Engineering Commons^™

Reactive Archey Target Design Team "Mimic", Brandon Croyle, Jacob Boss, David Rodgers, Austin Wivell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This design project will aim to provide archery hunters with a platform to simulate shooting at string jumping deer. String jumping refers to a spooked deer hearing the snap of a bow string and instintivly ducking up to ten inches. This often results in wounded or missed deer. We will design and build a control system that uses the sound of a bow string as a trigger to operate a mechanical target system. A sound sensor will mimic a deer’s hearing in close range hunting and then send a signal to the mechanical system to replicate the dropping motion of …

Fatigue Tester, Nicholas Fazio

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project is to combine all my experience, knowledge and skills that I’ve acquired over the years as a Mechanical Engineering Technology student to completely design and build a fatigue tester. This will give me valuable experience in the process of designing and assembling a product and give me a great example to add to my portfolio. The tester will be completed through a process of researching design and modeling. Once everything is properly calculated and designed the parts that can be fabricated will. The rest will be ordered and then everything will be assembled. Upon completion, …

The Development Of The Human-Automation Behavioral Interaction Task (Habit) Analysis Framework, Isabelle Catherine Baird

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Complex systems involve the collaboration of automated agents and goal-oriented human operators in a dynamic environment, and dynamic environments required dynamic automation. The implementation of automation fundamentally changes the nature of the cognitive demands by means of changing the role of the human operator. The augmentation of operator situation awareness has become a major design objective in the development of human-automated systems. Extensive literature identified the out-of-the-loop performance problem as a human-automation interaction challenge. This thesis presents the Human-Automation Behavioral Interaction Task (HABIT) Analysis, as a novel approach to assessing human-automation interaction challenges, such as out-of-the-loop consequences. The novel framework …

Dynamic Discrepancy Reduced Order Modeling For Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis Over Cobalt-Based Catalyst, Jose Miguel Bohorquez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Advances in carbon capture techniques and demands in alternative fuel sources have increased over the past couple of decades. The Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis (FTS) provides a viable way to produce hydrocarbons from natural gas, coal, CO₂, or biomass. However, current comprehensive models for FTS encompass large number of reacting species, readsorption and conversion of primary products, surface intermediates, and coverage-dependent reaction rates. To accurately predict the products obtained through the process a reduced order model has been developed. By reducing the number of parameters of an existing comprehensive model, uncertainty is introduced. The uncertainty can be quantified by using …

Smart Tennis Ball, Eric Mielke

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Smart Tennis Ball system allows users to track the location of a lost ball. It incorporates ultra-wideband technology and an accurate trilateration algorithm in order to precisely track the location of a tennis or golf ball.

The UWB signals intersect in a triangular fashion and pinpoint the location of the ball using trilateration. The system then calculates the position of the ball and then sends this location to the user’s cell phone. This allows for less frustration for the user who needs to find their lost ball.

3d Mapping With Raspberry Pi, Matt Blake

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) allows a robot to map its environment while also keeping track of the robot’s own location within the map. ORB-SLAM2 is a type of SLAM which only uses a video stream as input, but it does not have automatic support for the common low-cost Raspberry Pi Camera. This project involved creating a version of the ORB-SLAM2 ROS module that can use the Raspberry Pi Camera as its main input source, as well as integrating April Tag fiducial detection into the module to allow for future improvements to the mapping and positioning process.

Aggi-E-Bike, Rees Hatch, Mahmoud Monsour, Garrett Witmer, Oscar Silva, Layan Nimri

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Aggi-E-Bike reinvents the electric drive for an bicycle to achieve higher power density while still being cost-effective. The challenge to push converters to be smaller comes with the trying to remove heat generated by the non-ideal circuit components. The interdisciplinary Aggi-E-Bike team has worked side by side to tackle this challenge. The team will also be representing USU at IEEE's 2019 International Future Energy Challenge (IFEC) final competition in late July in Madison, Wisconsin. The competition requirements and judging criteria have heavily influenced the design decisions made for the project; requirements such as no forced air cooling and a fixed …

Backyard Splash Pad, James Humble, Braydan Allen

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Motivation

• We wanted to obtain experience using OpenCV to do image processing
• Splash Pads at parks are crowded
• With kids it is not always easy to get out the door
• Having a Splash Pad in your backyard allows you to customize it

Features

• Routine that will randomly turn on and off the nozzles
• Phone app that can control the nozzles and light color
• Reaction to objects when they are over a nozzle

Brain Wars: A Mental Game Of Tug Of War, Michael Chesnut, Tony Rawlings

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Brain Wars: A mental game of tug of war.

Carburetor Automator, Taylor Zinke, Xuecong Fan

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The goal of this project is to improve the air-to-fuel ratio (AFR) delivered in carbureted engines. The AFR affects the power, gas consumption, emissions, and lifetime of an engine. Carburetors use two adjustable flaps and a fixed-diameter, narrow tube to deliver air and fuel to the engine.

Cnc Pancake Printer, Johnathan Powell

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The objective of this project is to allow anyone to quickly, easily, and reliably create pancake art, with a variety of applications, from entertainment to advertising.

Any image can be used, and while the process is simple and easy to run, the printer and algorithms are also easy to expand, modify, and upgrade.

Cycling Hud, Justin Allred

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Problem: Cyclists are constantly looking for data to track performance during their ride. These performance metrics are generally displayed on a bike computer mounted on the handlebars. The cyclist must take his or her eyes off the road to view the data.

Hypothesis: If this data could be displayed in front of the cyclist’s eyes, the safety of the ride could be increased, and data viewing would become more convenient to the cyclist. A solution to this problem is a heads-up-display (HUD) which can provide the cyclist information right in front of his or her eyes.

Objective: Create a HUD …

Depth Finder Unlimited, Mason Shumway

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project was to design a depth finder that can be used from land.

Electric Go-Kart, Josh Larkin, Ian Colbert, Morgan Durocher

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Benefits of Electric Vehicles

• More Efficient
• Zero CO₂ Emissions
• Less Maintenance
• Cheaper to operate

Flex Sensor System, Eric Alsop, Derek Withers, Riley Densley

Electrical and Computer Engineering

In this project we refined and implemented a flex sensor that was recently invented here in Utah. This sensor uses light to measure how much something is bending. This method of sensing has many advantages over current carbon-based sensors including linear output, ability to make two sensors with identical output (nearly impossible with carbon-based sensors), reduced hysteresis, improved accuracy, and reduced power consumption. Perhaps most importantly, these sensors can be made from a wide variety of materials.

Home Automation, Aaron Pettit

Electrical and Computer Engineering

This system monitors several appliances in a person’s home. The framework is setup to be easily expandable for any future modifications. Two systems are currently supported.

• Lighting control
• Washer and Dryer notifications

Most home automation systems typically include lights or door locks. I have not seen many systems that include a washer and dryer controllers. The controller for the washer and dryer use magnets as to attach to any type of washing machine.

Input-Corrective Drawing Pad, Jesse Jensen

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Input-Corrective Drawing Pad is a drawing tablet that takes shaky input data and corrects it. It is designed for those with fine motor skill disabilities. The system takes an input (either writing or drawing) drawn by pressure-sensitive stylus and then outputs a “corrected” version. If in writing mode, text is output to the screen. Otherwise, simple shapes such as lines and curves are output to the screen on a drawing canvas. It accomplishes this goal by first eliminating obvious shakes in the input. Then, the shake-corrected input is fed into a neural network. If classifying text, the learning software …

Inflatable Antenna, Robert Mckay

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Inflatable antennas have been extensively researched for years.

• NASA’s Inflatable Antenna Experiment (1996)
• Cubic’s Ground Antenna Transmit and Receive (GATR) (2008)

The inflatable antenna presented here is unlike many inflatable antennas.

• Omni-directional
• Miniature
• Single-band (2.4 GHz)
• Folds

The design may be useful for consumers.

• Increased Wi-Fi / Bluetooth range on computers
• Efficient design reduces cost

Low-Precision Linear Algebra For Neural Networks, Frost Mitchell

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Neural networks have been widely responsible for recent advances in machine learning, powering technologies such as digital assistants and AR photography. LPLANN (Low-Precision Linear Algebra for Neural Networks) is a cross-platform library written in C++ used for implementing neural networks. The software allows users to set specific levels of precision for calculations. Low-precision calculations use advanced parallelization techniques (SIMD, SWAR) to run neural networks at faster rates than full-precision calculations. This library is lightweight enough to run on embedded systems, but also includes optimizations that would provide drastic speedups on a workstation. LPLANN also serves as a testbed for novel …

Martial Art Force Gage, Feyisa Berisa

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project is to design a force measuring device that interfaces with a Microcontroller. A martial art Force gage is a type of Force sensor that measures the force in the threshold that causes damage to human , which is 100lb to 3000lb.

Motorized Arm Project, Joshua Tracy

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Motorized Arm Project is an application of analog feedback control with five degrees of freedom. The arm detects the position of the user’s and mimics it using analog accelerometers. As an extra challenge, all of the control electronics are analog. That’s right! No microprocessors, and no software! The Motorized Arm Project shows that many robotic and control applications can be done reliably with non-digital devices.

Nylon Artificial Muscle, Usu Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Concept

• An artificial muscle made from copper and nylon fishing wire
• Also known as soft robotics muscle actuators
• Soft muscles can aid in better prosthetics design
• Soft muscles also have potential in animatronics engineering

The Climber-Bot, Usu Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

My project idea was to create a quadrupedal wall-climbing robot. This robot, called the Climber-Bot, is remote controlled and sends video footage from its location. The legs of the robot have vacuum powered suction cups attached to them allowing it to climb walls and ceilings. These vacuum powered legs allow for fast, easy inspection and surveillance. The Climber-bot can survey and inspect areas that are small, dangerous, or otherwise difficult to access.

The Self-Spotter, Kayden Feichko, Ashton Sicilia

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• The purpose of this project is to eliminate the necessity of having a human spotter, allow assistance to improve results, and increase safety while performing a workout.
• The Self-Spotter is an automated squat rack designed to replicate the basic functionalities of how a human spotter would help you perform a lift at the gym.
• This system is capable of assisting a user with any barbell-based workout.
• The structural design is based off a standard squat rack with modifications to implement a motor-to-chain pulley system to lift the side rails.

The Smart Shower: The Shower That Completes Your Smart Home, Parker Burton, Jeremy Littlewood, Richard Lloyd

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Smart Shower allows users to control their everyday showers at the sound of their voice or the tip of their fingers. By connecting pre-existing showers to sophisticated smart home technology, homeowners can enjoy a showering experience like none other.

Development Of An Suas-Mounted Texel Camera, Trevor Welch

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Currently, there is growth in the demand for scientifically accurate terrain maps of the earth. One method to acquire these maps is fusing digital imagery and LiDAR sensor data to create a Textured Digital Elevation Map (TDEM). Due to current LiDAR capability and availability, obtaining accurate terrain maps can be greater than $100,000.

Platooning Turtlebots, Sebastian Helzer, Terran Gerratt

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Self-driving cars are a rapidly emerging product in today’s market. Compared to ever more distracted drivers, these cars hold the promise of safer and more efficient travel. Platooning on the highway has been proposed as a means to improve efficiency and safety on the road. In everyday life, this means reduced traffic congestion and fewer accidents. In the armed forces, platooning can help convoys avoid IEDs.

Powered, Wearable, Reprogrammable (Pwr) Led Clothing, Blake Johansen

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Many people today want to have an element of creative control over the products they want to use
• Clothing is an industry that people can’t design or customize for themselves
• This project incorporates a series of NeoPixel lights on the front of a piece of clothing that a user can create custom animations for
• To ensure ease of use, a bluetooth app was developed to transmit animations to the vest
• To allow users to customize their clothing animations, a design program was developed that lets users design animations for themselves

Remote Battery Testing System, Jeffrey Snow

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Large storage/backup batteries are used everywhere around us, from fire alarms to our automobiles. However, we often forget they are even there. This leads to failures going unnoticed until the time of need. Then, it’s too late. The Remote Battery Testing System addresses this with the following features:

• Tester installed at location of batteries
• Tests automatically on a schedule
• Results of tests are sent back over network
• Results indicate health of batteries (not just charge)

Wheelchair Automation And Instrumentation Platform, Brady Houston, Taylor Jones

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Problems

• Powered wheelchairs often fail to communicate their status to their users.
• Every chair is customized to a user’s needs, but this does not always work as it is hard to translate the commands to a different layout.
• Status of the chair is unknown to caretakers/clinicians (has to go to the factory to be analyzed).

Goals

• Provide an interface where one could read off easily basic data about the chair’s environment (altitude, pressure, humidity, etc.).
• Build an API to allow for the interfacing of basic movement of the chair itself; this way alternative methods of control would be easier to …