Engineering Commons^™

Table Tennis Training Instrument (Ping Pongers), Derick Alvarado, Peter Sandberg, Andrew Wong

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Table Tennis is an extremely popular sport worldwide, boasting an extensive market. However, it is a sport that generally requires other people to both play and practice with. The goal of this project was to create a machine that would serve table tennis balls for the purpose of individual practice. The machine was meant to fill the niche that other machines of the same type filled by allowing individuals to practice on their own without the assistance of another player or a coach. The main goal of the project was to offer a market competitive device, sharing the same basic …

Skinclusive Ai: Towards Equitable Skin Cancer Detection For Deployment On Edge Devices, Joseph Galicinao

Master's Theses

Skin cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers worldwide, yet existing deep-learning models exhibit significant racial disparities because many widely used datasets are heavily skewed toward lighter skin tones. In addition, many approaches are not designed for deployment on resource-constrained devices, which limits accessibility. This work presents a comprehensive evaluation of classical machine learning and deep-learning based models for binary skin lesion classification, identifying the Swin-Tiny transformer architecture as the most effective backbone. To address bias, we curate a skin-tone balanced dataset, and introduce fairness-aware training through adversarial training, and joint distribution oversampling, to improve performance across protected attributes. …

Trim-Transfer: A Transfer Learning Approach For Cross-Trim Level Can Intrusion Detection, Baylor J. Whitehead

Master's Theses

Modern vehicles contain many Electronic Control Units (ECUs) that communicate through CAN. While CAN enables efficient data communication, it lacks built in authentication and encryption, allowing adversarial actors to inject malicious CAN messages. This limitation has motivated the development of CAN intrusion detection systems (IDS). However, deploying IDS across a vehicle lineup requires collecting large labeled datasets and retraining models, increasing development cost and limiting scalability.

This thesis investigates the use of transfer learning with LSTM-based deep neural networks to reduce retraining cost while maintaining model detection performance. A baseline LSTM model is trained using CAN data from a base …

A Comparative Study Of Model Predictive Control And The Stanley Method For Vehicle Path Tracking Applications, Noah S. Fitzgerald

Master's Theses

This thesis compares a model predictive controller (MPC) and a lateral Stanley controller for vehicle path-tracking applications under simulation-based and perception-driven operating conditions. Both controllers were evaluated in simulation using a nonlinear dynamic bicycle model executing single and double lane change maneuvers. Following simulation-based evaluation, both controllers were implemented on hardware within a perception-driven steering-control pipeline. This pipeline utilized recorded sensor data from the MXcarkit 1/8^th-scale autonomous vehicle platform, incorporating lane instance segmentation and homography-based roadway estimation.

Under idealized simulation conditions, the MPC demonstrated improved trajectory-tracking performance during aggressive maneuvers while requiring greater steering activity and computational effort …

Constructing Orthonormal Bases With The Residuals Of Successive Approximations, An Introduction To Multiresolution Analysis, Elijah J. Guptill

Master's Theses

Wavelets and wavelet analysis are used in the study of signal processing, quantum field theory, functional analysis, multifractal analysis, and various other areas of mathematics. Multiresolution analysis provides a framework for building a wavelet basis of $\mathcal{L}^{2}(\mathbb{R})$ from a scaling function $\phi$, whose dyadic dilations and translations, $\{2^{j /2}\phi(2^{j}x-k):j,k\in \mathbb{Z}\}$, approximate $\mathcal{L}^{2}(\mathbb{R})$. One of the key properties of  $\phi$ is that it must satisfy $\phi(x)=\sum_{k\in \mathbb{Z}}{p_{k}2^{j /2}\phi(2^{j}x-k)}$ with respect to the norm on $\mathcal{L}^{2}(\mathbb{R})$. This equation is called a two-scale difference equation. Such equations enforce a regularity on the ordinary generating function $2^{-1 /2}\sum_{k\in \mathbb{Z}}{p_{k}z^{k}}$, known as the quadrature condition. …

Discrete S-Band Low-Noise Amplifier Designs For High Data-Rate Cubesat Uplink, Alejandro Martin Cosper, Alejandro Cosper

Master's Theses

In the world of small satellites, there is growing interest in higher-data-rate systems and the technologies that enable them. Due to limitations in the extremely reliable and proven Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) systems, the current CubeSats developed by the Cal Poly CubeSat Laboratory operate at 9600 Baud. However, the low Baud rate is rooted in decades of proven flights and is very resistant to many forms of signal degradation. While a slow but simple system was critical to past successes, future satellite payloads may require higher data rates to drastically reduce the number of passes needed to transfer large amounts of …

Spaceotter: A Floating Spacecraft Simulator Air Bearing Vehicle For Hardware-In-The-Loop Experiments And Research, Alexander Debartolo

Master's Theses

Growing interest in nanosatellites has increased demand for accessible ground-testing methods, which have historically been expensive and restricted. Floating Spacecraft Simulators (FSS), built around Air Bearing Vehicles (ABVs), address this gap by approximating a zero-gravity, friction-minimized environment suitable for testing spacecraft control systems, robotics, and propulsion on the ground.

This thesis presents the design, realization, and initial performance characterization of the Space Optically Tracked Testbed for Experiments and Research (SpaceOTTER) ABV, developed for the Cal Poly Space Robotics Lab. SpaceOTTER is the first step toward emulating the 3 degree of freedom (3-DOF) planar dynamics of a simulated spacecraft and is …

Efficient Mathematical Modeling And Synthesis Of Realistic Musical Instrument Sounds, Andrew Chookaszian

Master's Theses

This thesis develops and evaluates a compact parametric additive synthesis model for isolated musical instrument tones. The method analyzes a single-note recording, estimates its fundamental frequency, extracts harmonic amplitude and frequency behavior, and stores the sound as a reduced set of interpretable parameters. These parameters include the note duration, pitch, per-harmonic amplitude envelopes, phase information, and amplitude- and frequency-modulation vibrato parameters. The stored model is then used to resynthesize the tone without directly using the original audio waveform.

The model was evaluated using synthetic signals, real instrument samples, objective error metrics, storage comparisons, pitch and duration modification tests, and listening …

A Study On Quantization And Hardware Cost Tradeoffs In A 5g Nr Ldpc Decoder On Fpga, Giancarlo Acosta

Master's Theses

The fixed-point implementation of a 5G New Radio LDPC decoder forces a tradeoff between precision and hardware cost, governed by the variable node word length W_L, the check node message width W_R, and the normalized min-sum correction factor α. This thesis characterizes how these three parameters affect both error correction performance and FPGA resource utilization for an LDPC decoder on an established LDPC decoder architecture. A bit-accurate MATLAB core model records bit error rate (BER) and frame error rate (FER) while a verified HDL Coder model generates synthesizable VHDL for Vivado synthesis, and both are swept …

Deep Learning For Affect Recognition: A Comparative Study Of Physiological Sensor-Based And Facial Image-Based Approaches, Ravi Panchal, Ravi Panchal

Master's Theses

This thesis investigates deep learning approaches for affect recognition using wearable physiological signals and facial image data. The sensor-based component evaluates stress and affect recognition on the WESAD dataset using wrist-based physiological windows and examines multiple temporal modeling strategies, including convolutional, recurrent, hybrid CNN-LSTM, attention-based, ensemble, and time-frequency approaches.

The image-based component evaluates hard-label facial expression recognition on AffectNet+ using pre-trained ResNet-50, EfficientNet-B3, and ConvNeXt-Tiny architectures across Easy, Challenging, and Difficult subsets representing different levels of expression ambiguity.

Experimental results show that the proposed Multi-Branch Attention CNN-BiLSTM (MBA-CNN-BiLSTM) model achieves the strongest wearable stress- and affect-recognition performance among the evaluated …

Design And Implementation Of An Embedded Control System For The Cal Poly Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics Simulator, Neil Mahesh Bedagkar

Master's Theses

This thesis presents the development of a cascaded reaction wheel control system for Cal Poly's Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics Simulator. This work considers system architecture, empirical modeling, high-fidelity simulation, embedded firmware, hardware integration, and experimental characterization. In discrete-time simulation, it is shown that nonlinear direct model reference adaptive control (NDMRAC) enables a nonlinear, partially known plant with realistic actuator dynamics to track the response of a canonical second-order transfer function, with settling time within 4.67% and percent overshoot within order of magnitude of the second-order response. In hardware, the feasibility of a cascaded reaction wheel control architecture is experimentally demonstrated, achieving …

Trustworthy Intelligence Fusion For Search And Rescue: Designing Grounded And Secure Multi-Agent Ai For Mission Decision Support, Yayun Tan

Master's Theses

Search and rescue (SAR) operations require teams to integrate uncertain information under severe time pressure. Large language model (LLM)-based multi-agent systems (MAS) can support decision-making, but they also risk producing hallucinated outputs and processing unreliable or malicious data. This thesis addresses these risks through three linked studies. First, it proposes a modular eight-agent SAR MAS architecture that reflects the structure of real SAR missions by assigning specialized roles to different agents. Second, it introduces a post-hoc probabilistic verification framework that checks LLM agent outputs against a probabilistic knowledge graph built from historical SAR incidents.  Third, the thesis examines indirect adversarial …

Characterization Of The Thermally Driven Red Hue Effect In Coated And Uncoated Concrete Systems: Implications For Post-Fire Assessment In Wildland Urban Interface Communities, Juan C. Palominos Jr

Master's Theses

The increasing frequency and intensity of Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) wildfires, such as the destructive 2025 Pacific Palisades Fire that destroyed over 6,000 structures, have underscored the urgent need for rapid post-fire safety assessment methodologies. This study sought to quantitatively characterize the Thermally Driven Red Hue Effect (TRHE), a unique, irreversible color shift observed in architectural coatings and concrete substrates, to determine its reliability as a permanent visual record of thermal exposure. Concrete substrates were formulated with three distinct coarse aggregates: gold granite (14.7% Fe), red cinder (22.4% Fe), and green rock (33.6% Fe) and coated with a 20 PVC waterborne …

Integrating Sustainability Into Engineering Education, Riley R. Moller

Master's Theses

Engineering decisions shape lasting technology that affects environmental integrity, public safety, economic stability, and social equity. As global challenges such as climate change, infrastructure vulnerability, and rapid technological advancement intensify, the responsibilities placed on engineers continue to expand. Sustainability provides a framework for addressing these interconnected pressures through systems-based design and long-term thinking. Yet, sustainability education within engineering programs remains unevenly integrated, often positioned as elective or peripheral rather than as a foundational component of professional preparation.

Prior research shows that sustainability is most frequently addressed through stand-alone courses rather than embedded across required curricula, reflecting disciplinary structures that prioritize …

Reproducing And Evaluating Charger Surfing: Robustness Of Smartphone Charging-Line Side-Channels, Colby M. Watts

Master's Theses

Smartphones are frequently connected to external, untrusted charging hardware, creating opportunities for side-channel attacks that do not require malware or direct access to device data. Charger Surfing, a recently proposed charging-line power analysis side-channel attack, reported high accuracy in inferring touchscreen input from voltage measurements collected from a smartphone’s charging cable; however, the reproducibility and robustness of these results under different conditions remain unclear. This thesis presents an independent replication and evaluation of Charger Surfing, including the development of an end-to-end data collection pipeline consisting of a modified charging cable, oscilloscope-based recordings, custom Android app, automated trace processing, and convolutional …

Improving The Reliability And Performance Of A Supersonic Indraft Tube Wind Tunnel, Christian J. Kaml

Master's Theses

Access to supersonic testing is increasing in demand, and wind tunnels remain one of the safest and most cost-effective methods for gathering high-speed flow data. Despite being more economical than alternative options, supersonic wind tunnel facilities often require substantial investment to construct, operate, and maintain.

The novel indraft tube tunnel architecture was conceived as a high-speed flow testbed that incorporates features of both Ludwieg tubes and indraft wind tunnels to maintain costs low enough to be accessible even to small universities. This design was first developed and tested in 2018 at California Polytechnic State University, featuring a cost per test …

Preserving Structural Alias Information Across The Mlir-To-Llvm Lowering Boundary, Shravan Sheth

Master's Theses

Machine learning training and inference workloads run at massive scale, where the efficiency of generated machine code directly affects throughput and energy consumption. The compilers that lower model specifications to hardware instructions rely on optimization passes that can only exploit information visible in the representations they operate on. MLIR, the intermediate representation framework underlying production machine learning compilers such as IREE and Triton, is designed so that each abstraction level can encode semantics that lower levels cannot represent. One example is memref.subview, which partitions a buffer into typed regions with explicit offsets and sizes, making structural non-overlap provable from the …

Design And Analysis Of A Customizable 6-Dof Force/Torque Sensor, Pyeongkang Kim

Master's Theses

This thesis presents the design, development, calibration, and testing of a novel customizable six-degree-of-freedom force/torque sensor, called the Kustom Force/Torque Sensor (KFTS), for use in the Cal Poly Low Speed Wind Tunnel (LSWT). The KFTS was developed as an alternative to commercial multi-axis force/torque sensors that feature fixed specifications. The swappable components and configurable structure of the KFTS enables changes to the sensor sensitivity, sensing range, and frequency response. Experimental testing verified that the sensor behaved as a linear time-invariant system, enabling calibration through the method of least squares and allowing the applied forces and moments to be reconstructed as …

Effect Of The Stacking Sequence And Number Of Ply Orientation In A Quasi-Isotropic Laminated Plate On In-Plane Shear Modulus And Failure Modes, Ann Larson

Master's Theses

Maximizing the shear modulus and strength, as well as predicting failure mode and location, when designing a stacking sequence of quasi-isotropic carbon fiber laminated plates is essential to predict stability, resistance to deformation, and overall stiffness of the structure. This research investigates the effect of the stacking sequence of quasi-isotropic laminated composite plate materials in accordance with ASTM D5379: Standard Test Method for Shear Properties of Composite Materials by the V-Notched Beam Method.

In this research, experimental testing and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) were first used on aluminum to validate the simulation process before applying it to composite materials. The …

Praxsmith: An Actor-Centric Domain Specific Language For Emergent Narratives In Video Games, Jacob C. Kelleran

Master's Theses

The video game industry is rapidly growing, and interest in game development is growing alongside it. Among this growing interest is a desire to include branching and emergent narratives in games. This subject is understood to be difficult, as every possible trajectory within the story creates exponential complexity. Large studios are sometimes able to create convincing implementations, but that is often with hundreds of developers and writers. Over the years, various solutions have been proposed to create frameworks and languages that aim to tackle this problem, with varying degrees of success. Some frameworks attempt this by placing the focus on …

Research And Assessment Of Needs For Sign And Signal Maintenance, Megan White, Eric Green

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) sign and signal crews have expressed multiple concerns related to compensation, expertise, and having the financial and personnel resources needed to help the agency comply with Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) guidelines while continuing to perform routine job duties. Internal reorganizations and personnel changes have reduced staffing and budgets available to underwrite the activities of sign and signal crews even as workloads have remained steady or increased. To document the challenges facing sign and signal crews and associated engineering staff, Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers administered a statewide survey. Respondents gave their perspectives on …

Building And Facility Asset Inventory Assessment And Maintenance, Catherine Keathley, Bethany Paris, Jon Wilcoxson

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) manages approximately 1,500 buildings statewide, including facilities such as office buildings, maintenance and equipment garages, and storage sheds. Because managing buildings and properties requires considerable effort, agency decision makers need reliable monitoring and management tools that generate and organize data which can be used to determine the best course of action for facility maintenance and replacement. In addition to assessing the Cabinet’s building inventory, this report advances recommendations to improve the collection, management, and reporting of facility-related data. Assessment of the inventory managed by KYTC included geolocation of all properties and the buildings therein. Once …

A Novel Hexagonal-Zigzag Cellular Infill Structure For Additive Manufacturing, Md. Saidur R Roney, Amm Nazmul Ahsan, Prosenjit Barua

Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

The rigidity of the Additively Manufactured objects can be tailored by manipulating the infill lattice type and density. In this research, an island type novel infill structure termed as Hexagonal-Zigzag pattern is introduced, and its mechanical performance is investigated. In this pattern, the zigzag raster reflects the repeating hexagonal shaped cell constituting the parallel-oriented islands and 90° rotation of the pattern in each layer distributes the island span along both transverse and longitudinal directions of the printing contour. A mathematical model is established to illustrate the effect of the infill parameters on hexagon unit cell size and relative infill density. …

Fairlinked: Data Fairification Tools For Materials Data Science, Van D. Tran, Brandon Lee, Ritika Lamba, Henry Dirks, Quynh D. Tran, Balashanmuga Priyan Rajamohan, Ozan Dernek, Laura S. Bruckman, Yinghui Wu, Erika I. Barcelos, Roger H. French

Student Scholarship

FAIRLinked is a software package created to support the FAIRification of materials science data, ensuring proper alignment with FAIR principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. It is built to be compatible with MDS-Onto, an ontology designed to capture the semantics of various types of materials data, enabling integration and sharing across different research workflows. The package is subdivided into three subpackages: InterfaceMDS, RDFTableConversion, and QBWorkflow. The first subpackage, InterfaceMDS allows users to search for terms using either string search or various filters, explore different domains and subdomains, and add terms to MDS-Onto. RDFTableConversion is used for serialization and deserialization of …

Kytc Crash Modification Factor Recommendation List Online Tool, William Staats, Reginald Souleyrette, Teng Alex Wang, Mohammad Zana Majidi

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Transportation practitioners use crash modification factors/functions (CMFs) to calculate the number of crashes expected once a countermeasure has been implemented. When evaluating design alternatives, CMFs can be used in conjunction with safety performance functions (SPFs) to derive crash predictions. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) maintains the CMF Clearinghouse as a repository for CMFs. Contributions are submitted by researchers across the U.S., Canada, and throughout the world. Typically, individual countermeasures are associated with multiple CMFs. Some CMFs only apply to a specific facility or crash types. CMF quality varies, and some only apply to a specific facility and/or crash types, regions, …

Rehab Mechanics, Sierra Spierling, Nicole Garcia, Joel Gonzalez, Diana Garcia-Becerra, Mia Kwan

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Stroke survivors often struggle to regain grip strength and hand mobility due to limited access to physical therapy, lack of progress tracking during independent rehabilitation sessions, and reduced motivation from slow or unmeasured progress. There is a need for more effective rehabilitation approaches, as current at-home strengthening tools do not provide quantitative feedback or adjustable resistance, and clinical devices are expensive. This makes it challenging for patients and their physical therapists to guide recovery and monitor improvement effectively. To address these obstacles, we developed a low-cost, customizable grip-strengthening device that tracks patient progress and assists in regaining strength and mobility …

A Hybrid Mechano-Thermal Route To Synthesize Reactive Pozzolans From Clay Minerals: A Case Of Kaolinite, Oluwadamilare Charles Adesina, Bryan K. Aylas-Paredes, Brian R. Cherry, Luciano A. Gobbo, Aditya Kumar, Narayanan Neithalath

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Aluminosilicate resources from unconventional sources offer promising potential for developing low-carbon supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), yet their activation typically requires energy-intensive thermal processing. Kaolinite is a geographically abundant and highly attractive precursor clay mineral to reduce the clinker factor in concrete. By integrating mechano- and thermo- chemistry sequentially in a novel hybrid mechano-thermal activation (MTA) strategy for clay mineral activation, the dehydroxylation of pure kaolinite polymorphs KGa-1b and KGa-2 for enhanced pozzolanic reactivity is unlocked at temperatures that are lower than those needed for conventional thermal activation (TA). The mechano-chemical activation (MCA) step that induces significant structural defects and disorder …

Bowl-O-Matic, Nathan Lin, Luis Torres, Jill Worthington, Aiden Foote

Mechanical Engineering

Adaptive physical education presents the unique challenge of accommodating individuals with diverse physical and cognitive abilities. Instructors and program designers must often integrate specialized equipment, fixtures, or features to ensure activities remain safe, inclusive, and user-friendly. Beyond accessibility, adaptive physical education highlights the importance of empowerment— enabling every participant to experience personal growth, confidence, and connection through movement. Friday Club, a local San Luis Obispo program supported by Cal Poly’s Kinesiology Department, embodies these values by providing adaptive physical activities that promote health and well-being for individuals with varying abilities. One of the most popular and regularly held activities is …

Cosmetic Clamper, Daniel Peter Gates, Bruno Roberto Martinez, Samantha Remy, Zachary Joseph Roeber

Mechanical Engineering

Cosmetic Clamper Mechanical Engineering Senior Project was a senior project at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in the College of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Department. The project ran from September 2025 to June 2026. The project developed the Cosmetic Clamper device, an accessibility product designed to help individuals with unilateral upper extremity motor deficits open, use, and close cosmetic containers independently.

Me3329 Modular Phonograph Gearbox, Garrett Andrik Leighton, Preston Robert Hupe, Gavin Carter Ebner, Andrew Renato Reyes

Mechanical Engineering

The Mechanical Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), seeks to develop a laboratory tool allowing students to reinforce concepts of gears for Mechanical Systems Design (ME329). Some current laboratories do not provide students with hands-on interaction, and the department lacks equipment and documentation to support a standardized lab. With ME329 expanding from ten to fifteen weeks, there is an opportunity to create a physical gearbox design lab allowing students to reinforce lecture material in engaging ways, while standardizing student learning. This senior project is presented and sponsored by Professor Alan Zhang. It will be …