Engineering Commons^™

Wirelessly Controlled Smart Outlet, Andrew Godsil, Ariel Dubinsky

Electrical Engineering

Popularity of home automation devices has increased greatly in recent years due to higher affordability and simplicity through smartphone and tablet connectivity. For the purpose of this experiment, we have developed the Smart Outlet: a stand-alone communication unit, used to connect home outlets to the internet. The Smart Outlet controls lighting and simple appliances throughout the home, remotely, using wireless commands from the web. A Google Calendar interface directly controls the outlets’ function by scheduling them with dedicated calendar events. The calendar’s interface can even be accessed from multiple different platforms (i.e. phones, computers, tablets) for the convenience of all …

A Prototype Microwave Cavity Control Circuit For Use In Next Generation Free Electron Laser, Josh Thompson, Peter Neal Barrina, Jiayi Jiang, Joe Frisch, Steve Smith, Daniel Van Winkle

STAR Program Research Presentations

One of the current programs at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is the Linac Coherent Light Source, or LCLS. Using the existing hardware of the last third of their linear accelerator (or “linac”), SLAC has created one of the most energetic X-ray free electron lasers (or “FEL”). Since 2009, LCLS has used this FEL to perform a wide range of experiments across all sciences, most notably ultrafast filming at the molecular scale. As requests for beam-time with this laser increases, SLAC is purposing a linac upgrade to better match this demand. This upgrade, named LCLS-II, will replace existing copper radio frequency …

Design, Characterization And Application Of A Multiple Input Stethoscope Apparatus, Spencer Geng Wong

Master's Theses

For this project, the design, implementation, characterization, calibration and possible applications of a multiple transducer stethoscope apparatus were investigated. The multi-transducer sensor array design consists of five standard stethoscope diaphragms mounted to a rigid frame for a-priori knowledge of their relative spatial locations in the x-y plane, with compliant z-direction positioning to ensure good contact and pressure against the subject’s skin for reliable acoustic coupling. When this apparatus is properly placed on the body, it can digitally capture the same important body sounds investigated with standard acoustic stethoscopes; especially heart sounds. Acoustic signal inputs from each diaphragm are converted to …

Crotale Sample Library, Ryan Waczek

Music

This report will discuss the process of creating a digital sample based library for musical applications. Topics such as recording, microphone placement, and mixing will be addressed; as well as elements of design in Adobe Photoshop, and computer scripting in the language of the computer program Komplete 5 by Native Instruments. The instrument sampled is the crotales, an orchestral, melodic percussion instrument.

Clear Circuit Contact Lens, Paul Hecker Ii, Phillip Azar, Alexander Do, Benny Ng, Errol Leon

Electrical Engineering

The clear active contact lens project aims to address safety and hazard awareness with an unexplored field of eye wear technology. With advancements in nanotechnology and the advent of circuits on contact lens, this project is one of the first research and development into this new field, following University of Washington and Google. The team focuses on the safety and biocompatibility of the contact lens for a comfortable ease of use. The designs push the limits of thin film printed technology with its pursuit of fine designs of 250μm antennas. The project streamlines the manufacturing process for a combination substrate …

Low Voltage Cmos Sar Adc Design, Ryan Hunt

Electrical Engineering

This project centers on the design of a single ended 10-bit successive approximation register analog to digital converter (SAR ADC for short) that easily interfaces to a micro-controller, such as an Arduino. With micro-controller interfacing in mind, the universal data transfer technique of SPI proved an easy way to communicate between the ADC and the micro-controller. The ADC has a range of 1V (highest code value) to 0V (lowest code value) and operates from a single voltage rail value of 1.8V. Typical SPI clock speeds run on the order of 2MHz and with a 10-bit ADC this means a sampling …

Power System Fault Detection Using The Discrete Wavelet Transform And Artificial Neural Networks, Kevin Keegan

Electrical Engineering

This project focuses on detecting various phase to ground faults in three phase power systems. In this research, the faults are generated using a power distribution system simulator; and the three phase voltage waveforms are analyzed using the discrete wavelet transform. Multi-layer feed forward neural networks are employed for fault detection and classification. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by computer simulation results.

Real Time Swim Instructor, Konrad Antoniuk

Electrical Engineering

Both competitive and recreational swimmers want an efficient swim stroke but often lack consistent feedback with technical insight. Competitive swimmers rely on coaches for instruction but have to stop swimming to listen. The Real Time Swim Instructor project provides live feedback to a swimmer so they can feel their stroke correction while they’re swimming. The developing swimmer feels the difference between correct and incorrect form instantaneously.

The project takes on the responsibility of measuring the moving body, accurately determining stroke improvement, functioning under water, and providing recognizable feedback. Additionally, the user can review their swim from data stored in memory. …

Continuous Hand-Tool Leveling Device, Shaun Villa Koide

Electrical Engineering

To produce clean and precise cuts, hand-tools (e.g. knives and saws) must maintain a consistent angle of orientation during the entire cutting process. The Continuous Hand-Tool Leveling Device mounts on the desired hand-tool and the user inputs the desired angle of the cutting plane. The device utilizes a microcontroller unit (MCU) and accelerometer to implement real-time angle measurement. When using a hand-tool, the device uses an LED that indicates that the hand-tool’s angle deviates from the user-set desired angle, which prevents any potential mistakes from occurring due to user error. The device easily mounts on many common cutting tools. Additionally, …

A Frequency-Domain Method For Active Acoustic Cancellation Of Known Audio Sources, Ryan D. Rocha

Master's Theses

Active noise control (ANC) is a real-time process in which a system measures an external, unwanted sound source and produces a canceling waveform. The cancellation is due to destructive interference by a perfect copy of the received signal phase-shifted by 180 degrees. Existing active noise control systems process the incoming and outgoing audio on a sample-by-sample basis, requiring a high-speed digital signal processor (DSP) and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) with strict timing requirements on the order of tens of microseconds. These timing requirements determine the maximum sample rate and bit size as well as the maximum attenuation that the system can …

Atrengine: An Orientation-Based Algorithm For Automatic Target Recognition, Justin Ting-Jeuan Kuo

Master's Theses

Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) is a subject involving the use of sensor data to develop an algorithm for identifying targets of significance. It is of particular interest in military applications such as unmanned aerial vehicles and missile tracking systems. This thesis develops an orientation-based classification approach from previous ATR algorithms for 2-D Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. Prior work in ATR includes Chessa Guilas’ Hausdorff Probabilistic Feature Analysis Approach in 2005 and Daniel Cary’s Optimal Rectangular Fit in 2007.

A system incorporating multiple modules performing different tasks is developed to streamline the data processing of previous algorithms. Using images from …

A Comparison Of Image Processing Techniques For Bird Detection, Elsa Reyes

Master's Theses

Orchard fruits and vegetable crops are vulnerable to wild birds and animals. These wild birds and animals can cause critical damage to the produce. Traditional methods of scaring away birds such as scarecrows are not long-term solutions but short-term solutions. This is a huge problem especially near areas like San Luis Obispo where there are vineyards. Bird damage can be as high as 50% for grapes being grown in vineyards. The total estimated revenue lost annually in the 10 counties in California due to bird and rodent damage to 22 selected crops ranged from $168 million to $504 million (in …

Variable Precision Tandem Analog-To-Digital Converter (Adc), Colton A. Parsons

Master's Theses

This paper describes an analog-to-digital signal converter which varies its precision as a function of input slew rate (maximum signal rate of change), in order to best follow the input in real time. It uses Flash and Successive Approximation (SAR) conversion techniques in sequence.

As part of the design, the concept of "total real-time optimization" is explored, where any delay at all is treated as an error (Error = Delay * Signal Slew Rate). This error metric is proposed for use in digital control systems. The ADC uses a 4-bit Flash converter in tandem with SAR logic that has variable …

Data Chunking In Quasi-Synchronous Ds-Cdma, Trevor Dalke

Master's Theses

DS-CDMA is a popular multiple access technique used in many mobile networks to efficiently share channel resources between users in a cell. Synchronization between users maximizes the user capacity of these systems. However, it is difficult to perfectly synchronize users in the reverse link due to the geographic diversity of mobile users in the cell. As a result, most commercial DS-CDMA networks utilize an asynchronous reverse link resulting in a reduced user capacity. A possible compromise to increase the user capacity in the reverse link is to implement a quasi-synchronous timing scheme, a timing scheme in which users are allowed …

Virtual Reality Engine Development, Varun Varahamurthy

Master's Theses

With the advent of modern graphics and computing hardware and cheaper sensor and display technologies, virtual reality is becoming increasingly popular in the fields of gaming, therapy, training and visualization. Earlier attempts at popularizing VR technology were plagued by issues of cost, portability and marketability to the general public. Modern screen technologies make it possible to produce cheap, light head-mounted displays (HMDs) like the Oculus Rift, and modern GPUs make it possible to create and deliver a seamless real-time 3D experience to the user. 3D sensing has found an application in virtual and augmented reality as well, allowing for a …

The Garage Band Lightshow, Jason Descenzo

Electrical Engineering

The expenses musicians accrue make it hard to afford all the different equipment needed to perform and very unlikely that the average start up band or artist can afford the luxury of a musical light show in their early performances. The Garage Band Lightshow provides an easily set up and affordable way for musicians to use concert lighting in their performances. The Garage Band Lightshow provides one LED box. The light box responds to an audio signal and provides varying pulses and colors of light depending on the high, mid, and low frequencies of the audio signal. The Garage Band …