Engineering Commons^™

The Automated Wheelchair, Jonathan Doksa Kamba Ngoyi

Honors College Theses

Automation refers to the use of technology to execute tasks through programmed instructions and automated control mechanisms to ensure accurate execution. This minimizes human involvement and encompasses various fields, including business process automation. A notable form of automation is assistive technology, which refers to any device or software that enhances individuals' learning, communication, or overall functionality. This can range from advanced tools like computers to simpler aids like walking sticks. Assistive technology aims to promote inclusivity and participation, particularly among individuals with disabilities, the elderly, and those with non-communicable diseases.

The Automated Airport Wheelchair is a culmination of prior projects …

Sensor Updates For Bigheaded Carp-Tracking Autonomous Boat, Jordan Kaufmann

Honors College Theses

Bigheaded carp are an invasive species that overpopulate and compete with the native species of Kentucky Lake as well as many other North American aquatic ecosystems. The movement patterns of Bigheaded carp are being studied nationwide by the United States Geological Survey and multiple universities. These studies ultimately seek to control their spread and reduce or reverse the ecosystem destabilization caused by this invasive species. Such studies are currently conducted manually on Kentucky Lake by graduate students affiliated with the Murray State University (MSU) Biology Department and Hancock Biological Station, and these manual studies are an arduous and time-consuming effort. …

Designing The Power System Of A Robot, Nolan Hays

Honors College Theses

This thesis outlines the acquired skills and knowledge acquired through the course of four years of Murray State University’s School of Engineering. The capstone for students in the department was to team up and complete an interdisciplinary senior design project using skills from various tracks of engineering. For this thesis, there is a greater emphasis on the electrical engineering track. The objective of the project was to build an autonomous robot to complete the various tasks within the scope of the IEEE SoutheastCon 2023 Hardware Competition. The robot was controlled via a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. There were three …

Microwave Characterization Of Polymeric Microparticle Morphology, Gabriel D. Cutter

Honors College Theses

Biological cell function and overall health are highly defined by the cell’s morphology. Sorting cells based on their shape is recently a major interest to the biomedical field for the future of medical treatments and health diagnostics. This work presents a new shape-based particle sorting technique using a novel microwave sensing system as a step toward biological cell sorting. The new sensing system consists of a grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) transmission line that simultaneously serves as a single-particle microfluidic channel and a microwave sensor, which is paired with a microwave interferometer to boost signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Polystyrene microspheres, a common …

Optical Sensing Of Capillary Waves, Matthew Franklin Reid

Honors College Theses

I relay various topics I learned about this semester and summarize the specialties of Clemson’s Micro-Photonics Laboratory. I report pertinent information for characterizing capillary waves with lasers and one recent method of characterizing them. Lastly, I outline a potential plan for mathematically modeling a laser’s reflection off of capillary waves, and potential plans moving forward.

Implementation Of Static Rfid Landmarks In Slam For Planogram Compliance, Brennan L. Drake

Honors College Theses

Autonomous robotic systems are becoming increasingly prevalent in everyday life and exhibit robust solutions in a wide range of applications. They face many obstacles with the foremost of which being SLAM, or Simultaneous Localization and Mapping, that encompasses both creation of the map of an unknown environment and localization of the robot in said environment. In this experiment, researchers propose the use of RFID tags in a semi-dynamic commercial environment to provide concrete landmarks for localization and mapping in pursuit of increased locational certainty. With this obtained, the ultimate goal of the research is to construct a robotics platform for …