Engineering Commons^™

Analysis And Redesign Of I-680 And Mission Boulevard Interchange, Melissa Elian-Carrillo

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

The existing four cloverleaf design of the I-680 Mission Boulevard Interchange in Fremont, California, was analyzed at merge, diverge, basic, and weaving freeway segments. After the traffic analysis of all the segments, the critical segment for redesign was the merge segment of I-680 South to Mission Boulevard westbound, due to a failing Level of Service. Over a span of 17 years (2018-2035) a comparison of the current condition and the redesign was executed for crashes, congestion, air pollution, noise, greenhouse gases, and required road facilities and traffic services. The construction costs of the redesign as well as aesthetic, health, disaster …

The Effect Of Ultrasonic Power In Aluminum Wire Bonding Hardness Profiles, Matthew D. Mckay

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

Ultrasonic wire bonding is a critical process used widely across the microelectronics industry. Despite its ubiquity, there is a breadth of literature and ongoing active research into the basic principles of wire bonding. In particular, the effects of ultrasonic bonding on material properties are not fully understood. This thesis presents the effects of different ultrasonic bond powers on material properties. The changes in mechanical properties were measured by collecting Vickers microhardness data and nanoindentation data. The hardness in the bonded wire varied with two parameters: the distance from the bond interface, and the applied ultrasonic power. The hardness varied 5 …

Crystal Misorietation And Defect Generation During Contact Between Two Aluminum Substrates, Milad Khajehvand

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

With the use of molecular dynamics simulations, the nanoscale contact between two aluminum substrates at room temperature is studied. The so-called jump-to-contact (JC) phenomenon between (111) surfaces is observed to occur for interfacial distances below 5.8 ± 0.05 Å. This critical distance is approximately equal to 2.5 times the interplanar spacing of (111) planes in a perfect aluminum crystal at 300 K. The critical distance for JC is shown to be higher at higher contact temperatures because of the higher amplitude of atomic vibrations. The effect of employed interatomic potential on the critical distance is also discussed.

The critical distance …

Image Classification On Iot Edge Devices: Profiling And Modeling, Salma Abdel Magid

Computer Science and Engineering Master's Theses

With the advent of powerful, low-cost IoT systems, processing data closer to where the data originates, known as edge computing, has become an increasingly viable option. In addition to lowering the cost of networking infrastructures, edge computing reduces edge-cloud delay, which is essential for mission-critical applications. In this thesis, we show the feasibility and study the performance of image classification using IoT devices. Specifically, we explore the relationships between various factors of image classification algorithms that may affect energy consumption such as dataset size, image resolution, algorithm type, algorithm phase, and device hardware. Our experiments show a strong, positive linear …

Measuring The Vortex-Shedding Frequency Behind Staggered Cylinders In Cross-Flow, Christopher Clark

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

In this thesis, the Strouhal numbers from the downstream cylinder in a two cylinder configuration have been measured experimentally. Special apparatuses were designed to secure the cylinders in the wind tunnel as well as to hold a hot film anemometer probe in the center of the downstream cylinder’s wake. The cylinders were smooth, of equal diameter and extended the entire width of the wind tunnel. Because the cylinders used in this thesis were sufficiently long compared to their diameters and measurements were taken at center span, they were assumed to be infinite. The anemometer was calibrated according to King’s Law, …

Design And Implementation Of 60 Ghz Cavity Backed Patch Antennas, Kasey Chun

Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's Theses

As the lower range of radio frequency spectrum become more cluttered and the demand for faster data rates and greater bandwidth grows, next generation wireless technology is pushed to innovate and provide needed resources. Major technology companies such as Samsung, intel, Qualcomm Inc. and Google have been investing at millimeter-wave band frequencies to address this imminent need. The fifth generation of telecommunication technology could be perceived as a paradigm shift in the way we see and think about wireless communication. This next generation technology is intended to enable other up and coming industries and services such as internet of things …

Fuzzy-Model-Based (Fmb) Control Of A Spacecraft With Fuel Sloshing Dynamics, Lilit Mazmanyan

Engineering Ph.D. Theses

During the upper-stage separation and orbit injection, orbital control, and attitude maneuver, propellant slosh in partially-filled fuel tanks can cause dynamical instability or pointing errors. The spacecraft dynamics combined with propellant sloshing results in a highly nonlinear and coupled dynamic system that requires a complicated control law. This problem has been a long-standing concern for space missions. The purpose of this research is two fold. The first part is to investigate and develop nonlinear Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model-based controllers for a spacecraft with fuel sloshing considering the input constraints on the actuators. It includes i) a fuzzy controller/observer with a …

Energy Measurement And Profiling Of Internet Of Things Devices, Immanuel Amirtharaj

Computer Science and Engineering Master's Theses

As technological improvements in hardware and software have grown in leaps and bounds, the presence of IoT devices has been increasing at a fast rate. Profiling and minimizing energy consumption on these devices remains to be an an essential step towards employing them in various application domains. Due to the large size and high cost of commercial energy measurement platforms, the research community has proposed alternative solutions that aim to be simple, accurate, and user friendly. However, these solutions are either costly, have a limited measurement range, or low accuracy. In addition, minimizing energy consumption in IoT devices is paramount …

Applying Block Chain Technologies To Digital Voting Algorithms, Vishanth Iyer, Nathan Kerr, Justin Meeken, Alex Seto

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Voting is a fundamental aspect to democracy. Many countries have advanced voting systems in place, but many of these systems have issues behind them such as not being anonymous or verifiable. Additionally, most voting systems currently have a central authority in charge of counting votes, which can be prone to corruption. We propose a voting system which mitigates many of these issues. Our voting system attempts to provide decentralization, pseudoanonymity, and verifiability. For our system, we have identified the requirements, implemented the backbone of the system, recognized some of its shortcomings, and proposed areas of future work on this voting …

Hedhi Help, Sarah Pagnani, Kelsey Pasco, Brandon Smith, Sarek Sotelo-Jimenez

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

A culture of social taboos and silence leaves many young women beginning menarche in isolation, without complete understanding of the changes occurring in their bodies. There is a widespread stigma surrounding menstruation all around the world. These stigma impose significant barriers to education and proper hygiene for young girls during a critical time in their lives. Not having the proper support and resources to manage this process, 1 in 10 girls in sub-Saharan Africa miss school during their period, and therefore are more likely to drop out altogether. In Kenya specifically, menstruating girls miss an average of 4.9 days of …

Spotme Emergency Location Service, Arya Faili, Zain Umerani, Kunal Bhimjiyani

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

This document delves into our disaster relief application that allows people who are helpless due to a natural disaster to find a way out and get help. The purpose of this document is to explain how the application works, but more specifically the design of the application, use cases, and conceptual models. Starting with a brief introduction, this paper will dive into the necessary requirements needed to build an application at this scale while presenting several use cases. To help the reader understand the application at a finer detail, activity diagrams will be shown along with models. Lastly, the document …

Cryptki: Mobile Hardware Wallet, Derrick Chan, Rowan Decker, William Nguyen, Yuya Oguchi

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Cryptocurrencies are rapidly receiving mainstream attention and adoption. As a result, new technologies are developing to store and transact cryptocurrencies to keep up with a rapidly developing market. We have developed a way to utilize a mobile phone to communicate with the Ethereum blockchain in order to monitor and initiate cryptocurrency transactions. The project allows users to create new Ethereum addresses and to send arbitrary amounts of Ether to existing Ethereum addresses, while maintaining security for the end user. We conclude that this method of communication with the Ethereum blockchain is viable and is an avenue for exploration in the …

Diagnostic Color Strip Reader For World Health Partners Clinics, Steven Hu, Jisoo Park, Geminiano Romano Yabut

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Despite the advancement of medical technology, many people in developing countries like India and Kenya still suffer from treatable diseases. In many of the health clinics in these areas, color strips are used for checkups and diagnosis of diseases. However, a big problem with these color strips is that the diagnosis of color strips take a long time because they have to be manually checked. Currently, World Health Partners (WHP) works with doctors and hospitals in India and Kenya to provide more accessible healthcare through telehealth networks to get consultations from rural clinics to specialists at hospitals. We are working …

Pet Watch, Jb Anderson, Rachel Hale

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

This paper outlines our project of building Pet Watch. Pet Watch is a device similar to a Fit Bit except that it tracks your pet’s activity instead of your own. You can then access this data on our website. This paper defines our requirements, how the system works, and how we built this system.

Presentvr: Defeating Public Speaking Anxiety With Virtual Reality, Gurneev Sareen, Hamilton Coke, Reece Jackson

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

In today’s society, the vast majority of individuals are afraid to speak in front of a public crowd. This could range from a classroom presentation to a thousand person amphitheater, and it is because of this fear that people are more anxious in public settings where they present their own idea. In the past, people would try to tackle this problem by practicing in front of a mirror, or having friends help practice. However, there was no convenient way of practicing in front of a live audience, and we believe that with the advances in technology, especially virtual reality, that …

Vr Empathy Training Tool, Helen Chan, Zheqing Li

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

A person’s resilience to adversity and trauma is developed early on in his or her childhood. When parents display stress in front or neglect emotions of their children consistently, their children will form neural connections between areas of pain and stress. It is important to educate parents to properly handle children’s emotions and also control their own emotions and mindfulness during these interactions.

We developed an iOS VR application accompanied by a Google Cardboard and a Mio Alpha fitness watch to record and display the stress level of the parent using his/her heart rate data. The progress of the users …

Virtual Reality Sherlock: A Crime Scene Reconstructor, Ellen Tseng, Ken Wakaba

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

When an investigation team arrives to the scene, they only have a limited amount of time to gather as much evidence as they can. Evidence can include, but is not limited to: fingerprints, pictures/videos, blood samples, or any other biological evidence. Due to the limited amount of time, a few risks arise; they may not have collected enough evidence, the evidence itself may not have captured the full scope of the scene, and the possibility that the evidence itself may have been damaged or destroyed. Our aim is to develop a low-cost, customizable VR crime scene reconstructor. This software allows …

Camera-Based Distance Sensor, Kai Schmidt, Evan Holmes

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

While working on a robotics project at the electrical contracting company for which we work, we discovered a gap in the electronic distance sensor market in terms of range, accuracy, precision, and cost. We designed and constructed a prototype for an electronic distance sensing component which utilizes a camera, laser, and image processor to measure distances. The laser is pointed at a surface and an image of the laser dot is captured. An image processing algorithm determines the pixel position of the dot in the image, and this position is compared to a lookup table of known values to determine …

B.O.G.G.L.E.S.: Boundary Optical Geographic Lidar Environment System, Miguel Chapa, Evan Hoerl, Isaac Jorgensen, Carl Maggio

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pseudo X-ray vision system that pairs a Lidar scanner with a visualization device. The system as a whole is referred to as B.O.G.G.L.E.S. There are several key factors that went into the development of this system and the background information and design approach are thoroughly described. B.O.G.G.L.E.S functionality is depicted through the use of design constraints and the analysis of test results. Additionally, many possible developments for B.O.G.G.L.E.S are proposed in the paper. This indicates that there are various avenues of improvement for this project that could be implemented in the …

At-Home Neurofeedback Treatment, Sanah Imran, Frank Cannizzaro

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

In the past two decades, the prevalence of mental health illnesses and cognitive disorders has dramatically increased both in the United States and worldwide. While the problem is an expensive one, costing billions annually in lost productivity, the greatest cost is to the patient suffering from mental health problems. Those who have the means to seek professional help may be prescribed medications that often have negative side effects and merely mitigate symptoms of these disorders without treating the underlying cause. Fortunately, there is a new and revolutionary therapy available called neurofeedback. It uses electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to self- regulate brain …

Realsense Relay Board, Shivam Gandhi, Sean Giblin

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

RealSense is an emerging technology owned by Intel. RealSense cameras are unique in the sense that they have depth sensing abilities allowing for object tracking and identification. Due to the wide range of applications RealSense cameras are found in a multitude of different environments. As with any new technology these cameras experience technical issues that can affect performance. It was the goal of this project to solve the particular problem of RealSense cameras freezing. RealSense cameras are data collection devices, often times the continuity of that data is extremely important and any downtime is to be avoided. Physical resets require …

Computational Music Biofeedback For Stress Relief, Jason Capili, Mark Hattori, Maile Naito

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

The purpose of our project is to use EEG technology to combat stress in our daily lives. One of the most accessible EEG technologies that targets this challenge is the Muse headband, a wearable device that pairs with a phone application to help users train their brains to relax. The applications main goal is to help users train their brain to be more relaxed by monitoring and reporting their levels of stress. However, one of the shortcomings we noticed is that the constant notifications of how stressed we are actually adds to the level of stress as opposed to helping …

Scu Events, Kellen Bryan, Danno Mayer

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

As students at Santa Clara University for the past four years, we have noticed a lack of student participation in school-sponsored events. Sporting events, art exhibits, student performances and so on do not draw the desired participation from the Santa Clara community. Part of this problem is that the university’s event calendar page is unorganized, lacks a comprehensive list of SCU events and has a poor user interface. Without a comprehensive, centralized place to find information on Santa Clara events, it is difficult for people to attend events and even more challenging to increase awareness about what is happening on …

Snap-N-Snack: A Food Image Recognition Application, Stephen Hoff, Patterson Jaffurs, Michael Enriquez, Quintin Wilde

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Many people desire to be informed about the nutritional specifics of the food they consume. Current popular dietary tracking methods are too slow and tedious for a lot of consumers due to requiring manual data entry for everything eaten. We propose a system that will take advantage of image recognition and the internal camera of Android phones to identify food based off of a picture of a user’s plate. Over the course the last year, we trained an object detection model with images of different types of food, built a mobile application around it, and tested their integration and performance. …

Symptom Search: Predicting Symptom And Product Correlations Using Fda Adverse Effects Reports, Isabela Figueira, Neesha Godbole, Angelina Poole, Kelly Wesley

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Prescription and over-the-counter drugs are abundant now more than ever, and many people use them on a regular basis. These drugs come with a variety of side e↵ects, ranging from common to very rare. However, the symptoms listed on drug packaging might not be the only symptoms that a consumer might experience when taking a specific drug. When experiencing a symptom, consumers might think they have a disease, turn to the Web for answers, and attempt to diagnose themselves when a disease is not necessarily the cause. Instead, these symptoms might be reactions to medications; however, the first thought that …

Virtual Museum For Nacha, Sonali Chaudhry, Alisa Hawthorne

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Our team worked with the Nso’ Arts and Cultural Heritage Association and created a virtual museum in order to increase awareness of the unique culture of the Nso’ people in Cameroon, Africa. A lot of information from this region is in danger of being lost due to political tension and poor artifact conservation, and many people, including the Cameroonian youth, are not prioritizing the preservation of their culture and history. Creating a website where individuals can view the art, history, and culture found in Cameroon is the best way to increase the availability of knowledge of the Nso’ people. Such …

Additive Manufacturing Of A Motorcycle Helmet Utilizing 7-Axis 3d Printing, Kyle Mcmorrow, Caleb Alleva, Luke Correnti, Danny Eckstein, Adam Fontana, Pranav Prabhakar

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

This project analyzes the structural properties of 7-axis 3D printing versus traditional FDM printing. The team worked with AREVO Inc to manufacture a motorcycle helmet and test samples made from carbon fiber in a PEEK matrix. A drop-test rig was designed and constructed in-house to test a traditionally printed carbon fiber helmet alongside commercial helmets of identical geometry. The lighter weight printed helmet experienced significantly lower peak deceleration in the test headform (223 G’s versus 371 G’s for average commercial), but fractured along a print layer on impact. Had time allowed for printing of a helmet utilizing AREVOS’s true 3D …

Wireless Multi-User Communication System, Brian Tjahjadi, Andrew Song

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

The project’s ultimate goal is to send and receive information wirelessly from multiple unique users at once. Our design includes an antenna with beam-switching capabilities to serve multiple users at once. The project also focused on providing a more compact solution along with additional uplink capability and power indication. This has the potential to be used in the upcoming 5G machine to machine communication. The antenna and feed network were made smaller by making use of less conventional structures. The power indicator was made by using a digital logic circuit. These components form a proof-of-concept communication system.

Authenticated Authorship, Andrew Leonard, Mikhail Smelik, Stephen Chuang

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Recently there has been an increase of fake news which makes it so that people have a more difficult time of understanding if the article that they are reading is real or not. In addition, it is significantly easier for people to fabricate an article and pose it as if it was created by another person. Our solution to these problems is to create a system which will allow authors to sign their documents and publish them with a generated signature. This signature will allow readers to see if the article has not been tampered with as well as find …

Halo - A Personal Iot Air Monitor Powered By Harvested Energy, Benjamin Lampe, Taylor Mau, Samantha Morehead, Naeem Turner-Bandele

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Urban air pollution leads to widespread respiratory illness and millions of deaths annually. PM2.5, particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers, is the product of many common combustion reactions and poses a particularly serious health risk. Its small size allows it to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. Existing air quality monitors are aimed at scientific research, di↵erentiating between pollutants and providing high accuracy in measurement. These devices are prohibitively expensive and cannot easily be carried around. Due to the highly localized nature of air pollution, and in order to allow individuals and institutions to …