Engineering Commons^™

Design And Analysis Of Speed Control Using Hybrid Pid-Fuzzy Controller For Induction Motors, Ahmed Fattah

Masters Theses

This thesis presents a hybrid PID-Fuzzy control system for the speed control of a three-phase squirrel cage induction motor. The proposed method incorporates fuzzy logic and conventional controllers with utilization of vector control technique. This method combines the advantages of fuzzy logic controller and conventional controllers to improve the speed response of the induction motor. The design of fuzzy system consists of 9 fuzzy variables and 49 IF-THEN rules that define the behavior of the system. The FLC observes the loop error signal and correspondingly control the PID input error signal so that the actual speed signal matches the reference …

Performance Analysis Of Magnetic Indoor Local Positioning System, Kyle Wroble

Masters Theses

As of the writing of this paper, there is no standard technique for implementing Indoor Position Systems (IPS) in one building or another, as each technique has its own advantages and drawbacks. The best IPS implementations often employ the use of multiple techniques within a building in order to maximize precision. This paper explores the most popular IPS techniques in use today, and highlights their strengths and weaknesses. After analyzing the pros and cons of each approach, it becomes clear that magnetic positioning is a useful tool for creating an accurate, reliable positioning system. Throughout this paper, the feasibility of …

Estimation Of Pcb Contamination In The Twelve Mile Creek Arm Of Lake Hartwell Using Gis And Statistical Techniques, Arjun Bharadwaj

All Theses

The Lake Hartwell and its Twelve Mile Creek watershed were contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mainly Aroclor 1016 and 1254, which resulted in a designation as a Superfund site. The Twelve Mile Creek arm is the most heavily contaminated portion of the lake. The Twelve Mile Creek arm of Lake Hartwell was placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) in the year 1990. In the Record of Decision (ROD) by the EPA in 1994, natural attenuation, primarily through burial by uncontaminated sediment, was declared as the chosen remedy to reach the EPA recommended level of 1 µg/g. Several studies have …

Work Integrated Learning In Stem In Australian Universities: Final Report: Submitted To The Office Of The Chief Scientist, Daniel Edwards, Kate Perkins, Jacob Pearce, Jennifer Hong

Higher education research

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) undertook this study for the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS). It explores the practice and application of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) in STEM, with a particular focus on natural and physical sciences, information technology, and agriculture departments in Australian universities. The project involved a detailed ‘stocktake’ of WIL in practice in these disciplines, with collection of information by interview, survey instruments, consultation with stakeholders and literature reviews. Every university in Australia was visited as part of this project, with interviews and consultation sessions gathering insight from more than 120 academics and support …

Voltage Protection System For Ehfem Project, Calvin Abshier, Calvin Xu

Electrical Engineering

The EHFEM project aims to convert the energy generated by exercise in a gym to electrical power and transport said energy to the grid. At the top level, this project includes several components including: a voltage and current protection system, a DC-DC converter, and an inverter. This project improves upon past voltage protection systems [1] [2]. The DC-DC converter takes the user-generated energy from the elliptical trainer and passes it to the grid. The user can generate voltage spikes upwards of 100V, far above the current DC-DC converter’s maximum limit. The voltage protection circuit sits between the energy harvesting machine …

Chipper: Capacitive Bed Occupancy Sensing For An Intelligent Alarm Clock, David Levi

Electrical Engineering

What if your alarm clock knew when you got out—and stayed out—of bed? Current alarm clocks happily let you go back to bed after turning them off. In this project, I build an alarm which only stops ringing when you get out bed, and starts ringing again if you lie back in bed.

This project uses capacitance to detect bed occupancy. A person on or near the bed creates a tiny, picofarads level increase in capacitance, as seen by a sensor placed under the mattress. A microprocessor interprets this signal, and also drives an audio alarm. Shielding of the sensor …

Smart Power Strip, Dannie Alfaro

Electrical Engineering

The Smart Power Strip revolutionizes all common power strips. Users have the ability to remotely toggle the individual outlets on the Smart Power Strip from a smart phone app and can also monitor how much energy the devices connected to the Smart Power Strip consume.

An Iris Authentication System Based On Artificial Neural Networks, Brenden Velu

Electrical Engineering

An iris authentication system verifies the authenticity of a person based on their iris features. The iris features are extracted through wavelet transform of the isolated iris from modified iris images. A level 5 wavelet decomposition is performed on the images, and the resulting low-frequency wavelet coefficients represent the inputs to the artificial neural network. The artificial neural network reads these features as inputs, and classifies each set of inputs according to their target identity. This authentication system currently classifies up to 10 people. The irises used for classification represent ideal situations with minimum eyelash and eyelid interference.

Wireless Led Motorcycle Jacket, Sean O'Brien

Electrical Engineering

In 2013 there were over 120,000 motorcycle fatalities in the U.S. alone, 73% of which were in the evening or during poor lighting conditions. Motorcyclists are at a disadvantage when it comes to their visibility on the road due to their size and location of lighting indicators. Because of this, motorcyclists are 82% more likely to be in an accident than other automobiles. One of the most common phrases among drivers involved in car vs motorcycle collisions is “I just didn’t see him."

Many products exist on the market to assist with visibility of motorcyclists including high-visibility clothing and gear …

The Electric Reel For Soccer Fields, Stephen Taylor

Electrical Engineering

Painting a soccer field consumes too much time. The process of reeling the string after laying out string along the field needs to improve. As a result, my project addresses improvements in how the workers retrieve the string through the production of an electric reel. This electric reel allows the worker to have control of the speed, direction, and on/off state of the device. Direction control allows the user ability to reel and unwind the string. Variable speed allows the user to control how fast the reel unwinds and reels the string. The device gathers string in an orderly manner …

Influencing Factors For Use Of Unmanned Aerial Systems In Support Of Aviation Accident And Emergency Response, Brent Terwilliger, Dennis Vincenzi, David Ison, Kenneth Witcher, David Thirtyacre, Adeel Khalid

Applied Aerospace Science

"The purpose of this research paper was to examine the influencing factors associated with the use of unmanned aerial system (UAS) technology to support aviation accident and emergency response. The ability of first responders to react to an emergency is dependent on the quality, accuracy, timeliness, and usability of information. With aviation accidents such as the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash at San Francisco International Airport, the ability to sense and communicate the location of victims may reduce the potential for accidental passenger death. Furthermore, the ability to obtain information en-route to an accident may also to assist to reduce …

Electrolytic Recovery Of Bismuth And Copper As A Powder From Acidic Sulfate Effluents Using An Emew® Cell, Wei Jin, Paul I. Laforest, Alex Luyima, Weldon Read, Luis M. Navarro, Michael S. Moats

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Effective removal of bismuth is a primary concern during copper electrorefining. A novel electrowinning process using an emew® cell was developed to recover bismuth and copper from a copper electrorefining waste stream. Significant removal and co-deposition of copper and bismuth were achieved from a highly acidic sulfate industrial effluent using a current density of 350 A m^-2, but the current efficiency was low (27%). Operating at a lower current density (75 A m^-2) facilitated the preferred removal of Cu, while increasing current efficiency to 67.4% due to the decrease of aside-reaction. Consequently, a two-stage process was …

Control Of Inflammation Using Drug Delivery Strategies In In Vitro Models, Patricia R. Wardwell

Dissertations - ALL

Regulation of inflammation is a crucial component of the immune system in response to injury and infection. In otherwise healthy individuals, an initial acute inflammatory response will subside once the injury or infection is eradicated. However, in certain disease states including autoimmune disease and persistent infection, miscommunication between cells of the immune system leads to a chronic inflammatory response, contributing to disease pathology and exacerbating symptoms. A major regulator of inflammation communication at the cellular level is transcription factor (TF) NF-κB. Under normal conditions, NF-κB is bound to an inhibitor in the cytoplasm. In a chronic disease state, NF-κB is …

Surface Plasmon Polaritons: Guided-Wave Devices And Applications, Ashish Chanana

Dissertations - ALL

The prospect of controlling the interaction of light with matter at nanoscale has been widely studied in recent years, and entails characterizing optical and optoelectronic devices at resolution higher than the diffraction limit. One technique that allows localization of light to sub-wavelength dimensions is through the use of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) wherein the interaction of light with free electrons on a metal surface can lead to a bound surface electromagnetic field that is confined to deep sub-wavelength dimensions. Studies based on SPPs merged with the field of nanotechnology have resulted in novel imaging technologies, nonlinear and quantum-optical devices and …

Cal Poly Sae Formula Electric Chassis, Brandon Stitt, Rachel Brooks, Christopher L. Pell

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Formula Electric team has been in need of a chassis redesign, making that a logical choice for a senior project. The original goal of the project was to build the lightest possible frame while still maintaining adequate strength and stiffness. The existing frame made a good starting point. The steel tube spaceframe weighed a colossal 105 lb. There was ample room for improvement, even with a similar spaceframe design. The greatest potential to reduce weight lay in submitting designs under the Alternative Frame (AF) rule set. This could avoid the added weight of many required tubes. The …

Human Powered Vehicle Frame Design, Matthew S. Allen, Peter B. Aumann, Trent J. Hellmann

Mechanical Engineering

This report discusses the Human Powered Vehicle Frame Design senior project’s contributions to the design, manufacture, testing, and competition of the Cal Poly Human Powered Vehicle Club’s 2015 vehicle, Sweet Phoenix. The project’s guiding rules and timeline were dictated by the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Challenge (HPVC), held in April 2015. The Club sought to improve upon its previous vehicle, Aria, which suffered from a range of faults including a catastrophic structural failure at the 2014 HPVC. Largely in response to this failure, the Frame Design project’s major focus was Sweet Phoenix’s frame, from concept to manufacturing. During the design …

Uav Avoidance System, Zachary Stargensky

Electrical Engineering

This is an ongoing design project being funded by Northrop Grumman in which Cal Poly SLO is working in collaboration with Cal Poly Pomona to complete a working design at the end of each academic school year. The project consists of two UAVs that can navigate around a given area without running into each other or other obstacles. There are sensors to be mounted on the vehicles that can detect objects within a given distance and a microcontroller is used to control how the vehicle responds to an object being detected. The avoidance code has been written for previous years’ …

M-1: The Mealy Open Source Custom Midi Controller, Garrett Leung, Darren O. Mistica

Electrical Engineering

With the high price of large mixing consoles, aspiring artists are restricted to using a mouse to control digital facsimiles of knobs, faders, switches, and buttons. Though using the software controls is considered a simple task, dedicated hardware allows for tactile, visual, and utility. At a low cost, the heart of the MTech M-1 can be customized and placed into any shell with any combination of controls as possible with the underlying platform.

Modern MIDI controllers require significant physical space due to their preset button layout and space consuming setups. Despite their high price, modern MIDI controllers have only one …

Emg Prosthetic Finger: "Gogo Finger", Omar Garibay, Ernesto Bermudez, Shane O'Neil

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Permanent Magnet Display System, Xenia Leon Rodriguez

Electrical Engineering

Pacemakers can malfunction when exposed to high magnetic fields. This becomes especially problematic for patients with pacemakers who need MRI scans as MRI machines can subject the pacemaker to damaging magnetic fields. St.Jude Medical, one of the leading biotech companies, is working to make their pacemakers MRI-safe. In order to test their MRI-safe pacemaker designs, they need an automated test apparatus that will collect and report the magnetic field the pacemaker is being exposed to. This report describes the design of such a test system that reads the Tesla intensity the pacemaker is exposed to and wirelessly transmits the data …

Nutty Adventures, Tony Hsu, Mandy Chan

Computer Engineering

Nutty Adventures is an Android game. The goal is to gather acorns for day-to-day survival, upgrades, and hoarding. Ultimately, the player must have enough acorns by the time Winter comes to fulfill the squirrel’s quest: providing enough acorns for his squirrel kingdom during the barren Winter season. Throughout the days, the player has to keep track of time and monsters, which might influence player decisions.

Promoting Computer Science With Video Games: Teaching Object-Oriented Programming Through Unity, Dylan Graves

Computer Engineering

In recent years, the demand for people educated in computer science has continued to grow as the possible applications of software expand. For this reason, it is important to not only offer young adults the ability to learn computer science, but also to intrigue them with interesting and engaging applications of computer science. Organizations, such as the CollegeBoard and Exploring Computer Science, have been working to make computer science education more available and desirable to younger audiences. This project contributes to these goals by creating and implementing a curriculum for teaching object-oriented programming to high school students through video game …

Using Mobile Cameras To Measure Dye Concentration In Bio-Chemistry Experiments, Jackie Fong, Andrew Lau, Anna Katrina Velasquez

Computer Engineering

Many cutting edge chemistry experiments for high ­throughput assays require measuring colored outputs from specially prepared samples. Absorbance from these samples is usually measured with a specialized piece of equipment that adds to the expense, time, and complexity of obtaining experimental results. To make these experiments more accessible, we looked at developing software to allow cell phones or consumer ­grade USB cameras to measure these experiments and quantify the intensity of the output.

What we have compiled thus far is research regarding several different color spaces and attempted analysis on the many channels of color spaces such as RGB, HSV, …

Skyrim Survival Needs Modification, Sheng-Han Chen

Computer Engineering

A survival needs system implemented within Skyrim's modification framework using Bethesda Softwork's Skyrim Creation Kit.

Slaps Music Sharing App, Maximillian L. Parelius

Computer Engineering

Slaps is a fun way to share new songs with friends. Users can simply select songs from their personal library of music, select a short sample of the song to share, and then select which friends to share it with. If a user loves a song that he/she receives, they can link directly to iTunes through the app to download the full song.

Color Amplification, Jose Carrillo, Cynthia Barajas

Electrical Engineering

The goal of this project is to design and implement a hardware version of MIT’s and Cal Poly’s color amplification system. MIT created a software based system named the “Eulerian Video Magnification” that can reveal small variations that cannot be seen with the naked eye by processing the input sequence of the video. The process consists of using a Gaussian pyramid with a Gaussian kernel in order to do spatial decomposition. This process continues until there is one pixel left which then gets amplified and added back onto each pixel of the original frame for reconstruction. The reconstructed signal can …

Phase Locked Loop Integrated Circuit, Scott Buchanan, Jonathan Bonello

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Sun-Tracking Solar-Powered Led Street Light, Wesley Ballar, Harrison Wong

Electrical Engineering

Street lighting is an essential utility especially in urban and industrialized areas because it provides illumination and safety for vehicles and pedestrians throughout the night. However, street lights are relatively inefficient; they consume large amounts of power from electrical grids and have predetermined operation times that are often non-optimal for the surrounding environment. The Sun-Tracking Solar-Powered LED Street Lamp is a self-sustaining device, built to replace the current lighting sources. The device features sun-tracking capabilities for maximum energy gathering and darkness recognition to establish optimal operation times. The project provides a reliable and enhanced alternative to current street lighting systems.

Innovative Connectivity Ensuring Education (I.-C.E.E.), Luke Cole, Andrew Ma, Nicholas Ross, Daniel Williams

Electrical Engineering

This is the critical design review for the Telepresence/Telerobotic Technology for Children with Disabilities Project by team I.- C.E.E. (Innovative Connectivity Ensuring Education). This report details our telepresence system design for our client (Nathan Stilts) including design choices/justification, testing verification and procedures, and chosen components for implementation. There are seven chapters in total starting with introductory/background information followed by hardware and software design, verification, and testing and concludes with the current status of the project and what future work may need to be included.

Wd Data Aquisition Board, Charmaine Guintu

Electrical Engineering

The Data Acquisition (DAQ) Board project is a continuation of a project that started last year. It is a project in collaboration with Western Digital. Western Digital (WD) Power LSI Systems Validation group has stress testing equipment called the Torture Stand. Inside the Torture Stand hard drives are compacted and tested until failure. However, the transient responses of voltage and current signals from the hard drives are currently obtained from oscilloscopes. The oscilloscopes are bulky and expensive, so to replace the oscilloscopes the DAQ was created. The small size and much cheaper cost of the DAQ allows Western Digital to …