Engineering Commons^™

Quantifying Appearance For Opaque Surfaces Using Spectral Bidirectional Reflectivity, Christopher Richard Brooks

Theses and Dissertations

Quantifying the appearance of a surface is an important aspect in quality control. Becauseobjects at room temperature emit negligible amounts of radiation into the visible spectrum, aspectsof their appearance may be quantified using reflected light. Therefore, the appearance of opaquesurfaces may be quantified using measurements of the spectral, bidirectional reflectivity. However,measuring the spectral, bidirectional reflectivity of even one point at every set of incident andreflected directions is a time intensive process that is infeasible for quality control.The objective of this work was to determine whether a limited number of spectral, bidirectionalreflectance measurements may be used to characterize the appearance of …

Organizimi Në Ndërtimtari, Blerta Nuhijaj

Theses and Dissertations

Projektet inxhinierike duke qenë se janë unike dhe procese jo përsëritës, kanë një shkallë të lartë pasigurie në përmbushjen e objektivave të përcaktuara në projektin teknik dhe gjatë fazës së planifikimit të tyre. Duke qenë të pasigurta për nga përmbushja e objektivave lindë nevoja për një planifikim më ambicioz dhe me fokus të veçantë. Paraqitja grafike e aktiviteteve na mundëson të kemi një pasqyre mbi ecurinë e projektit.

Secili aktivitet në ndërtim ka kohen e fillimit dhe kohen e mbarimit. Aktivitete ndërtimore munde te jene ne funksion te aktiviteteve paraprake por munde te zhvillohen edhe si te pavarura.

Me zhvillimin …

Heat: Hydraulic And Electric Animation Team, Tyler J. Couvrette, Michael J. Cain, Sara T. Novell, Dexter K. Yanagisawa

Mechanical Engineering

Each New Years’ Day, the Cal Poly Rose Float presents a flower-covered float to the world at the Tournament of Roses parade. This floral display, paired with moving mechanical animations, shows off Cal Poly to the world. This project strove to keep Cal Poly on the cutting edge of technology both in parade floats, and in engineering, by creating a completely electric-powered animation system.

To accomplish this, a group of students set out to make the fully electric animation system that can power both the hydraulic and electric mechanisms on the Float. This was accomplished through months of planning and …

Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge - The Incompressibles - Final Design Report, Nicholas Gholdoian, Russell Posin, David Vitt, Alex Knickerbocker, Kyle Franck, Julian Rodkiewicz

Mechanical Engineering

This report provides a comprehensive description of the research, analysis and design work that The Incompressibles have completed thus far in the senior project process. This document includes all the work that The Incompressibles have completed for the team’s Preliminary Design Review (PDR), Critical Design Review (CDR), the work leading up to the 2019 FPVC competiton and the competition results. This report includes the initial research that the team completed for the fluid power competition, first iterations of designs, final iterations of designs, manufacturing results and processes, and finally testing and results from competition. With a new design for the …

Insulated Solar Electric Cooker Immersion Heater, Emily Burnside, Kaeley Dicks, Joshua R. Stevens, Brady Banks

Mechanical Engineering

This report is the final design review (FDR) report for our team completing the Insulated Solar Electric Cooker (ISEC) Immersion Heater mechanical engineering senior project. The goal of this project is to standardize and perform analysis on a preexisting, inexpensive solar-powered immersion heater for cooking use in developing countries, reducing the adverse effects presented by traditional biomass cooking fires. We also designed a manufacturing process to improve repeatability and to reduce labor investment of heater production. The ISEC research team from the California Polytechnic State University Physics Department have been working on the development of this immersion heater and have …

Influence Of Frictional Or Rotational Kinetic Energy On Wellbore-Fluid/Temperature Profiles During Drilling Operations, Ahmed Q. Al Saedi, Ralph E. Flori, C. Shah Kabir

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Temperature-profile distributions in a wellbore during drilling operations might take different forms when applying the energy balance in the overall system. For steady-state conditions, wherein the wellbore is considered a closed system, adding any source of additional energy to this system can influence the predicted temperature profiles. This study presents a new analytical model to investigate the influence of rotational energy arising from the drillstring operation on the wellbore-temperature behavior.

A significant part of the drilling operation is rotation of the drillstring. Depending on the drilling rig, various equipment provides this kind of energy, such as the rotary table or …

Bpm: Blz Package Manager, Kenneth Huang

Computer Engineering

bpm (BLZ Package Manager) is a package manager for the open-source programming language BLZ, built in Java. It allows users of the BLZ programming language to create and upload their own packages, as well as downloading necessary dependency packages for their packages. To do this, the program communicates with the “cardiovascular”, a web server designed for users to upload and download BLZ packages.

The program has three primary functions. The first one, “init”, initializes a package directory for use with the package manager. Part of this initialization is creating a “heartbeat” meta file, which holds information about the package’s name, …

Identifying Hourly Traffic Patterns With Python Deep Learning, Christopher L. Leavitt

Computer Engineering

This project was designed to explore and analyze the potential abilities and usefulness of applying machine learning models to data collected by parking sensors at a major metro shopping mall. By examining patterns in rates at which customer enter and exit parking garages on the campus of the Bellevue Collection shopping mall in Bellevue, Washington, a recurrent neural network will use data points from the previous hours will be trained to forecast future trends.

Don't Trip! A Quicker Way To Plan Your Trip, Jose Cruz Arinaga, Ryan Wong

Computer Engineering

Currently, Google Maps does not provide users with a way to find the optimal path for a user to travel given a list of points. Given a list of destinations you may want to visit, our web application will do all of the difficult planning for you and ultimately find the most optimal path for you to take to visit all of your destinations in a timely manner. The people who will benefit most from this application are tourists or people who travel often and want to explore an unfamiliar city. Even locals running their weekly errands could save time …

Vehicle Control Unit, Ayusman Saha

Computer Engineering

The Vehicle Control Unit (VCU) is the central computer for Cal Poly’s Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) formula electric race car. It is responsible for processing driver inputs, managing the electric motor, and providing a robust safety net in the case of system failure. Additional functionality of the system include a power limiting mechanism as well as a traction control system. All VCU logic had to abide by SAE International rules for the competition. This project focused solely on the firmware for the VCU.

Keylime, Joshua Michael Magera

Computer Engineering

New freshmen arrive at Cal Poly every year, experience Week of Welcome, and, if they haven’t been to Firestone Grill within the first week, they can consider themselves an anomaly. But how long until those freshmen find the amazing sandwiches and breakfast burritos served at Gus’s Grocery or hear about the free burger promo at Sylvester’s? The goal of this senior project was to create an app, KeyLime, that makes it easy for college students to find new eateries and fresh deals that are local, affordable, and tasty. KeyLime aims to target college students and create a space for restaurants …

Dashboard, Bradley Manuel Levin, Kyle Matthew King

Computer Engineering

Modern gamers are always looking for new and exciting ways to play board games. Our senior project, DashBoard, is intended to capitalize on this interest and upgrade board games to have pre-programmed moves and easy piece moving. It is a proof-of-concept project for a programmable chess-style game board using an electromagnet array to move the pieces around the board. With an easily programmable interface with the Raspberry Pi 3, users can make their own programs or find ones others have made online to move pieces in creative ways.

Gr802.11 Jamming Detector, Grant A. Blake

Computer Engineering

One important component of a jamming-resistant 802.11 network is detecting the presence of a jammer during normal operation. This is required so that communications on the network can operate at full efficiency when no jammer is present, but switch to a less efficient, but more resilient protocol when the network is under attack. This paper describes a potential method for detecting some common forms of jamming, lays out a plan to test the effectiveness of the detection method, and summarizes the implementation and results of the test plan.

Raspberry Pi Enterprise Network Wifi Bridge, Dylan Halland, Riley Barrett

Computer Engineering

The goal of this project is to allow an IoT device, such as a Weemo Smart Plug, Amazon Echo, Gaming Console, or any other Wi-Fi enabled device to connect to a WPA_EAP Enterprise Network by using a Raspberry Pi Zero W as a packet forwarding device. Extra configuration steps are required for devices connecting to an enterprise network, and many devices are not compatible at all. By using a Wi-Fi Bridge, any device can easily obtain internet access by connecting to the Pi.

The system can be implemented on either one wireless card or two separate cards depending on the …

A Database For Indexable Carbide Inserts, Andrew Yoder

Computer Engineering

The indexable inserts project is a collaborative effort to aggregate into a single database as many indexable carbide inserts from as many manufacturers as possible. Inserts are generally labeled with a part number following a specific standard determined by shapes and measurements, however specifications for certain aspects of carbide inserts—such as which materials they can cut—can vary by manufacturer. There currently is not a way to search a comprehensive database containing tools from multiple manufacturers for a handful of inserts that would satisfy some necessary parameters, making finding the correct tool in a shop a much more time-consuming process than …

Labeling Paths With Convolutional Neural Networks, Sean Wallace, Kyle Wuerch

Computer Engineering

With the increasing development of autonomous vehicles, being able to detect driveable paths in arbitrary environments has become a prevalent problem in multiple industries. This project explores a technique which utilizes a discretized output map that is used to color an image based on the confidence that each block is a driveable path. This was done using a generalized convolutional neural network that was trained on a set of 3000 images taken from the perspective of a robot along with matching masks marking which portion of the image was a driveable path. The techniques used allowed for a labeling accuracy …

Tidalsim Senior Project Report, Kent Zhang, Colin Vandervoort

Computer Engineering

Throughout the course of this project, our team helped the Cal Poly Biological Sciences department refine an intertidal zone simulator. The aim of this device is to allow any marine biologist to easily simulate a vast range of tidal zones in order to test animal behaviors within these zones. Another goal of this project is to make each simulation tank independent from the others by using a single microcontroller to handle all inputs and outputs of the system as well as logging all relevant data. The current system is set up so that a separate microcontroller handles dissolved oxygen and …

Impact Of Beam Misalignment On Hybrid Beamforming Noma For Mmwave Communications, Mojtaba Ahmadi Almasi, Mojtaba Vaezi, Hani Mehrpouyan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper analyzes the effect of beam misalignment on rate performance in downlink of hybrid beamforming-based non-orthogonal multiple access (HB-NOMA) systems. First an HB-NOMA framework is designed in multiuser millimeter wave (mmWave) communications. A sum-rate maximization problem is formulated for HB-NOMA, and an algorithm is introduced to design digital and analog precoders and efficient power allocation. Then, regarding perfectly aligned line-of-sight (LoS) channels, a lower bound for the achievable rate is derived. Next, when the users experience misaligned LoS or non-LoS (NLoS) channels, the impact of beam misalignment is evaluated. To this end, a misalignment factor is modeled and each …

Silicon Nitride Stress Liner Impacts On The Electrical Characteristics Of Algan/Gan Hemts, Wei Chih Cheng, Tao Fang, Siqi Lei, Yunlong Zhao, Minghao He, Mansun Chan, Guangrui Maggie Xia, Feng Zhao, Hongyu Yu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Due to the piezoelectric nature of GaN, the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) could be engineered by strain. In this work, SiNx deposited using dual-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) was used as a stressor. The output performance of the devices was dominated by the surface passivation instead of the strain effect. However, the threshold voltage was increased by the liner-induced strain, supporting strain engineering as an effective approach to pursue the normally-off operation of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs.

Application Of Big Data Analytics In Agriculture Supply Chain Management, Sankara Narayanan Mangalam Ananthapadmanabhan

Master's Theses

The increasing trend in frequency of natural disasters in tandem with globalization of business makes the agricultural supply chain significantly vulnerable to disruption. This thesis presents a pragmatic approach for creating a Business Continuity Model that can notify supply chain planners when there is an increase in risk of agriculture supply chain disruption due to natural disasters. The methodology presented in this thesis applied big data analytics and machine learning algorithms along with agriculture product related exponential decay function to create a regionalized composite risk score, that incorporated both direct and indirect risk associated with the Agriculture Fresh Supply Chain. …

Interpolated Perturbation-Based Decomposition As A Method For Eeg Source Localization, Gabriel Zelik Lipof

Master's Theses

In this thesis, the perturbation-based decomposition technique developed by Szlavik [1] was used in an attempt to solve the inverse problem in EEG source localization. A set of dipole locations were forward modeled using a 4-layer sphere model of the head at uniformly distributed lead locations to form the vector basis necessary for the method. Both a two-dimensional and a pseudo-three-dimensional versions of the model were assessed with the two-dimensional model yielding decompositions with minimal error and the pseudo-three-dimensional version having unacceptable levels of error. The utility of interpolation as a method to reduce the number of data points to …

A Comparison Of Water Main Failure Prediction Models In San Luis Obispo, Ca, Kyle Eric Aube

Master's Theses

This study compared four different water main failure prediction models: a statistically simple model, a statistically complex model, a statistically complex model with modifications termed the 2019 model, and an age-based model. The statistically complex models compute the probability of failure based on age, size, internal pressure, length of pipe in corrosive soil, land use, and material of the. These two values are then used to prioritize a water main rehabilitation program to effectively use the municipality’s funds. The 2019 model calculates the probability of failure and consequence of failure differently than the statistically complex model by considering corrosive soil …

Cloneless: Code Clone Detection Via Program Dependence Graphs With Relaxed Constraints, Thomas J. Simko

Master's Theses

Code clones are pieces of code that have the same functionality. While some clones may structurally match one another, others may look drastically different. The inclusion of code clones clutters a code base, leading to increased costs through maintenance. Duplicate code is introduced through a variety of means, such as copy-pasting, code generated by tools, or developers unintentionally writing similar pieces of code. While manual clone identification may be more accurate than automated detection, it is infeasible due to the extensive size of many code bases. Software code clone detection methods have differing degree of success based on the analysis …

Smart Dc Wall Outlet Design With Improved Load Voltage Detection, Patrick Donovon Granieri

Master's Theses

A standard home in the United States has access to the 120V AC power grid for use with home appliances. Many electronics used at home are powered by a DC power supply, which loses energy in the conversion from AC power. The DC House project avoids any conversion between AC and DC by storing energy in batteries as DC power and supplying it directly to DC appliances. While AC systems feature a standardized output voltage, no such standard exists for DC systems. The Smart DC Wall Outlet solves this by automatically adjusting its output voltage to meet any required DC …

A Methodology For Verification Of Structural Standards For A Seating System By Finite Element Analysis, Zachary Kelly Dworaczyk Wiltshire

Master's Theses

Currently California Polytechnic State University has a patent pending on a new type of seating system designed to increase the functionality of public transportation vehicles. The patent is based on the work completed by a senior project group in 2016, whose design showcased the feasibility of the idea. Further development was completed by a second senior project group, the Adjustable Seating Systems, in 2019. The intent of the Adjustable Seating Systems group was to develop a seating system with the intent of commercialization and implementation in paratransit vehicles with future development into large buses and trains.

Seating systems used in …

Bridge Load Testing Versus Bridge Load Rating, Abheetha Peiris, Issam E. Harik

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The current method of load rating bridges according to AASHTO specifications can underestimate the capacity and behavior of bridges. Analytical equations do not account for the degree of rigidity of the supports, unintended composite action due to friction between girders and the slab, and other factors. Load testing of individual bridges can produce a load rating that much more accurately reflects the capacity of a non-composite bridge. However, current methods of load testing require significant time commitments to instrument a bridge profile to record data, rendering it impractical in many cases. But there are new commercially available strain gauges that …

Effects Of Pulse Width On He Plasma Jets In Contact With Water Evaluated By Oh(A-X) Emission And Ohaq Production, Shutong Song, Esin B. Sözer, Chunqi Jiang

Bioelectrics Publications

Nanosecond pulsed helium plasma jets impinging on water produce hydroxyl radicals both in gas- and liquid-phase. In this study, the effects of pulse width on a repetitively pulsed plasma jet in contact with water are evaluated via OH(A-X) emission and OH_aq production in water for various pulse widths ranging from 200 to 5000 ns. The maximal energy efficiency of OH(A-X) emission is obtained for pulse widths of 600-800 ns whereas the maximal efficiency of OH_aq production is at 200 ns. Temporally-resolved emission spectroscopy shows that more than 40% of OH(A-X) emission is produced during the first 200 ns …

Waved: A Coreless Axial Flux Pm Motor For Drive Systems With Constant Power Operation, Narges Taran, Vandana Rallabandi, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

In this paper, a two-phase coreless AFPM machine with wave winding, 2-stators, and 3-rotors for traction applications is studied. A highly general optimization method, employing 3D FEA as the computational engine is employed. Number of poles in addition to other geometrical variables are included as independent optimization variables. A method for extending the speed range by rotating one of the stator discs with respect to the other at constant power operation is proposed. An inverter configuration including Si and wide band gap devices is proposed to be employed in conjunction with the machine under study. The study includes a comparison …

Modeling And Control Of A Multiport Converter Based Ev Charging Station With Pv And Battery, Yibin Zhang, Jiangbiao He, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

As an environmental friendly vehicle, the increasing number of electrical vehicles (EVs) leads to a pressing need of widely distributed charging stations, especially due to the limited on-board battery capacity. However, fast charging stations, especially super-fast charging stations may stress power grid with potential overload at peaking time, sudden power gap and voltage sag. This paper discusses the detailed modeling of a multiport converter based EV charging station integrated with PV power generation, and battery energy storage system, by using ANSYS TwinBuilder. In this paper, the control scheme and combination of PV power generation, EV charging station, and battery energy …

Electric Aircraft System Co-Simulation Including Body, Propeller, Propulsion, And Energy Storage Models, Damien Lawhorn, Vandana Rallabandi, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the multi physics modeling of an electric aircraft with distributed electric propulsion. Mathematical models for the aircraft body, propellers, propulsive motors, power electronics inverters, and batteries are developed. Two types of models are proposed for the power electronics inverters and electric machines, namely, average models which allow study of the aircraft performance under a specified mission profile, and detailed switching models used for transient examination. A new simulation framework was developed to allow communication between these two types of models so that losses and thermal stresses in the power electronics converters can be estimated especially during takeoff, …