Engineering Commons^™

Smart Carabiner, Craig Manning

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Users of common climbing safety equipment rarely understand exactly the loads and forces they are exerting on the equipment at a given time. All climbing equipment comes with a certified safety rating for the amount of force, in kilonewtons, that particular piece of equipment can take. Unfortunately, calculating dynamic load strain on-the-fly is nearly impossible. There needs to be a reliable, easy way of knowing exactly what load is being placed on a piece of equipment at any given point of time.

Mimicking Robotic Backhoe, Taylor Chad Bybee

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The proposed project is to design and create a small robotic arm that mimics movements of a similar physical model. The manual model can be manipulated by a human. Sensors inside the manual model will detect the position in each part of the arm. The information from the sensors will then be relayed, processed, and forwarded to the mimicking model. The mimicking robotic model will appropriately respond to match the smaller model, thus mimicking its position and movements.

Lateral Control Of A Vehicle Platoon, Samuel A. Mitchell

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Multiple lateral control systems are analyzed for use in a vehicle platoon system. In order to ensure the safety of the vehicle platoon, the system must operate under three constraints: (1) accurate path following, (2) string stability, and (3) functionality in the presence of noise. Computer simulations are employed to analyze candidates according to the safety requirements. Actual vehicle kinematics and nonlinearities - limits on turn radius, velocity, and acceleration - are included in this analysis.

Successful control system candidates are implemented in a platoon of five differential-steer vehicles. The sensing and communication requirements of the control system are discussed. …

Smart Laboratory Instrument Control Framework, Kevin Scott Kennedy

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The collection of experimental results in power electronic research requires the coordination of a wide variety of laboratory instrument. Depending on the type of results required, each data point can take a few minutes to collect. This process becomes time consuming when a large number of data points is needed and detracts from long-term research objectives. While there are industry standards that specify communication with these devices, many equipment vendors elect not to follow the standards and use their own protocols for communication. This project provides a framework for developing a smart and connected lab. This includes hardware and software …