Engineering Commons^™

Design And Implementation Of 60 Ghz Cavity Backed Patch Antennas, Kasey Chun

Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's Theses

As the lower range of radio frequency spectrum become more cluttered and the demand for faster data rates and greater bandwidth grows, next generation wireless technology is pushed to innovate and provide needed resources. Major technology companies such as Samsung, intel, Qualcomm Inc. and Google have been investing at millimeter-wave band frequencies to address this imminent need. The fifth generation of telecommunication technology could be perceived as a paradigm shift in the way we see and think about wireless communication. This next generation technology is intended to enable other up and coming industries and services such as internet of things …

Cryptki: Mobile Hardware Wallet, Derrick Chan, Rowan Decker, William Nguyen, Yuya Oguchi

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Cryptocurrencies are rapidly receiving mainstream attention and adoption. As a result, new technologies are developing to store and transact cryptocurrencies to keep up with a rapidly developing market. We have developed a way to utilize a mobile phone to communicate with the Ethereum blockchain in order to monitor and initiate cryptocurrency transactions. The project allows users to create new Ethereum addresses and to send arbitrary amounts of Ether to existing Ethereum addresses, while maintaining security for the end user. We conclude that this method of communication with the Ethereum blockchain is viable and is an avenue for exploration in the …

Camera-Based Distance Sensor, Kai Schmidt, Evan Holmes

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

While working on a robotics project at the electrical contracting company for which we work, we discovered a gap in the electronic distance sensor market in terms of range, accuracy, precision, and cost. We designed and constructed a prototype for an electronic distance sensing component which utilizes a camera, laser, and image processor to measure distances. The laser is pointed at a surface and an image of the laser dot is captured. An image processing algorithm determines the pixel position of the dot in the image, and this position is compared to a lookup table of known values to determine …

B.O.G.G.L.E.S.: Boundary Optical Geographic Lidar Environment System, Miguel Chapa, Evan Hoerl, Isaac Jorgensen, Carl Maggio

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pseudo X-ray vision system that pairs a Lidar scanner with a visualization device. The system as a whole is referred to as B.O.G.G.L.E.S. There are several key factors that went into the development of this system and the background information and design approach are thoroughly described. B.O.G.G.L.E.S functionality is depicted through the use of design constraints and the analysis of test results. Additionally, many possible developments for B.O.G.G.L.E.S are proposed in the paper. This indicates that there are various avenues of improvement for this project that could be implemented in the …

At-Home Neurofeedback Treatment, Sanah Imran, Frank Cannizzaro

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

In the past two decades, the prevalence of mental health illnesses and cognitive disorders has dramatically increased both in the United States and worldwide. While the problem is an expensive one, costing billions annually in lost productivity, the greatest cost is to the patient suffering from mental health problems. Those who have the means to seek professional help may be prescribed medications that often have negative side effects and merely mitigate symptoms of these disorders without treating the underlying cause. Fortunately, there is a new and revolutionary therapy available called neurofeedback. It uses electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to self- regulate brain …

Realsense Relay Board, Shivam Gandhi, Sean Giblin

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

RealSense is an emerging technology owned by Intel. RealSense cameras are unique in the sense that they have depth sensing abilities allowing for object tracking and identification. Due to the wide range of applications RealSense cameras are found in a multitude of different environments. As with any new technology these cameras experience technical issues that can affect performance. It was the goal of this project to solve the particular problem of RealSense cameras freezing. RealSense cameras are data collection devices, often times the continuity of that data is extremely important and any downtime is to be avoided. Physical resets require …

Wireless Multi-User Communication System, Brian Tjahjadi, Andrew Song

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

The project’s ultimate goal is to send and receive information wirelessly from multiple unique users at once. Our design includes an antenna with beam-switching capabilities to serve multiple users at once. The project also focused on providing a more compact solution along with additional uplink capability and power indication. This has the potential to be used in the upcoming 5G machine to machine communication. The antenna and feed network were made smaller by making use of less conventional structures. The power indicator was made by using a digital logic circuit. These components form a proof-of-concept communication system.

Halo - A Personal Iot Air Monitor Powered By Harvested Energy, Benjamin Lampe, Taylor Mau, Samantha Morehead, Naeem Turner-Bandele

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Urban air pollution leads to widespread respiratory illness and millions of deaths annually. PM2.5, particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers, is the product of many common combustion reactions and poses a particularly serious health risk. Its small size allows it to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. Existing air quality monitors are aimed at scientific research, di↵erentiating between pollutants and providing high accuracy in measurement. These devices are prohibitively expensive and cannot easily be carried around. Due to the highly localized nature of air pollution, and in order to allow individuals and institutions to …

Vehicle To Everything Communication Using Vlc, Andrew Harris, Michael Karachewski, Nick Schnabel

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Autonomous vehicles are currently self contained. However, we are coming to an age where there will be so many smart vehicles on the road, they will need a way to communicate with each other. In addition, the radio frequency spectrum is crowded and additional communication methods are needed to keep up with future needs. With these two ideas, this paper looks into a very new and developing form of communication - visible light communication - to provide an alternative to traditional radio waves for vehicular communication. We analyze the viability of this system as a proof-of-concept for the technology. We …

Rf Roaming System Locator: A Modular Omnidirectional Antenna System, George Stathakis, Josh Sullivan, Christian Ayscue

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Drones are increasingly common in everything from entertainment to delivery services. Currently, GPS and wireless triangulation are the two main methods of tracking drones and collision avoidance. The main problem with these two methods are accuracy and mobility. This thesis goes into building a system that is able to solve the two main drawbacks, by using a completely contained antenna system. The system is robust and can work in a variety of environments and situations. While the thesis focuses on drone tracking, the system is built with modularity in mind and can be adapted to track other RF signals with …

Membrane Deflection-Based Fabrication And Design Automation For Integrated Acoustofluidics, Daniel Freitas

Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's Theses

Continuous-flow microfluidic large-scale integration (mLSI) is a developing field first introduced in the early 2000s, that continues to offer promising solutions to many biochemical, biophysical and biomedical problems. In his seminal paper, Thorsen et al. 2002 demonstrated the fabrication of high-density microfluidic systems capable of complex fluidic routing in combinatory arrays of multiplexors, mixers, and storage assemblies integrated with micromechanical valves. mLSI has been a powerful tool for scientific research by allowing for dramatic reduction in the volume of reagent needed for experimentation and offering highly parallelizable and dynamic process flows. These systems have since been the focus of strong …

The Vessel For Autonomous Research Underwater (The Varuna), Tyler Briles, Shae Connor, Erin Guthrie, Anthony Jackson, Madeleine Peauroi

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Humans are intimately connected to the Earth’s ocean, and yet only 5% of it has been explored. Learning more about marine life and ocean chemistry can only improve our stewardship efforts. The addition of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle to the Santa Clara University Robotic Systems Laboratory’s collection of marine robots will contribute to this quest for knowledge. It will assist researchers by providing a low-cost, easy-to-use, portable, reliable, and safe alternative to operator-controlled vehicles. This report describes our motivations for this project, the decisions we made in the design and manufacturing of the VARUNA, and tradeoff analyses of possible options. …

Buturi Solar, Patrick Mihelic, Alfredo Muñoz, Ruben Tapia

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

The village of Makongoro in the Buturi community of Tanzania lacks the resources to bring any form of energy to power the local school. The most reliable source of energy we could bring to the school is in the form of a photovoltaic system, as the climate of Buturi provides an ideal location for the implementation of such system. We have designed a solar microgrid specifically for Buturi and the needs of the school, that has the capability to power laptops, cell phones, and lighting throughout the school building. The system is fully detailed and explained in this report, with …

Pressure Ulcer Prevention System, Rey-David Palomares, Ojus Rao

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Pressure ulcers, also known as bedsores, are a widespread but often understated problem. A pressure ulcer is an injury that develops with constant pressure on an area of skin for a long time. They range from bruises to open wounds to even exposed bone. These injuries especially impact bedridden and elderly hospital inpatients, since these people must depend on nursing staff for mobility.

Pressure ulcers can seem to be a solved problem. Solutions that completely eliminate pressure ulcers do exist. These solutions, however, are too expensive for widespread use, at thousands of dollars per bed. Other solutions, such as relying …

The Human Keyboard, Derek Char, Thomas Chung, Alexander Mckee, Allen Pai

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Most products that implement features for user interactions utilize buttons or switches for the user to command to select actions to perform. Such designs are typically controlled with direct motions, such as touch or voice and are seldom designed in consideration of those unable to utilize direct control. In this project, we designed technology that reads naturally occuring biosignals from the body, which then can be apply those signals with any interface. For our specific application in this project, we decided to implement a keyboard. Instead of teaching the fingers how to type on a mechanical keyboard, the body can …

Process Optimization For Carbon Nanotubes-On-Graphene Fabrication, Andrew Michelmore, Julia Shaffer

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Because of their superior thermal and electrical properties, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene (Gr) are promising candidates to replace copper and tungsten as interconnect materials in the most advanced integrated circuit technologies. We explore a three-dimensional all-carbon interconnect structure, consisting of vertically aligned CNTs grown directly on multi-layer graphene (MLG). The objective is to grow the CNTs with little or no damage to the graphene underlayer. We start with fabricating test structures using both plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and thermal CVD throughout the CNT growth process to confirm the results of previous work of our research group. We …

Conductive Contact Area Estimation For Carbon Nanotube Via Interconnects Using Secondary-Electron Imaging, Yusuke Abe, Makoto Suzuki, Anshul Vyas, Cary Y. Yang

Electrical and Computer Engineering

A major challenge for carbon nanotube (CNT) to become a viable replacement of copper and tungsten in the next-generation on-chip via interconnects is the high contact resistance between CNT and metal electrodes. A first step in meeting this challenge is an accurate characterization of via contact resistance. In this paper, the scanning electron microscope (SEM) image contrast at low landing energy is employed to estimate the conductive CNT area inside vias. The total conductive CNT area inside each via is deduced using SEM image with 0.1 keV landing energy and a specified threshold brightness, yielding via resistance versus CNT area …

Carbon Nanotube Ultracapacitor Characteristics And Cell Design, Antonis A. Orphanou

Engineering Ph.D. Theses

A model of carbon nanotube (CNT) ultracapacitor (CNU) as a high-performance energy storage device is developed based on simulations of electrolyte ion motions between cathode and anode. Using a molecular dynamics (MD) approach, the equilibrium positions of electrode charges interacting through Coulomb potential are determined, which in turn yield the equipotential surface and electric field associated with the capacitor. With an applied AC voltage, the current is computed from the nanotube and electrolyte particle distribution and interaction, resulting in a frequency-dependent CNU impedance. From the current and impedance profiles, the Nyquist and Cyclic Voltammetry plots are then extracted. Results of …