpreted as evidence of bandwagon or anti-bandwagon behavior. A drop-off in interest following playoff elimination is also examined to capture shifts in fan attention …

Babies, Babes, And Bayes: Modeling Mother-Infant Feedings With Bayesian Multilevel Hidden Markov Models, Zachary G. Felix

Master's Theses

Understanding the interaction between mother and baby during feeding is critical for the long-term development health of the baby. Overfeeding can lead to later obesity, while underfeeding can lead to malnutrition. In a recent study, the behaviors exhibited by mother-infant dyads across multiple ages of infants have been observed and coded according to the Baby Behaviors when Satiated (BABES) coding scheme. However, creating models using the data obtained from this coding is no simple task since the data coding is continuous, multivariate, and longitudinal in nature. The specific model utilized for these data is a hidden Markov model, since there …

Topiarism: The Kernel Embedding Of Distributions Applied To Modern Portfolio Theory, Stephen G. Cook

Master's Theses

The method of kernel embedding of distributions on a set $\Omega$ into a reproducing kernel Hilbert space is a method of studying the space of measures on a set $\Omega$ using Hilbert space geometry. Because positively weighted portfolios can be interpreted as nonnegative probability measures on the space of assets, we are able to apply this technique to portfolio theory. In this thesis, we discuss the theory of "topiarism", the study of positively weighted probability measures on compact sets under the kernel embedding of distributions. Given a specific payoff function $\psi$ on the set of assets $\Omega$, we optimize a …

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. …

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 …

Electroporation Protocol Development For Cal Poly Cell Therapy Laboratory Courses, Gabrielle Melamed

Biomedical Engineering

Cancer is a heterogeneous disease caused by unchecked cell proliferation. The disease contributed to 9.7 million deaths worldwide in 2022, with hematological malignancies (leukemias, lymphomas, and myelomas) accounting for over 1.4 million deaths in the United States from 1999 to 2020. This thesis focuses on the treatment of these cancers, with an emphasis on non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs). R-CHOP (Rituximab-Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin hydrochloride, Oncovin/Vincristine, and Prednisone) is the standard of care first-line treatment for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most common subtype of NHL, and encompasses a mixture of chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and corticosteroids. The R-CHOP regimen cures 50% to 70% patients, …

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 …

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 …

Drone Package Delivery System, Aiden Tyler Sim, Ryan Anders O'Toole, Matthew Karl Wyant, James Shaw Glanville

Mechanical Engineering

In response to the demands of the 2025 C-UASC (California Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition), our team developed an autonomous drone payload delivery system capable of two distinct delivery modes: a precision-controlled descent and a high-speed aerial drop. Designed for modular integration with UAV platforms, the system prioritizes reliability, accuracy, and simplicity under desert environmental conditions. Our solution features a custom winch mechanism with a programmable stepper motor, a passive mechanical hook for tension-based release, and a servo-actuated trapdoor for high-altitude drops. The design was extensively tested for structural integrity, motor torque requirements, drop precision, and electronics reliability—culminating in a robust …

Uav & Ugv Drone Competition (Raytheon), Christian Michael Freese, Adien Edmond Haro, Ethan Ray Andres, Sam Sakaguchi

Mechanical Engineering

Autonomous vehicles have been starting to address real-world issues through innovative technology. RTX (Raytheon) needs a way to have two autonomous vehicles, an unmanned air vehicle (UAV), and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) reliably communicate with each other with the goal of landing and delivering a payload to designated delivery zones. This will foster creativity, innovation, and team-solving skills. Additionally, it will also promote & strengthen university relationships, evaluate top graduates, and promote corporate branding.

This report details the design process of a UAV-UGV delivery system developed for the RTX Autonomous Vehicle Competition (AVC). The system features a custom-built hexacopter UAV …

Torsional Vibration Kit Simulator (Tks), Joseph Thachet, Luca Lawson, Ryan Ota, Otis Mcloughlin

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of this project was to create torsional vibration on a shaft while limiting axial and radial vibration. To do this an eddy current brake was used to slow down a rotating shaft. The electromagnets used to create the eddy currents are able to be turned on and off at a frequency produced by a function generator. This power cycling of the electromagnets creates an alternating braking force thereby inducing torsional vibration while limiting the other two vibration types

Machine-Checked Proofs For Correctness Guarantees In Containment Architectures, Sophie Russ

Master's Theses

Modern computing systems are increasingly susceptible to attacks at the hardware and software levels. Formal methods offer promising guarantees as to the correctness and security of systems. However, these methods tend to scale poorly and are thus insufficient to protect complex systems. Leveraging minimal amounts of trusted hardware and software to ensure the security of whole systems is a promising approach to gain the benefits of formal methods without having to overcome the scaling problem. TrustGuard realizes this approach: a containment architecture model that requires all outgoing communication from the host computer to be validated by a small, external hardware …

Topodino: Self-Supervised Topological Representation Learning For Neuronal Morphologies, Yasser Binbisher

Master's Theses

Neuronal cell types are categorized by transcriptomic identity, yet their morphological heterogeneity defies this classification. In response, researchers have adopted unsupervised graph representation learning as a tool to reveal morphological variation within single-class transcriptomic types. However, the complex geometry of neuronal morphology—especially long axons and dense dendrites—challenges graph neural networks, which struggle with message propagation across extended structures. To mitigate this, current approaches enforce sub-sampling on neuronal graphs and omit axons entirely, sacrificing critical biological features for computational efficiency. To overcome this trade-off, this thesis introduces TopoDINO, a self-supervised, topology-aware representation learning model designed to preserve the full hierarchical organization …

Exploiting Compiler-Introduced Vulnerabilities In C: A Cross-Compiler And Cross-Architecture Analysis Of Undefined Behavior, Erik Mccutchen

Master's Theses

Compilers are a critical component in generating secure software across engineering disciplines. However, languages like C that permit undefined behavior introduce a fundamental tension between the compiler’s interpretation of undefined behavior and the security of the generated code. This tension can result in security vulnerabilities that, from the programmer's perspective, are ``created'' by the compiler. The widespread use of these languages, combined with the complexity of modern optimizations and limited developer visibility into compiler behavior, makes these vulnerabilities both pervasive and difficult to detect.

Building on prior work, this thesis refines a dataset of C code snippets that exhibit Compiler-Introduced …

Frequent Itemset Mining With Tidyclust In R, Andrew D. Kerr

Master's Theses

Unsupervised learning is closely associated with clustering, however other methods fall under this umbrella such as data mining. In R, the tidyclust package provides a unified interface for clustering models, yet lacks support for data mining. This thesis addresses this gap by introducing the Apriori and ECLAT algorithms into tidyclust, with a focus on frequent itemset mining. Unlike traditional clustering models, frequent itemsets produce groupings of column variables, rather than cluster labels or partitions of observations. To address this, a novel clustering approach is proposed: items (columns) are grouped based on their ”dominant” frequent itemset. A key contribution is a …

Stability Insights From Modeling Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Giovani Thai

Master's Theses

This thesis centers around a model for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) as it behaves under imatinib treatment, a common medication for CML patients, and the anti-leukemia immune response. The dynamics are represented with a system of nonlinear delay-differential equations first constructed by Kim et al. in 2008, capturing population changes of T-cells and various CML growth stages. We investigate stability in both the clinical and mathematical sense. Through numerical simulations, we computationally incorporate a supplementary treatment plan to determine its effectiveness in aiding immune response and medication in achieving remission and full elimination. The primary goal is to conduct a …

Structural Color Pigments For Waterborne Coatings, Kyle William Liston

Master's Theses

Structural colors offer unique alternatives to conventional pigments, utilizing their microstructures to produce vibrant colors. These pigments offer an alternative source for colorants without the need for less environmentally friendly conventional pigments. In keeping with the sustainability approach, the use of waterborne coatings was chosen over solvent-based coatings. Here we report the synthesis of brushite platelet, silica supraball, and inverse opal pigments. Brushite platelets were produced through a condensation reaction, while silica supraballs were synthesized via the Stöber process and assembly was attempted using an oil-in-water emulsion. Inverse opal was produced through the templating of silica on poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) …

Chemical Recycling Of Pet Plastic Waste, Charlie Parker, Benjamin Puga, Jake Verschoor

Materials Engineering

The growing accumulation of plastic waste, specifically polyethylene terephthalate (PET), has driven the need for more efficient and scalable chemical recycling methods. This study investigated the methanolysis of PET using zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles as a catalyst and tetrabutylammonium chloride (NBu₄Cl) as an ionic liquid, aiming to reduce methanol consumption while achieving high PET conversion efficiency. ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized via wet chemistry and characterized using Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), which showed an average particle size of 13.5 nm with a polydispersity index of 0.1556, indicating a moderately-high monodisperse distribution of particles sufficient for reactions. The main conversion product, dimethyl …

Langlands Reciprocity And The Splitting Behavior Of Primes In Number Fields, Skip E. Moses

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the evolution of reciprocity laws in number theory in order to provide a conceptual bridge between the classical ideas of quadratic reciprocity and the modern framework of the Langlands program. We develop the necessary algebraic background to understand how the splitting behavior of primes in number fields reflects deep arithmetic structure in ℚ. Starting with quadratic fields and cyclotomic extensions, we motivate the development of the Kronecker–Weber theorem and the characterization of abelian extensions of ℚ. We then introduce Artin reciprocity and show how it generalizes quadratic reciprocity through the formalism of Frobenius elements and Artin L-functions. …