Engineering Commons^™

Sick Laser Scanner Power Supply For Use With A Yamaha Rmax Uav, Elliot Due

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Wind Power Generator Design For The Dc House Project, Evan Lim, Samson Liu

Electrical Engineering

The purpose of this project is to introduce a cost efficient alternative in converting wind into energy for third world countries.  Currently there are approximately 1.6 billion people who have limited access to electricity. As part of the DC House project, we hope to develop a solution for them as the use of electricity is becoming an essential part of life. One of the natural energy resources to provide power to the DC House is wind. The components used for the project are a DC motor and DC-DC converter to translate wind into power and produce DC voltage and current, …

Rem Sleep Alarm, Shaun Kelsey, Brendon Soltis

Electrical Engineering

This paper explores the REM Sleep Alarm project that deals with the sleep cycle of the average human, and how it affects our ability to function when waking up in the morning.

The purpose of this project is to build a device that has the ability to wake a person up when they will feel the most rested. From research done, it appears that most people feel the most rested when woken up during the REM stage of their sleep cycle. Our goal is to have the device detect when the user is in this stage of sleep, determine how …

Variable Dc Voltage Wall Outlet For The Dc House Project, Michael Detmers, Tyler J. Blauvelt

Electrical Engineering

This senior project report will focus on explaining the design and operation of a variable DC wall outlet for use in the DC house. Testing will include the use of various loads using different input DC voltages not exceeding a maximum output of 90W.

The most important aspects of the outlet are to have a highly-efficient converter efficiency as well as system isolation from the main DC bus on the input. This report will outline the purpose and way of achieving isolation through use of a Flyback DC-DC converter. The user interface is the second significant aspect and details of …

60 Watt Embedded Solar Cell Umbrella, Matthew Devoss

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Digital Modulations Using The Universal Software Radio Peripheral, Daniel Keith Artis

Electrical Engineering

Software defined radios (SDRs) are versatile systems that integrate hardware and software to create a reprogrammable wireless system.  Due to the versatility and hardware requirements of a SDR, they are typically expensive and not always affordable for educational institutions.  GNU Radio is a free software package that allows users to do signal processing on any computer using python and C++.  Using the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) board in conjunction with a standard personal computer (PC), a RF daughterboard, and the GNU Radio software, we can create a software defined radio that can transmit, receive, and process signals.  Because the …

Wirelessly Operated Pa Loudspeaker System For Rmax Search-And-Rescue Uav: A Preliminary Design, Travis Luke, Nolan Uchizono

Electrical Engineering

This paper discusses the approach used to implement a wireless PA loudspeaker system on a search-and-rescue RMAX UAV.

The purpose of this project is to allow the continuation of communication between search-and-rescue workers as well as potential rescuees in an environment that won't always allow it. Since rugged terrain tends to cause interference between two radio communications, there needs to be a way to bypass this problem. In addition, people in need of rescue are unlikely to be using a radio on an emergency frequency, so there needs to be a way to efficiently issue orders or evacuation notices without …

Photovoltaic System Design For Dc House, Luis B. Perez, Hao Ming Mai

Electrical Engineering

The objective of this project is to research and design a practical 200W photovoltaic system at the lowest cost and highest efficiency in order to support the DC House Project. The impetus for this project stems from the necessity of delivering energy to people in developing countries who otherwise lack the benefits of electricity. The Photovoltaic System Design is divided into two main parts, the buck DC-DC converter and the optimized photovoltaic panel. The converter consists of schematics, efficiency calculations, load/line regulation calculations, component comparisons, data plots from simulations and testing. The optimized photovoltaic panel section includes component comparisons, complete …

Solar Instrumentation Lab, Rene Canedo Iii, Rong Gui Chen

Electrical Engineering

This project is a mobile platform that will allow experiments on different solar panels to be done easily while keeping the cost of the lab to a minimum. California Polytechnic State University’s motto is ‘learn by doing’ and this lab structure will allow students to get practical experience with photovoltaic cells and the instruments that are required to take measurements. The solar instrumentation lab is a potential hardware lab for the electrical engineering department’s Sustainable Electric Energy Conversion class EE 420 and Solar-Photovoltaic Systems Design EE 520. This group took the current solar structure as a base for the lab’s …

Air Scratch: An Innovative Touch-Free Dj Controller, Nixon Vandel

Electrical Engineering

This project explores the design and development of a touchless DJ interface. It requires fundamental knowledge of the operation of DJ software and hardware. Two theremins and two microcontrollers are integrated into the design and encompass the analog/digital aspect of the project. The design was created after researching hands free and touchless electronic controllers. The features incorporated into Air Scratch are very common and useful for DJs. The principle of a touchless DJ controller was first tested using software, and then later developed into hardware; primarily for copyright issues. The DJ software used by Air Scratch is found online for …

Cal Poly Power System Design & Analysis, Minesh D. Patel

Electrical Engineering

The scope of this project encompasses the design and analysis of the Cal Poly Power System at the distribution level using the SKM software environment. The purpose is to accurately model the power system in software so theoretical calculations and analysis can be executed. This requires sufficient preliminary research to obtain data for the main buildings on campus, sound interpretation of one line diagrams, designing the system within the software using realistic values and then performing analysis to model real world situations.  The data collected is under maximum load conditions for a specified time period using medium voltage parameters. The …

Laser Cursor, Michael Liman

Electrical Engineering

A user controls a cursor on a computer screen using a laser pointer.  A camera picks up the laser pointer’s position and sends the data to the computer to move the cursor in the correct position.

Exercise Bicycle Dc-Dc Converter For The Energy Harvesting From Exercise Machines Project, Ryan Rickard, Logan Stowe

Electrical Engineering

Project is a continuation of previous projects that seek an efficient DC to DC converter for the existing exercise bicycle system created by Mechanical and Electrical Engineering students. This DC-DC converter is to integrate with the wide range of DC voltages produced by the bicycle in order to produce a constant optimal voltage for charging a car battery. This converter will boost voltages when the bicycle outputs below the optimal voltage and buck voltages when above. The converter will take EHFEM one step closer to its overall and final goal of harvesting energy from the exercise machines in Cal Poly’s …

Brushless Dc Motor Design And Build, Justin Damele

Electrical Engineering

Complete Design and Build of a Brushless DC Motor. Everything was manufactured using various Lathes and End Mills. Everything built from scratch.

Programmable Solid State 12ax7 Triode Gain Stage, Ian Campbell

Electrical Engineering

This project demonstrates the viability of vacuum tube replacements made from solid state technology and programmable logic. A collection of operational amplifiers, digital converters and a field programmable gate array (FPGA) achieve this goal. The project emulates a 12AX7 vacuum tube triode as it would operate in a Fender Champ guitar amplifier. While the prototype works specifically with the Fender Champ, minor modifications could provide the versatility for operation in different amplifiers, including high end vintage hi-fi equipment. The addition of a micro controller into these amplifiers allows for the use of digital filtering and effects while not requiring modifications …

One-Pin 32 Khz Low-Power Crystal Oscillator, Aaron Plata-Ruiz

Electrical Engineering

This design is a one-pin, 32 kHz, low-power, crystal oscillator suitable for battery-operated systems. The design is based on a design published by Ali E Zadeh, “A Micropower, Battery-Operated, One-Pin Crystal Oscillator”, but redesigned for standard positive power supply configuration, which is suitable for typical n-well CMOS process.

Dc House Modeling And System Design, Jessica E. Chaidez

Electrical Engineering

This project entails the study and design of DC power distribution for the DC House Project. Wire size, common high efficient loads, maximum power input, and different distribution system implementation (ring or radial) play a major role when designing an efficient, low-voltage distribution system. Efficiency is determined based on which main bus voltage powers all the loads with minimal power loss. Power efficiency is heavily dependent in DC-DC converter efficiencies due to the power loss in converting the voltage from high to low, or vice versa. Selection of the wire size plays a major role in power losses. There are …

Solar Powered Backpack, Saagar Sabharwal, Tom Poonsopin

Electrical Engineering

One popular motto in electrical engineering today is “going green.” This project will convert the sun’s energy into reusable energy. The purpose of this senior project is to develop a solar powered backpack that can charge certain portable USB devices for students. Many students walk around campus with an iPod or cell phone, which has surely died or ran low on batteries at least once when needed most. This backpack will allow students to charge their devices “on the go.” When students walk or bike around campus, the solar panels attached to the backpack will allow recharging of their portable …

Controller Board Prototype Development For The Cal Poly Super Project, Clifford Susa

Electrical Engineering

Now in phase two of development, the Cal Poly Sustainable Power for Electrical Reources (SuPER) project will provide power to families for an estimated lifespan of 20 years at a cost of $500. Phase two of the SuPER project looks at implementing microcontrollers to monitor the health and status of the system. This senior project looks specifically at the performances of the SuPER Controller which communicates with the SuPER Digitizer to gather data such as voltage, current, temperature, and power. An SD memory card will store this data, and to view this data, then download to a PC.

Rfid Techniques For Passive Electronics, Ryan Behr, David Cobos

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Android Application Controlled Surge Protector, Lok An

Electrical Engineering

A significant amount of consumer electronics cannot be switched off completely without being unplugged. Standby power, also known as phantom power, refers to the electric power consumed by electronic appliances when they are switched off. There are some devices that need constant power; items like alarm clocks and security systems need constant power to function correctly. Some devices, such as video game consoles and televisions, consume power without offering any features. Electricity lost from standby power has been increasing with the amount of consumer electronics increasing in households.

This project’s goal is to create a low power remote that can …

Smooth Ternary Signaling For Deep-Submicron(Dsm) Buses, Robert Endicott Hanson, Ryan Ian Fullerton

Electrical Engineering

This project demonstrates the error mitigating effects of using a three-level “smooth ternary” signal on a Deep-Submicron(DSM) bus with large inter-wire capacitance. An RC circuit used to simulate and exaggerate (for easier testing) the charging and discharging of the DSM bus. An encoder stage translates binary input data into a three-level signal before sending it to the bus. A decoder stage then translates the three-level signal back to binary that is ideally identical to the original signal. Our results show that the three-level signal has much cleaner transitions than a traditional binary signal. A few glitches that appeared when decoding …

Design And Simulation Of V2g Bidirectional Inverter And Dc-Dc Converter, Allan Agatep, Mason Ung

Electrical Engineering

As plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) become more popular, the utility companies are forced to feed the grid more electricity. However, these PHEVs are capable of providing power to the grid when they are parked serving as ancillary systems for grid regulation (V2G). Using a system based on photovoltaic (PV) technology, a design for a bidirectional inverter with LCL filter, and a bidirectional dc-dc with a constant current controller, was constructed using LTspice. Various papers were researched and analyzed to determine applicable designs for components. Simulations show the designs are capable of bidirectional power transfer. ETAP simulations show that delivering …

Development Of Wind Tunnel For Laboratory Wind Turbine Testing, Danny Alexander Zepeda

Electrical Engineering

A wind tunnel with a 0.5 HP motor was purchased by Cal Poly Electrical Engineering Department from Hampden for $16,000. It can only simulate winds of up to 10 MPH. The tunnel has a manual dial that controls the wind speed. It also measures the voltage and current output with an analog measure display. This wind tunnel was expensive and unfortunately cannot achieve very high wind speeds. For this reason, a similar wind tunnel with more potential and with a smaller budget was proposed to be built for use in the Sustainable Energy Lab. The new wind tunnel that was …

Constant Conduction Angle Bias Generation For Monolithic Rf Power Amplifiers, Stephen Garber

Electrical Engineering

There is a need for linear, efficient monolithic power amplifiers used for the wireless transmission of signals with amplitude variations. This paper proposes a circuit that actively biases a bipolar transistor so that it operates as a Class C amplifier, with a conduction angle that is constant over a range of output powers. This results in a linear amplifier with a very low two tone intermodulation distortion. By forcing a scaled DC current vs. input magnitude curve from a Class B amplifier on to a Class C amplifier, a constant conduction angle can be maintained in the Class C amplifier. …

Markerless Affine Region Tracking And Augmentation Using Mser And Sift, Gregory (Greg) Eddington Ii

Computer Engineering

Due to the advancements in mobile computing hardware and the inclusion of cameras in many computing platforms, augmented reality systems have become widely available. This paper presents a real-time implementation of a novel markerless augmented reality algorithm which is able to track two-dimensional affine regions without a priori information of the environment or computing a world model. The implementation consists of the MAR library; a modular software library which performs the region detection, identification, and tracking; and the Lighthouse application; a program which uses the MAR library to allow the user to augment scenes viewed from a camera. The algorithm …

Streaming Client And Server Model, Austin Alan Diec

Computer Engineering

A few years ago, several Cal Poly undergraduates started the Autonomous Robot Platform (ARP). Interest in a revision of the ARP requires a new layer of communication. This paper describes the design and partial implementation of the communication layer to be used with the revised ARP. The communication layer would allow the autonomous robot platform to connect with a client over the wireless local area network (WLAN) for instructions and commands. It is important to note that currently, the assumed revision of the ARP is nonexistent, so many of the design decisions are based solely on the assumptions of ARP …

Asynchronous Use Of Engineering (Materials) Education Videos, Craig Johnson, Arthur D. Morken

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Engineering education delivery is dynamic and increasingly asynchronous. An observation that students had very different levels of knowledge and skills as they progressed through our programs, led the authors to use audio/visual media as a leveling intervention. In this effort the authors collected data to determine if audio/visual media can be used to increase performance in the development of a program related task and guide students to higher levels of learning on Blooms Taxonomy through the development of student created learning aids.

One specific need was reflected in the disparate skills of our majority component of ‘transfer’ students in our …

Machine Design Lab: Using Automotive Transmission Examples To Reinforce Understanding Of Gear Train Analysis, Roger A. Beardsley, Charles O. Pringle

Engineering Technologies, Safety, and Construction Faculty Scholarship

In studying mechanical gear train analysis, some students struggle with relatively simple gear design concepts, and virtually all have difficulty with the complexities of planetary gear sets. This paper describes two labs developed for an undergraduate senior level machine design course. One lab uses a three-speed manual synchromesh transmission with parts of the case cut away to demonstrate the operation of the gears, shifting mechanism, bearings, and other aspects of the design. Students then count teeth and analyze the gear ratios using standard gear train analysis methods. The other lab uses a 1924 Ford Model T planetary transmission to observe …

Effectiveness Study On Temporary Pavement Marking Removals Methods, Yong Cho, Jae-Ho Pyeon

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

This study was conducted to identify effective temporary marking removal methods and procedures on concrete and asphalt pavements. Pavement markings provide guidance to road travelers and can lead to accidents when not properly removed. Current state guidelines on removal do not provide clear and objective methods of measurement. After testing the most common removal methods, this research concluded that removing markings by chemical was not only cost and results-oriented effective compared to other methods, but it was also safe to the environment and road users. Finally, a baseline of measurements was developed by the research team for this project, along …