Engineering Commons^™

Fuzzy Attitude Control Of Solar Sail, Joshua Baculi

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

This study presents various fuzzy type controllers for a solar sail. First, a Twin Parallel Distributed Compensator (TPDC) is built for a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model of the solarsail. The T-S fuzzy model is constructed by linearizing the existing nonlinear equations fo motion of the solar sail. The T-S fuzzy model is used to solve a set of linear matrix inequalities to derive state feedback controller gains. The TPDC controls the solar sail using a combination of reaction wheels and roll stabilizer bars for attitude control and trim masses for disturbance rejection. The TPDC tracks and stabilizes the solar sail to …

An Algorithm For Calculating The Inverse Jacobian Of Multirobot Systems In A Cluster Space Formulation, Christopher Jude Waight

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

Multirobot systems have characteristics such as high formation re-configurability that allow them to perform dynamic tasks that require real time formation control. These tasks include gradient sensing, object manipulation, and advanced field exploration. In such instances, the Cluster Space Control approach is attractive as it is both intuitive and allows for full degree of freedom control. Cluster Space Control achieves this by redefining a collection of robots as a single geometric entity called a cluster. To implement, it requires knowing the inverse Jacobian of the robotic system for use in the main control loop. Historically, the inverse Jacobian has been …

Cluster Control Of A Multi-Robot Tracking Network And Tracking Geometry Optimization, Jasmine Cashbaugh

Engineering Ph.D. Theses

The position of a moving object can be tracked in numerous ways, the simplest of which is to use a single static sensor. However, the information from a single sensor cannot be verified and may not be reliable without performing multiple measurements of the same object. When multiple static sensors are used, each sensor need only take a single measurement which can be combined with other sensor measurements to produce a more accurate position estimate. Work has been done to develop sensors that move with the tracked object, such as relative positioning, but this research takes this concept one step …

Carbon Nanotube Interconnects For End-Of-Roadmap Semiconductor Technology Nodes, Anshul A. Vyas

Engineering Ph.D. Theses

Advances in semiconductor technology due to aggressive downward scaling of on-chip feature sizes have led to rapid rises in resistivity and current density of interconnect conductors. As a result, current interconnect materials, Cu and W, are subject to performance and reliability constraints approaching or exceeding their physical limits. Therefore, alternative materials such as nanocarbons, metal silicides, and Ag nanowires are actively considered as potential replacements to meet such constraints. Among nanocarbons, carbon nanotube (CNT) is among the leading replacement candidate for on-chip interconnect vias due to its high aspect-ratio nanostructure and superior currentcarrying capacity to those of Cu, W, and …

Panoramic Stereovision And Scene Reconstruction, Ashish Nair

Computer Science and Engineering Master's Theses

With advancement of research in robotics and computer vision, an increasingly high number of applications require the understanding of a scene in three dimensions. A variety of systems are deployed to do the same. This thesis explores a novel 3D imaging technique. This involves the use of catadioptric cameras in a stereoscopic arrangement. A secondary system aims to stabilize the system in the event that the cameras are misaligned during operation. The system provides a stark advantage due to it being a cost effective alternative to present day standard state-of-the-art systems that achieve the same goal of 3D imaging. The …

A Framework For Collaborative Multi-Task, Multi-Robot Missions, John T. Shepard

Engineering Ph.D. Theses

Robotics is a transformative technology that will empower our civilization for a new scale of human endeavors. Massive scale is only possible through the collaboration of individual or groups of robots. Collaboration allows specialization, meaning a multirobot system may accommodate heterogeneous platforms including human partners.

This work develops a unified control architecture for collaborative missions comprised of multiple, multi-robot tasks. Using kinematic equations and Jacobian matrices, the system states are transformed into alternative control spaces which are more useful for the designer or more convenient for the operator. The architecture allows multiple tasks to be combined, composing tightly coordinated missions. …

Code Girl, Amanda Holl

Computer Science and Engineering Master's Theses

Despite the growing importance of technology and computing, fewer than one percent of women in college today choose to major in computer science. Educational programs and games created to interest girls in computing, such as Girls Who Code and Made With Code, have been successful in engaging girls with interactive and creative learning environments, but they are too advanced for young girls to benefit from. To address the lack of educational, computer science games designed specifically for young girls, we developed a web-based application called Code Girl for girls age five to eight to customize their own avatars using Blockly, …

Wavefront Sensor, Richard Mulé

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Wavefront reconstruction techniques have enabled important scientific improvements to corrective imaging in astronomy, optometry, and elsewhere. Here, we describe the design of a wavefront reconstruction-based adaptive optics system designed at Santa Clara University (SCU) in the Department of Physics. Our compact system is based on a modified Shack-Hartmann sensor design and can detect wavefront disturbances on the order of tens of nanometers. The full SCU system includes a 635 nm laser, a collimating lens pair, two mirrors, a microlens array, and a commercial CCD camera. The CCD data is analyzed using a least-squares reconstruction algorithm. Here, we present preliminary wavefront …

Explorable 3d Model Of Scu Campus, Benjamin Giglione

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

My project is an interactive 3D model of SCU campus, which prospective students and their parents can explore without actually having to make the journey to campus. The architecture of the university is made traversable by running under Unreal Engine 4 which is a 3D game development framework that supports the Oculus Rift. The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset, which enhances the immersive experience for users of the SCU campus application. It accomplishes this by displaying the rendered images in immersive 3D right in front of their faces, and tracking their head motion and moving the viewpoint in …

Passive Unitized Regenerative Fuel Cell (Purefc) For Energy Storage Applications, Sandeep Lele

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

Passive Unitized Regenerative Fuel Cell (PUReFC) prototypes were designed, fabricated, and tested as new energy storage devices capable of meeting demands in offgrid applications. Although flooded lead-acid batteries are typically used to provide low cost energy storage, improper disposal infrastructure and lack of education on battery maintenance can lead to serious health concerns. A Passive Unitized Regenerative Fuel Cell can generate energy in a sustainable manner and possesses the ability to run in reverse, providing energy storage capability.

As Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells rely on effective internal water transport to provide stable operation, an energy efficient flood mitigation …

Curipilot, Gregory Cusack, Karan Daryanani, Nathaniel Tucker

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The drone industry has rapidly grown over the last three years and many large companies have determined that the phenomenon is worth investing in. Recently, Intel has shown interest in this growing industry. Intel developed a next generation processor to be used in drones in addition to investing in the Chinese drone hardware company, Yuneec. Contracted by Intel, the CuriPilot team laid the foundation for linking the hardware and software layers of Intel's drone technology by designing the stabilization control system for the next generation of processors and drones. The CuriPilot team built a foundation for future drone development and …

Looma Lesson Planner, Elise Herrmannsfeldt, Suparna Jasuja, Kate Lassalle-Klein, Roshan Ramankutty

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Looma Lesson Planner is a web application that allows its users, experienced educators, to select, organize, and present existing classroom materials and educational content in the format of a custom-made lesson plan. Looma, an all-in-one computer developed by non-profit organization VillageTech Solutions, is designed for school teachers in rural Nepal, India. It provides them with basic access to textbooks, activities, and digital media that may be relevant in meeting Nepal's curriculum requirements. However, Looma did not initially include a simple interface for teachers to connect many different forms of content together into cohesive, custom lesson plans.

Our application presents and …

Rsl Rover, Patrick Barone, Giovanni Briggs, Aaron Burns, Hesham Naja, Zoe Demertzis

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The goal of this project was to design and implement an unmanned vehicle that can assess the air quality and general state of a post-fire environment. To do this, we equipped Santa Clara University's Polaris 6x6 Ranger with appropriate sensors and cameras to determine how safe the environment is for humans to enter. We also used GPS and laser scans to generate a 3D map that operators can use to define certain zones as particularly dangerous. Finally, we incorporated partially-autonomous sensing capabilities that will allow the operator to easily drive the vehicle. The result was a rugged, advanced, and intuitive …

Renovation Of El Camino Real Of Santa Clara, Thao Nguyen-Pham, John Garzee

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

In this project we focus on a section of the El Camino Real that is a major corridor that connects the South Bay to much of the Peninsula. The portion that we are looking at is by Santa Clara University from Lafayette Street to Scott Boulevard which consists of 3lanes in both directions. This is much wider than sections farther north as there are much higher traffic volumes in the spread out South Bay. As a result, El Camino Real can be dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. Along with pedestrian safety concerns, our project goes into the inadequate service levels …

Fixthecity: Local Government Complaint Management System, Amanpreet Dhoor, Kevin Ta, Melissa Portillo

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

For a large city, such as San Jose, it can be difficult to keep track of all of the city property that needs fixing. One way to remedy this would be to increase citizen involvement by creating an easy way for citizens to report problems. The current method for doing this is either to call the problem in or to navigate through department webpages to fill out a form. The city also has an app called San Jose Clean, through which people can report graffiti by taking a photo with their phone, but graffiti is the only problem it deals …

Boip: Interactivity Platform, Tyler Kung, Nicholas Pulido

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

For this project, we have implemented an integrated interactive platform tailored for students and professors. Classes at Santa Clara University come in a variety of sizes and styles, with multiple professors teaching multiple students. These professors have different teaching methods that have to cater to students' different learning styles. One of the main features of our platform is a chat room where professors can collect information from their students. Students are able to ask questions about said topic or answer the professor's posted questions about the topic as well as other students' questions. With our platform, we hope to increase …

The New Grid, Vincente Ciancio, Andrew Dobbins, Steven Sanz

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

The New Grid seeks to provide mobile users with an additional method for off-grid communication, or communication without connection to Internet infrastructure. The motivation for this project was to find another alternative to Internet-dependent communication. Current Internet infrastructure is antiquated; it is expensive to maintain and expand, it has numerous vulnerabilities and high-impact points of failure, and can be rendered unusable for lengthy periods of time by natural disasters or other catastrophes. This current grid will eventually need to be replaced by a more modern, scalable, and adaptive infrastructure. The results of the projects research showed that implementing a library …

Trusnet: Peer-To-Peer Cryptographic Authentication, Adrian Bedard, Jonathan Bedard

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Originally, the Internet was meant as a general purpose communication protocol, transferring primarily text documents between interested parties. Over time, documents expanded to include pictures, videos and even web pages. Increasingly, the Internet is being used to transfer a new kind of data which it was never designed for. In most ways, this new data type fits in naturally to the Internet, taking advantage of the near limit-less expanse of the protocol. Hardware protocols, unlike previous data types, provide a unique set security problem. Much like financial data, hardware protocols extended across the Internet must be protected with authentication. Currently, …

Uniform: The Form Validation Language, Sawyer Novak, Reid Palmquist, Douglas Parker

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Digital forms are becoming increasingly more prevalent but the ease of creation is not. Web Forms are difficult to produce and validate. This design project seeks to simplify this process. This project is comprised of two parts: a logical programming language (Uniform) and a web application.

Uniform is a language that allows its users to define logical relationships between web elements and apply simple rules to individual inputs to both validate the form and manipulate its components depending on user input. Uniform provides an extra layer of abstraction to complex coding.

The web app implements Uniform to provide business-level programmers …

Smart Photos, Daniel Hernandez, Angela Laar, Jaelin Mccreary

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Recent technological leaps have been a great catalyst for changing how people interact with the world around us. Specifically, the field of Augmented Reality has led to many software and hardware advances that have formed a digital intermediary between humans and their environment. As of now, Augmented Reality is available to the select few with the means of obtaining Google Glass, Oculus Rifts, and other relatively expensive platforms. Be that as it may, the tech industry's current goal has been integration of this technology into the public's smartphones and everyday devices. One inhibitor of this goal is the difficulty of …

Bringing Electricity To Alafiarou: The Solar Microgrid Project, Nicolas Metais, Jacob Leatherberry

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Despite the great technological advancements and discoveries that have been made throughout the last century, 1.2 billion people still live without access to electricity, 95% of which live in Sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia.1 In this paper, we discuss how we designed and implemented a self-sustaining, affordable and highly replicable solar microgrid in order to accelerate the electrification of rural communities in the most environmentally conscious way possible. Our project focused on developing a microgrid for a small community of 10 households in rural Benin that previously had no access to electricity. We travelled to this village in December of …

Foundation Design For Multistory Building In Oakland, Sean Cain

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

This project focuses on the design of a foundation and garage-level retaining walls for a 25 story building in Oakland, California. The design was completed through the use of data from a 1988 soil investigation and provided structural loads. The site is composed of a thin sand layer above a clay layer about 400 feet thick. Analysis included soil and groundwater conditions and exploration of spread footings, mat footings, and pile foundations. The final selected foundation type is driven piles with the other options discarded due to lack of data and an unsuitability for the structure requirements. Piles are suitable …

Nicaragua Water Distribution System, Leah Bensching, Jamie Monk

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

In developing nations, such as Nicaragua, water security issues affect a large portion of the population. A lack of clean and secure water negatively causes many public health, environmental and economic concerns. This project addresses the need to develop a water distribution system to a rural community in Nicaragua. The proposed solutions will allow the community to choose more resilient design options to ensure reliable water delivery throughout the community.

By using NeatWork, a Nicaraguan based system, and WaterGEMS, which is more commonly used in the United States, it was determined that designing for 100% reliability was the most responsible …

Regional Wastewater Facility Systems Design, Sage Aoki, Joseph Calvo, Kayden Haleakala, Steward Yang

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

The San José-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility (RWF) was constructed in 1956 as a primary water treatment plant. Secondary treatment facilities were constructed in 1964 in response to a growing population and economy along with state regulations. The RWF expanded to tertiary treatment in 1979 to meet Clean Water Act regulations. A wet weather headworks facility was commissioned in 2008, and in 2011 the gaseous chlorine/sulfur dioxide system for disinfection was converted to a sodium hypochlorite/sodium bisulfate system in 2011 (RWF 2015). The RWF launched a Capital Improvement Program (CIP) in 2014, identifying 33 capital projects. The Facility Wide Water …

Intracranial Pressure Sensor, Matthew Murray, Jared Shimada

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension (IIH) also known as Pseudotumor Cerebri is a condition resulting from an increase of Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF), a fluid that helps to protect the brain and spinal cord, in the cranial cavity. Currently the only treatment method for this health condition is the draining of the fluid via implanted intracranial shunts that get clogged in approximately 50% of patients. Clogged shunts can only be detected when IIH symptoms begin to reappear. We propose to create an ultrasound-read intracranial pressure sensor used to supplement shunts implanted in patients who suffer from Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension. This will provide immediate …

Saguarotrack, Christine Rohacz, Kirk Iserman

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

In an increasingly connected world, many employees work remotely and go out into the field to solve an issue. It is important for their employers to be able to keep track of where their employees are to ensure accountability and quick response times in emergency situations. SaguaroTrack is a new solution to this issue that combines a mobile device application with a Web interface to allow employers to easily account for their mobile workforce. SaguaroTrack will display the location data sent by the mobile device on an easy to understand map to increase the efficiency of response time to customer …

Effects Of The Fiber Distribution And Number Of Nearby Fibers On The Thermal Conductivity For Aligned Cnt-Silicon Oil Composites, Diana Grandio

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) are seen as promising materials for thermal transport applications. The high thermal conductivity and structural flexibility of the CNT present them as very attractive components to be used as particle fillers in thermal interface materials. It is important to understand the effective thermal conductivity for CNT-matrix composites at high CNT volume fraction.

In prior work, an effective medium approach (EMA) has been developed to evaluate composite physical properties such as thermal conductivity, dielectric function or elastic modulus (C-W Nan, Prog. Mat. Sci. V 37, 1993). This model combined with the Kapitza interface resistance can predict the effective …

Pcb Prototyping, Kasey Chun, Dylan Hack, Ilja Medan, Michael Rudolf, Ryan Sidley

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

In today’s world, Printed Circuit Boards, also known as PCBs, are part of our daily lives. However, it is currently difficult for students in university classes or hobbyists to quickly produce custom made PCBs since no system exists where every step in the production process is on one platform. There are four main steps that go into manufacturing a PCB once it is fully designed which are: milling, solder dispensing, component placement, and a reflow process. The goal will be to create various toolheads and place them onto a single platform allowing the user to perform the aforementioned production processes. …

Enhancing Student Usability Of 3d Bioprinting, Andrew Chang, Sabrina Cismas

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

3D bioprinting is an emerging technology that is changing the face of tissue engineering through the ability to print cells, scaffolding and matrix materials, and other bioactive reagents. 3D bioprinters are a culmination of various scientific and engineering disciplines with respect to their operation and bioprints, and as such, offer a prime case study on the convergence of the technical fields in research. In order to capitalize on this fact and make 3D bioprinting more accessible for interdisciplinary education applications, we sought to translate 3D bioprinting into the classroom environment as a tool for education. In collaboration with SE3D Education, …

24th National Timber Bridge Design Competition, Marie Mcnamara, Andrew D. Porter, Sarah Martina Sbicca

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

For the 2016 Senior Design project, our team elected to design and construct a short-span pedestrian bridge for the 24th National Timber Bridge Design Competition. The competition was sponsored by the Southwest Mississippi RC&D council (SMRCD) of the Forest Products Society in association with the American Society of Civil Engineers. There were a number of different design and testing requirements to abide by, including both competition regulations as well as AASHTO guidelines pertaining to the construction of pedestrian bridges. [1] A great deal of diligence was taken to assure that our team performed well in the competition; every rule and …