Engineering Commons^™

Design And Analysis Of N-Path Filter For Radio Frequencies, Nathan M. Bergen

Master's Theses

Due to the growth of wireless communication many communication frequencies have grown increasingly dense. This density requires higher Q-factor to receive only the signal of interest. With the rise of smaller integrated circuits previous solutions used for filtering have become viable again. This paper explores whether the N-path filter is viable in the modern day for radio frequency receiver purposes. A non-differential N-path filter was created by utilizing Cadence Virtuoso with a working center frequency range of 750MHz to 1GHz while using TSMC technology. The desired quality factor of over 1,000 was reached while maintaining a total area of 800 …

Smart Usb-C Wall Plug For The Dc House Project, Ridge Lahti, Dino Maslic

Electrical Engineering

DC operated devices and appliances powered by AC systems suffer inefficiencies resulting from the losses of converting AC energy into DC energy. At Cal Poly, the DC House Project aims to minimize the need for AC electricity in homes and encourage the use of renewable energy systems. The DC House uses a 48V DC bus that must be stepped down for use with increasing number of DC loads in a typical home. In this project, a Smart USB-C Wall Plug is designed to work with USB Power Delivery to provide a variable voltage output for use with these DC loads …

Current-Source Dc-Dc Converter, Rocio Sanchez-Mendoza, Carlos Aguilar, Adrian Aranjo

Electrical Engineering

In this project, a hardware implementation of a current-source DC-DC converter for powering sensors used in an underwater communications system is presented. The proposed converter is designed to step down an input current of 0.9 A to 0.625 A, while maintaining an output voltage of 24 V and output power of 15 W. An overview of the system design is explained as well as the component selection process. The design of the converter was simulated and evaluated using LTspice before being physically constructed on a printed circuit board. Performance evaluation of the proposed converter was carried out in multiple lab …

Hvac Hardware Modeling Using Programmable Automatic Controller, Panthil Ketan Patel, Lumanti Tuladhar

Electrical Engineering

The primary purpose of this project is to use the donated programmable logic controllers (PLC) from Schneider Electric to develop experiments for a future lab class at Cal Poly. Our goal as the first group working on this project is to develop an experiment where the PLC can control the HVAC system based on temperature and humidity sensors and user inputs to maintain a desired consistent temperature. The PLC will be controlled using Unity Pro XLS/Control Expert software for simulations. The overall purpose of the experiments will be to demonstrate the potential of the PLC to minimize manual intervention while …

Standalone Wireless Humming Music Synthesizer, Elizaveta Viktorovna Koush, Conrad Kinsey, Alberto Munoz

Electrical Engineering

This project, called a standalone wireless humming music synthesizer, aimed to provide a tool for musicians to make creating music easier. It did this by removing learning barriers and adding an assistive functionality element that current synthesizers fail to address.

Existing methods for synthesizers typically include a keyboard or some collection of buttons to play melodies on. This requires the knowledge of music theory and a learning curve for the instrument, and this device aims to tackle this barrier. A device that can synthesize your voice into high-quality audio removes this musical knowledge barrier and allows anyone to easily convert …

Analyzing Computational Components Of Standard Block Encryption Schemes, Chu-Wen Cheng, Miranda Heather Cantu, Sanjeev Kumar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Encryption is used to secure sensitive computer data which may be at rest or in motion. There are several standard encryption algorithms that have been used to encrypt and protect blocks of sensitive data to ensure confidentiality. The most popular standard block encryption schemes are the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES), and the first standardized encryption scheme, which is no longer the standard scheme now, namely the Data Encryption Standard (DES). AES is the current standard for block encryption used worldwide and is implemented on many processors. In this work, we compare the hardware performance of …

Tracking Control Of Uavs With Uncertainty And Input Constraints, Shihab Ahmed, Wenjie Dong

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper considers the position and attitude tracking control problem of a vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicle with uncertainty and input constraints. Considering the parametric and non-parametric uncertainties in the dynamics of systems, a robust adaptive tracking controller is proposed with the aid of the special structure of the dynamics of the system. Considering the uncertainty and input constraints, a robust adaptive saturation controller is proposed with the aid of an auxiliary compensated system. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

Hardware-Accelerated Ecg-Based True Random Number Generator, James Burrill, Sunjit Jayam

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Developing and proving the effectiveness of ECG-based TRNGs for use in cryptography applications related to implantable medical devices (IMDs) offers a novel approach to securing IMDs. Current ECG-based True Random Number Generators (TRNGs) are software orientated and computationally heavy with hardware implementations being suggested as one possible solution to make such TRNGs useful for the medical device industry. Hardware offers the opportunity to increase power efficiency through algorithmic optimization while maintaining device security. In this paper, we use Verilog design and FPGA simulation tools to demonstrate the potential for hardware-accelerated ECG-based TRNGs for use in low power cryptographic applications. This …

Mars Prototype Rover Environmental Measurement System, James A. Renick

Computer Engineering

In my senior project, the problem I am trying to solve is how to efficiently design, create, and install an original library onto a Mars prototype rover operating system and to further use that library to integrate a new weather measurement sensor device into the rover system with the necessary software and hardware implementations. This is an important and highly valued problem as many aerospace and other engineering companies utilize rovers and other autonomous systems for important research, explorations, and reconnaissance missions and goals. In solving this problem, I utilized many resources that were available to me such as advisors, …

Developing A Miniature Smart Boat For Marine Research, Michael Isaac Eirinberg

Computer Engineering

This project examines the development of a smart boat which could serve as a possible marine research apparatus. The smart boat consists of a miniature vessel containing a low-cost microcontroller to live stream a camera feed, GPS telemetry, and compass data through its own WiFi access point. The smart boat also has the potential for autonomous navigation. My project captivated the interest of several members of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo’s (Cal Poly SLO) Marine Science Department faculty, who proposed a variety of fascinating and valuable smart boat applications.

Smart Bottle Ble Integration, Joshua M. Rizzolo

Electrical Engineering

In 1975, four percent of children aged five to nineteen were categorized as overweight or obese. As of 2016, this figure climbed above 18 percent [1]. Researchers at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) want to investigate the effect of overeating in early childhood on later childhood obesity. This research requires collecting feeding pattern data on infants, which proves challenging. Parents cannot be relied on to regularly collect clean data due to factors including work schedule, multitasking, and general exhaustion. Thus, we have developed a tool to automatically collect data on feeding frequency and duration, as well …

Maximum Trapping Focal Length In Photophoretic Trap For 3d Imaging Systems, Jason M. Childers

Electrical Engineering

This product is a photophoretic trapping system which allows varying focal lengths to test which focal lengths are possible for trapping toner particles. This system establishes that there exists a maximum trapping distance limitation and is the first time the effect of focal length is studied in a photophoretic trapping system. Increasing photophoretic trapping focal length is necessary for improving this technology as a 3D display. The 3D imaging technology is realized by dragging a microscopic (micrometer-scale) particles with a laser beam to trace an image. This technology can display fully colored and high-resolution 3D images visible from almost any …

Signal Adc Converter Simulation On Cadence Virtuoso For Audio Applications, Maxwell Kazuki Fukada

Electrical Engineering

Audio signals are representations of sounds with a mixture of multiple analog signals between the frequency of 20Hz to 20,000Hz. To record snippets of audio data onto a mobile phone or computer, the signal needs to be converted to a digital format. For this purpose, many devices utilize a converter, specifically a sigma-delta modulator with a digital filter. By using a converter, electronics can receive binary data about the audio signal accurately and quickly without losing important signal information. This project aims to simulate a fully functional audio converter with a sigma-delta modulator and decimation filter. The system will receive …

Bicep Muscle Rep Counter With Semg, Matthew Max Garcia

Electrical Engineering

The Bicep Muscle Rep Counter with SEMG is a device that was made to develop three repetition thresholds or difficulty levels from a fully-flexed bicep brachii muscle and signal to the user when consequent bicep muscle contractions pass said thresholds or levels. This device can be used when performing a bicep-focused movement or when generally flexing the bicep muscle. Essentially, this device serves to make sure each repetition of a muscle contraction passes a percentage value calculated from the electrical activity outputted from a max contraction.

The device is not designed for and does not produce data for muscle growth, …

Hum Synthesizer, Daniel Keith Mcfall, Jason Chang

Electrical Engineering

Most modern music, especially the popular and rising genres such as pop music and rap music are more reliant on music synthesizers than ever before. While other instruments are readily used to sample background noises, the main form of sound generation is becoming more digital rather than using acoustic instruments. However, many people that want to make music aren’t familiarized with traditional music theory and would have difficulty using a traditional synthesizer. The Hum Synthesizer aims to allow a wider audience to access the functions of a traditional synthesizer by using voice controls rather than keyboard controls. If the user …

Development Of Flexible Hybrid Electronics For Sterilization And Structural Health Monitoring Applications, Arnesh Kumar Bose

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Machine Learning Fmri Autism Classifier, Nicholas Luckenbach

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is typically understood by observing patient behaviors. Advances in neuroimaging research and data collection have made it possible to investigate the neurobiological basis for ASD, and differences between subjects with ASD and healthy controls (HC) have been found using a variety of methods. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in particular has provided evidence for and against certain cognitive models of ASD based on measuring the functional connectivity of subjects’ brains. Various techniques have been explored for applying machine learning (ML) to fMRI data in order to find unique patterns and differences between ASD and HC subjects. …

Solar Solution For Mini-Rover, Michaella Ochotorena, Derick Louie, Jonathan Cederquist, Collin Petersen, Cole Korchek

Mechanical Engineering

This project focuses on designing, building, and testing a functional prototype of a collapsible solar array on the mini Mars rover being developed by client and sponsor, Mr. Rich Murray. Although many previous collapsible solar arrays have been deployed for space missions, the previous solar-powered Mars rovers only deployed their arrays once upon landing. This solar array will be able to collapse and deploy multiple times to allow for greater rover mobility and stability when the rover is not charging. This system is critical to the success of the rover project because it provides power without which the rover cannot …

Total Sky Imager Project, Ryan D. Maier, Benjamin Jack Forest, Kyle X. Mcgrath

Mechanical Engineering

Solar farms like the Gold Tree Solar Farm at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo have difficulty delivering a consistent level of power output. Cloudy days can trigger a significant drop in the utility of a farm’s solar panels, and an unexpected loss of power from the farm could potentially unbalance the electrical grid. Being able to predict these power output drops in advance could provide valuable time to prepare a grid and keep it stable. Furthermore, with modern data analysis methods such as machine learning, these predictions are becoming more and more accurate – given a sufficient data set. The …

Multifamily Complex Smart Locks For Property Management And Tenant Security, April Mills, Allen Chen, Dana Kumamoto, Michael Cook

Mechanical Engineering

Maintaining and managing hundreds of locks and physical keys for an apartment complex can be time consuming and costly, especially when the apartments turn over to new tenants. Our goal was to develop a smart door lock that is compatible with Obodo’s management app for apartment complexes to make accessing apartments secure and simpler for tenants and easier to manage for owners.

We designed and manufactured one smart door lock that is powered with four AA batteries and utilizes a dynamic NFC device and Bluetooth technology. The board can enter a sleep mode which reduces power consumption. The dynamic NFC …

Neural Network Based Diagnosis Of Breast Cancer Using The Breakhis Dataset, Ross E. Dalke

Master's Theses

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the world, and it is the second deadliest cancer for females. In the fight against breast cancer, early detection plays a large role in saving people’s lives. In this work, an image classifier is designed to diagnose breast tumors as benign or malignant. The classifier is designed with a neural network and trained on the BreakHis dataset. After creating the initial design, a variety of methods are used to try to improve the performance of the classifier. These methods include preprocessing, increasing the number of training epochs, changing network architecture, …

Runtime Energy Savings Based On Machine Learning Models For Multicore Applications, Vaibhav Sundriyal, Masha Sosonkina

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

To improve the power consumption of parallel applications at the runtime, modern processors provide frequency scaling and power limiting capabilities. In this work, a runtime strategy is proposed to maximize energy savings under a given performance degradation. Machine learning techniques were utilized to develop performance models which would provide accurate performance prediction with change in operating core-uncore frequency. Experiments, performed on a node (28 cores) of a modern computing platform showed significant energy savings of as much as 26% with performance degradation of as low as 5% under the proposed strategy compared with the execution in the unlimited power case.

Methods For Focal Plane Array Resolution Estimation Using Random Laser Speckle In Non-Paraxial Geometries, Phillip J. Plummer

Theses and Dissertations

The infrared (IR) imaging community has a need for direct IR detector evaluation due to the continued demand for small pixel pitch detectors, the emergence of strained-layer-super-lattice devices, and the associated lateral carrier diffusion issues. Conventional laser speckle-based modulation transfer function (MTF) estimation is dependent on Fresnel propagation and a wide-sense-stationary input random process, limiting the use of this approach for lambda (wavelength)-scale IR devices. This dissertation develops two alternative methodologies for speckle-based resolution evaluation of IR focal plane arrays (FPAs). Both techniques are formulated using Rayleigh-Sommerfield electric field propagation, making them valid in the non-paraxial geometries dictated for resolution …

Polarization-Based Image Segmentation And Height Estimation For Interferometric Sar, Augusta J. Vande Hey

Theses and Dissertations

To find scatterers in a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image, a modification is proposed to improve peak region segmentation (PRS) with region merging. The modification considers the polarization of each pixel before it is added to a segment to ensure the segment only contains pixels of the same polarization. Prior to region merging, the polarization of the segments is compared, so that only segments with the same polarization are merged into a single region. The segmented regions are used to find the height of each scatterer through interferometric SAR (IFSAR) processing. Multiple methods of IFSAR are examined to find the …

Bike To The Future, Wanjiku Gichigi, Luisa Shu Yi Chiu, Alexander Kalman Dunn, Georgia Ann Holmes

Mechanical Engineering

Brian Higgins is a veteran with retinitis pigmentosa who enjoys biking. The motivation for this project was to design and manufacture a refined prototype of a bike attachment to assist Brian in safely biking to and from work. The customer needs, problem definition, background, design development, final design, testing, costs, and recommendations are provided in this report.

The solution for this project, as laid out in the design development section, was to design an assembly that would detect objects in the biker’s path and relays that information to them. The design incorporated a dashboard to conceal components within, protect them …

Dynamic Response Of Elastic Two-Story Steel Moment Frame Scaled Structure Equipped With Viscous Dampers, Garrett L. Barker, Alexander L. Poirier

Architectural Engineering

The authors of this report are Architectural Engineering undergraduate students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Damping is a complex, experimentally derived value that is affected by many structural properties and has a profound effect on the dynamic response of structures. Deducing the inherent damping of a steel moment frame and affecting the damping ratio with viscous dampers are two topics explored in this paper. Dampers are commonly implemented in resilient structures that perform better in a design basis earthquake, reducing the seismic cost and downtime. Undergraduate coursework does not delve into the factors that affect damping and …

Behavior, Switching Losses, And Efficiency Enhancement Potentials Of 1200 V Sic Power Devices For Hard-Switched Power Converters, Ali Mahmoud Salman Al-Bayati, Mohammad Abdul Matin

Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Scholarship

Semiconductor power devices are the major constituents of any power conversion system. These systems are faced by many circumscriptions due to the operating constraints of silicon (Si) based semiconductors under certain conditions. The emergence and persistence evolution of wide bandgap technology pledge to transcend the restrictions imposed by Si based semiconductors. This paper presents a thorough experimental study and assessment of the performance of three power devices: 1200 V SiC cascode, 1200 V SiC MOSFET, and 1200 V Si IGBT under the same hardware setup. The study aims to capture the major attributes for each power device toward determining their …

Solar Powered Electric Bicycle, Joseph Kent Debruynkops

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

A solar-powered electric bike that is useful for college students.

Barker Bird Animatronic Senior Project Report, Marcus Monroe, Nolan Clapp, Ishan Jandaur, Jonathan Ogden

Mechanical Engineering

This document describes how our F71 Senior Design Project team developed a 3D printed, electronic bird that mimics Disneyland’s first animatronic, the Barker Bird. An animatronic is a mechanical puppet that replicates real life movement with robotic parts. Disney’s Barker Bird is a well-known animatronic that replicates a talking macaw with multiple moving systems. The final prototype completed by our team serves as a teaching tool for CAPED (Cal Poly Amusement Park Engineers and Designers) club members that are interested in the field of animated robots.

Baker/Koob Final Report: Solar Solution For Mini Mars Rover, Jonathan Cederquist, Cole Korchek, Derick Louie, Michaella Ochotorena, Collin Petersen

Mechanical Engineering

This project focused on designing, building, and testing a functional prototype of a collapsible solar array on the mini Mars rover being developed by client and sponsor, Mr. Rich Murray. Although many previous collapsible solar arrays have been deployed for space missions, the previous solar-powered Mars rovers only deployed their arrays once upon landing. This solar array will be able to collapse and deploy multiple times to allow for greater rover mobility and stability when the rover is not charging. This system is critical to the success of the rover project because it provides power without which the rover cannot …