Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of Camera Configurations And Depth Estimation Algorithms For Triple-Camera Computer Vision Systems, Jared Peter-Contesse

Master's Theses

The ability to accurately map and localize relevant objects surrounding a vehicle is an important task for autonomous vehicle systems. Currently, many of the environmental mapping approaches rely on the expensive LiDAR sensor. Researchers have been attempting to transition to cheaper sensors like the camera, but so far, the mapping accuracy of single-camera and dual-camera systems has not matched the accuracy of LiDAR systems. This thesis examines depth estimation algorithms and camera configurations of a triple-camera system to determine if sensor data from an additional perspective will improve the accuracy of camera-based systems. Using a synthetic dataset, the performance of …

Printed Circuit Board Design And Layout For Hobbyists, Engineers, And Students, Michael A. Derrenbacher

Master's Theses

Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are a ubiquitous element of virtually every electronic system manufactured world-wide. It is not a stretch of the imagination to say that if it’s electronic, there is a PCB in it. PCBs are necessary tools for electronics work, and tools need to have instructions. For better or worse, PCB knowledge is a deep and wide ocean. There is much to cover for even a surface level understanding, and there are deep areas rich in technical expertise. Navigating the ocean of knowledge is treacherous; common knowledge of yore can be downright dubious now. PCB manufacturing and electronics …

Emsee, Jaclyn G. Napoli

Graphic Communication

To create an application that achieves safety on the road for first responders and bystanders through the use of location in GPS navigation and volume control. This app would signal smart phone devices in surrounding cars to limit distractions by objectively decreasing their vehicle audio so the public is alert of the first responders driving to their destination. There is a short amount of time to process where the emergency vehicle is once you see lights or hear sirens. However, if one or both of these senses are impaired by distractions of the bystander, this could result in danger of …

Plasma-Laser Wakefield Acceleration, Jonathan Babu

Physics

Many texts detailing the derivations and science of Wakefield Acceleration are aimed at graduate and doctorate level scholars, and these may seem intimidating to new physics students. This paper is meant to be an introduction to the nature of plasmas, lasers, laser-plasma interactions, and Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA), with sources given where extra detail may be required. I recognize that this paper is not meant to be an all-encompassing review on the nature of the topics, as these topics are complex and subject of entire textbooks. Instead, I aim to provide an introduction to these topics to a college-level scholar …

Modeling Cherenkov Light Detection Timing For The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System, Keilan Finn Ramirez

Physics

The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) is an array of four 12-meter telescopes which use the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique to conduct high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. VERITAS detects magnitude and location information associated with Cherenkov light, and uses this information to indirectly observe gamma-rays through a software reconstruction process. VERITAS also records timing information corresponding to Cherenkov light detection, and this additional information could theoretically be incorporated into the reconstruction process to improve the accuracy of gamma-ray observations. The first step to including timing information is to understand when Cherenkov light detection would be expected from a known …

Swarming Oscillators With Time-Delayed Interactions, Nicholas S. Blum

Physics

We investigate the role of delay in the collective dynamics of particles that swarm in space and possess an internal oscillatory degree of freedom, called swarmalators. Swarmalators were introduced recently by O’Keeffe, Hong, and Strogatz in Nature Communications 8, 1504 (2017). The addition of a time delay into the system of swarmalators was motivated by the biology of early embryonic development. This delay leads to a rich phenomenology, which includes two new collective states, which we call "semi-static crystal" and "boiling". In the semi-static crystal state, all particles in a cluster undergo decaying radial oscillations completely in phase with one …

Automated Design And Manufacturing Of Lowpass Filters, Evan W. Johnson

Master's Theses

Modern communications, radar, and other high frequency systems all include filters in their designs. Designers frequently benefit from custom filters with cutoff frequencies or other specifications not readily available in off-the-shelf products. Obtaining a custom filter from a filter manufacturer is typically expensive and time consuming. Each new design requires new engineering and tuning to obtain the desired performance.

This thesis proposes an industry-first automatic design and manufacturing process for stepped impedance low pass filters that eliminates the costly engineering and tuning used by legacy filter manufacturers, enabling low-cost, rapid turn around of custom filter designs. We develop custom modeling …

Procedural Plant Generation With Floragen, Christopher Wesley Wright

Computer Engineering

A particularly challenging aspect of game design revolves around asset creation. Often new developers become lost in nuances and time investment required to learn 3d asset creation software. While many game development platforms provide an internal asset store, these assets are often expensive or limited. These assets restrict the flexibility for a creator to fully control the product they create. A critical asset type in many games is flora. Good looking trees and plants add environmental variation when added properly. In this project, I designed and implemented an add-on dubbed FloraGen to the 3D modeling software Blender in which users …

Chess Piece Detection, Craig Reid Belshe

Electrical Engineering

This project determines the positions of each piece on a physical chessboard, so that a computer can record a game of chess by noting down the piece positions at the end of each turn. It determines each move so that the game can be replayed later without watching actual footage. The project allows for easy viewing of past games. An image of the chessboard is analyzed to detect each square on the board, and each piece's location. This is then done for each turn, so that the system can keep track of an entire game.

Ac/Dc Led Light Bulb Adaptor With Internal Rechargeable Batteries, Esteban A. Rubio, Matthew R. Delaby

Electrical Engineering

To make a sustainable product and provide a temporary source of lights on during emergencies, this project aims to create a small unit that can be attached to a light bulb of any variety and connect it to a socket. Within the device is a rechargeable battery that, when the device is not connected to an 120V AC, 240V AC, or 48V DC power source, will power the light for a short period of time. The battery can be charged during the standard operation of the device and can be powered by the US and EU standard outlet voltages as …

Coilreef™ Wave Energy Dissipation Project, Cole Ramsdale, Josh Sparrow, Kyle Archibald, Fernando Romero

Mechanical Engineering

Within this Final Design Review (FDR) report, the COILReef™ Senior Project concludes with all updates reflecting results after testing. The COILReef™ is a device ideated by Cal Poly Professor Roger Benham. It aims to provide a removeable, low-cost solution to dissipating ocean wave energy, thereby reducing coastal erosion in sensitive areas. Current permanent solutions cost millions of dollars, take years to construct, and sometimes produce undesirable and unintended effects. The work presented in this document provides the foundational research, testing, and steps taken by the team to evaluate the feasibility of the COILReef™ design as a viable solution to reducing …

Automated Mini-Tubular Ceramic Production, Hunter Brooks, Daniel Freeman, Leo Taranta-Slack

Mechanical Engineering

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory need a way to increase the rate of manufacturing of mini-tubular ceramics to be used in testing particulate air filters. This document outlines our process from researching and writing an initial scope of work all the way to fabricating and testing a final prototype. This journey takes us through the background research, ideation process and selection of a final design. We also detail the desired engineering specifications and our concept selection process. We dedicate a significant portion of this report to discussion of our final design. We delve into how it was manufactured as …

Gaf Fiberglass Mat Slitter Blade Sharpener, Mark D. Breaux, Bradley M. Smith, Esteban Carrillo, Carlos Espinoza

Mechanical Engineering

This document contains an overview for the offline slitter blade sharpening system created for GAF to sharpen their current cutting tools in a timely and safe manner without hindering the timeline and production of their assembly line. This design was developed by four undergraduate students at from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. This document first investigates background information of any patents, current sharpening device, sharpening safety standards, or literature review that may be useful in a sharpening mechanism device. This document also contains our design concept prototype, which consists of three main features, the use of a top guard for …

Break The Ice Challenge, Peter Karkos, Alex Lewis, Eva Kouyate, Vy Han

Mechanical Engineering

The report documents and justifies team LEGION’s senior design project, from research and ideation to prototype manufacturing and testing. It begins by providing some background on the project and outlining the mission scenario given by NASA. This is followed by related literature on excavation of icy regolith on the moon, water transportation, lunar environment, and space law. Next, research is performed into existing products, such as patents and various designs from previous related NASA competitions.

After providing the relevant background information, focused objectives are outlined, with a problem statement, boundary sketch, and engineering specifications. The wants & needs of NASA …

Produce Sorting Aid, Annica Navarro, Jessie Boucher, Natalie Roberts, Teng Lee

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Review (FDR) document intends to define the details of the Produce Sorting Aid senior project–selected by four mechanical engineering students, working under the team name Team W24. The Alameda County Community Foodbank (ACCFB) sorts bulk produce into bags or boxes for distribution to people in need of food. However, the current process is not ergonomic, time efficient, or safe for the volunteers at the ACCFB. The scope of the senior project is to design a mechanism that is ergonomic, time efficient, and safe for the volunteers to lift heavy produce and distribute the produce into bags ready …

The Preconstruction Of Foundation For A Greenhouse, Alla I. Hashim

Construction Management

This project outlines the preconstruction process for building a concrete base for a prefabricated greenhouse unit. This project was initiated by the Cal Poly Garden Club so they could plan for the installation of a greenhouse at the Student Experimental Farm on Cal Poly’s campus. The members of the club currently share a greenhouse with another Cal Poly Club which restricts their ability to use the greenhouse freely. The initial goal of the project was to request a permit, however, that will be postponed until the specific location is determined. This project still provides the necessary elements for requesting a …

Packaging Rebrand For Cal Poly Creamery, Lauren Mindolovich

Graphic Communication

My senior project is a packaging rebrand for Cal Poly Creamery. The project consists of redesigning the ice cream packaging and logo, and creating marketing collateral, such as stickers and posters, to increase brand awareness.

This project was a lot of fun because I got to apply all of my GrC skills into this project. In addition, this is the first time I’ve created, planned, and executed a project from start to finish. Throughout the quarter, I tracked my progress and made the appropriate changes to ensure that I complete the project within the 10-week deadline.

Real-Time Prediction-Driven Dynamics Simulation To Mitigate Frame Time Variation, Mackinnon A. Buck

Master's Theses

Real-time physics engines have seen recent performance improvements through techniques like hardware acceleration and artificial intelligence. However, state of the art physics simulation technology fails to account for the variation in simulation complexity over time. Sudden increases in contact frequency between simulated bodies can momentarily increase the processing time per frame. To solve this, we present a prediction-driven real-time dynamics method that uses a memory-efficient graph-based state buffer to minimize the cost of mispredictions. This buffer, which is generated by a separate thread running the physics pipeline, allows physics computation to temporarily run slower than real-time without affecting the frame …

Adapting Single-View View Synthesis With Multiplane Images For 3d Video Chat, Anurag Venkata Uppuluri

Master's Theses

Activities like one-on-one video chatting and video conferencing with multiple participants are more prevalent than ever today as we continue to tackle the pandemic. Bringing a 3D feel to video chat has always been a hot topic in Vision and Graphics communities. In this thesis, we have employed novel view synthesis in attempting to turn one-on-one video chatting into 3D. We have tuned the learning pipeline of Tucker and Snavely's single-view view synthesis paper — by retraining it on MannequinChallenge dataset — to better predict a layered representation of the scene viewed by either video chat participant at any given …

Comparisons Of Concrete Slender Wall Software With Full-Scale Experiments, Gloriana M.L. Moua

Architectural Engineering

The 1980 slender wall testing was performed by the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California (SEAOSC) in efforts to analyze behavior of concrete slender walls when lateral and eccentric axial loads are applied. The testing was done with 12 tilt-up wall panels, 3 of each of the four thicknesses: 9 ½”, 7 ¼”, 5 ¾”, and 4 ¾”. What was discovered from testing was that a fixed limitation of height to thickness ratio was not a governing factor and that each case should be analyzed based off the strength and deflection of the wall. It was because of this testing …

Piles Redesigned: A Comparison Of Concrete And Timber, Riley N. Mullen

Architectural Engineering

This project redesigned a foundation with timber piles and assesses the environmental impacts.

Parametric Study Of New Diaphragm Design Methods, Emily Rose Taylor

Architectural Engineering

Large retail buildings and warehouses are typically a one-story concrete or masonry walled structure with a panelized wood roof. These buildings fall under the category of “RWFD”, or “Rigid Wall Flexible Diaphragm”. There are two preexisting methods that can be utilized in designing flexible diaphragms, but there is a third being introduced in the new ASCE 7-22 code. Given this code is unreleased, there really is no guidance to the user as far as which method is the most time efficient or cost effective. The purpose of this project is to analyze the same building using each design method in …

Makom Hillel: Slo Hillel Outdoor Event Space, Eli J. Greenberg

Architectural Engineering

This report details the design development for Makom Hillel, an outdoor event space dedicated to San Luis Obispo’s Hillel chapter. Hillel is an international organization working to connect Jewish students and community members with each other and their religion. The platform was designed as a service-learning senior project for the ARCE Department at Cal Poly SLO. The gravity and lateral systems were designed using the 2018 NDS, ASCE 7-16, and Simpson Strong Tie’s 2021 Wood Construction Connectors catalog. This project was conducted during Spring and Fall 2021 and supervised by Professor Brent Nuttall.

Investigation Into Excessive Deflections In A Concrete Flat Slab, Matthew Frydman

Architectural Engineering

This senior project was inspired by a project experience during a summer internship in Denver, Colorado at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. After a pipe froze and burst in the 13,000 sq. ft. basement of a two story building built in the 1990’s, an investigation was needed to determine the structural impacts of the event. A site visit was performed to collect data, and it quickly became clear that slab deflections and strength were top priorities. The slab was able to deflect in the basement due to a cardboard void form that was used to accommodate expansive soils. This project …

Chinese Timber Woven Arch Bridges, Owen M. Anderson, Kaleigh G. Kant

Architectural Engineering

This is a report on the study and analysis conducted on Chinese timber woven bridges. It explores historical and cultural values behind them as well as their structural behavior. Finally, the bridge design is described in a series of equations that would make for simple design and construction.

Growing Grounds Farm & Nursery - Serenity Shade Structure, Jack C. Radovan

Architectural Engineering

This project includes the design and construction of a shade structure over the serenity seating area at Growing Grounds Farm & Nursery. Growing Grounds is a part of TransitionsMental Health Association. It is a nonprofit wholesale nursery that provides horticulture, socialization opportunities, paid employment and soft job skills training for adults with severe and persistent mental illness. The shade structure will serve as place where staff and volunteers can gather and sit.

Residential Seismic Retrofit And San Francisco’S Path To Earthquake Resilience, Iryna Turchyn

Architectural Engineering

The following interdisciplinary project was expanded from a summer internship with Holmes engineering firm. The project will present the gravity and lateral structural design that was part of a seismic retrofit of a residential building in San Francisco. The paper will investigate the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS) in the San Francisco Bay that drove the demand for the structural retrofit, while evaluating the economic, political, social, and environmental effects of the following project and the San Francisco action plan.

Plant Disease Detection Through Convolutional Neural Networks: A Survey Of Existing Literature, Best Practices, And Implementation, Kevin Label

Master's Theses

In the United States alone, common diseases spread among plants account for billions of dollars lost in crop yield each year. This issue is exacerbated in countries with less infrastructure to defend against crop epidemics, and can lead to famine and forced migration. Farmers can seek the help of plant pathology experts to defend against diseases and detect crop irregularities early on. However, access to experts can be difficult, and even those trained in the field may miss symptoms before it is too late. To assist in early disease detection, a number of papers have been released on the potential …

Bathroom Remodel For Son Care Foundation, Inc., Tae Hun Kwak

Construction Management

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the process of remodeling a 42 SF bathroom for Son Care Foundation, Inc. The initial scope included the removal of an existing fiberglass bathtub, plumbing work, drywall installation, mudding, drywall texturing, new flooring, a new toilet, and a new sink. During construction, the owner requested that I add paint, an ADA-compliant sink, a new lighting fixture, a new vinyl baseboard, a new mirror, a new cabinet, new door trim, and new door hardware as part of my scope. I used what I learned in class to solve problems during the …

Paso Robles Police Department Shooting Range Electrical Installation, Shelby I. Prosch

Construction Management

The Paso Police Department has a shooting range for police officers to practice and master using firearms. A shooting range is a crucial part of police officer training to ensure public safety and correct and accurate usage of safety weapons. The construction for the shooting range began in the spring of 2021 by Cal Poly students where they laid the foundation. I became involved to further the progress of the shooting range by installing an electrical system. For that phase to begin, I completed a pre-construction package that details the materials and steps for installation. The package includes a scope …