Engineering Commons^™

Real Time Analysis Of Eye Gaze Data, Nathan Ng, Andrew Wei

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Eye Tracking is an up and coming form of technology that allows the analysis of human interaction and attention patterns. This can be extremely useful in multiple aspects such as the automotive industry, the medical field, gaming industries, and schools and universities. But what hasn't been done yet is the real time analysis of that data. In this document, we propose to bridge the gap between raw data gathered from the Tobii Pro X3-120 Eye Tracker and the real time analysis of that data. Doing so will unlock untapped potential in the form of dynamic applications and real time experiment …

Visions For The Field By A Pioneer, Vladimir Mironov

Biofabrication for Hierarchical in Vitro Tissue Models

Only Presentation No Abstract

Intelligent Coordination And Automation For Smart Home Accessories, Alexander Choulos, Tian Zhang

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Smarthome accessories are rapidly becoming more popular. Although many companies are making devices to take advantage of this market, most of the created smart devices are actually unintelligent. Currently, these smart home devices require meticulous, tedious configuration to get any sort of enhanced usability over their analog counterparts. We propose building a general model using machine learning and data science to automatically learn a user's smart accessory usage to predict their configuration. We have identified the requirements, collected data, recognized the risks, implemented the system, and have met the goals we set out to accomplish.

Variable Drive Vehicle, Christopher Clark, Michael D'Arrigo, Graham Mcclone, Joseph Sahyoun

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The versatility of current rovers and exploratory vehicles is limited by a single drive system. The Variable Drive Vehicle (VDV) employs a actuated systemcapable of switching between wheeled and tracked drive modes. This allows the vehicle to travel quickly and efficiently over smooth terrain and to traverse more arduous terrain by switching between these two systems. The small scale prototype built over the course of this project is equipped with two modular wheel driven track units to demonstrate the viability of the system. Electric linear actuators and servo motors allow for simple control and a smooth transition between each drive …

Real-Time Classification Of Biomedical Signals, Parkinson’S Analytical Model, Abolfazl Saghafi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The reach of technological innovation continues to grow, changing all industries as it evolves. In healthcare, technology is increasingly playing a role in almost all processes, from patient registration to data monitoring, from lab tests to self-care tools. The increase in the amount and diversity of generated clinical data requires development of new technologies and procedures capable of integrating and analyzing the BIG generated information as well as providing support in their interpretation.

To that extent, this dissertation focuses on the analysis and processing of biomedical signals, specifically brain and heart signals, using advanced machine learning techniques. That is, the …

On The Relative Positioning Of Mobile Devices Through Bluetooth Analysis, Karsten Andersen, Matt Gibson

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Currently, there is no way to accurately track a mobile devices position in a given space without the use of GPS or WiFi. This means that people who are interested in understanding where they currently are in relationship to other people or landmarks and do not have access to these technologies are not able to get accurate location information. In many cases, GPS and WiFi fail to provide the accuracy required to provide useful information as well.

Our solution is a software layer that utilizes existing bluetooth hardware to create a highly accurate relative positioning system. The software layer utilizes …

Shot Clock, Kory Bartlett, Farzad Fred Feyzi

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

The sports sector has experienced major growth over the past couple of decades and is anticipated to grow even faster in the foreseeable future, especially as media technology continues to advance and access to sports games continues to increase. As the audience of sports enthusiast and observers expands, more people may miss the most recent and interesting sporting events from the previous night. Many websites have attempted to serve these groups, but they have become cluttered with articles or short-clips that hold little to no significance to the sporting outcome. These websites have begun to get away from the simple …

Anthrolink: Phased Antenna Arrays And Applications In Wireless Connectivity, Jonathan Lee, Srinivaas Sekaran

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Anthrolink is a next generation communication system that has the potential to connect the next 3 billion individuals to the Internet. It uses phased patch antenna arrays and a simple phasing and weighting algorithm for beam switching at 5.8 GHz. End-to end system validates key components of a potential 5G network that supports IoT topologies of the future.

Using a sequence of an RF oscillator, beam-forming Butler matrix, an RF switch, and custom beam-switching algorithms, a proof-of-concept communication system is produced. This is verified by four independent and separate receiver endpoints that detect RF signals by way of DC output. …

Benefits From Constructability Reviews, Nikiforos Stamatiadis, Roy Sturgill, Kiriakos Amiridis

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Constructability review is a process used during project design to infuse construction knowledge into the design process. There is industry impetus encouraging early construction involvement in project development. State transportation agencies often have to abide by legislation restricting these procurement methods leaving construability review as the only opportunity for early construction involvement. Staffing and budgetary constraints lead to state transportation agencies being very cautious in the practices and processes they implement that seemingly lie outside the main missions of project development and delivery. Without straightforward and documented savings of constructability review processes, these methods may also be eliminated. After streamlining …

Mechanical Characterization Of Polymer Concrete With Nanomaterials, Alaeddin Douba

Civil Engineering ETDs

Nanomaterials are defined by those whose characteristic length scale lies within the nanometer scale. Their extreme dimension achieves extraordinary mechanical properties superior to other micro and macro additives. The introduction of nanotechnology to Civil Engineering utilizes low volume inclusions of nanomaterials to alter the properties of conventionally used bulk materials. Polymer Concrete (PC) where epoxy polymer binders replace cement binders, has become a common repair material among many other application and often can be considered an alternative to Portland cement concrete (PCC). PC is often used in bridge deck overlays, manholes, machine foundations and repairs. Its diverse chemical composition and …

Thermophysical Properties Of Thin Fibers Via Photothermal Quantum Dot Fluorescence Spectral Shape-Based Thermometry, Troy Munro, Liwang Liu, Heng Ban, Christ Glorieux

Faculty Publications

To improve predictions of composite behavior under thermal loads, there is a need to measure the axial thermophysical properties of thin fibers. Current methods to accomplish this have prohibitively long lead times due to extensive sample preparation. This work details the use of quantum dots thermomarkers to measure the surface temperature of thin fibers in a non-contact manner and determine the fibers’ thermal diffusivity. Neural networks are trained on extracting the temperature of a sample from fluorescence spectra in calibrated, steady-state conditions, based on different spectral features such as peak intensity and peak wavelength. The trained neural networks are then …

An Expert System For Local Flood Response Coordination And Training, Xiaoyin Zhang, Gary Moynihan, Andrew Ernest, Joseph Gutenson

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Flood response is an essential component of flood management to rescue people, reduce property loss, and limit the impact to the environment. Effective flood response depends on a sound coordination structure with unified responsibilities, smooth communications, and scalable response plans. An efficient coordination system, including command and management structures, is built on a thorough understanding of the responsibilities and actions of each role for delivering the response core capabilities. Collecting, sharing, using, and handling the knowledge require great efforts in knowledge management. To further enhance such efforts, an expert system for local flood response coordination and training (LFRS) was developed …

Conversation Station, Davis Allen, Robert Bayer

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

We built a mobile application that improves speed and personalization in conversations for people struggling with verbal communication. Many people diagnosed with autism, Down syndrome, and other disorders face daily challenges involving communication due to speech impediments. Existing solutions allow users to communicate via speech cards or typing on a keyboard. However, these solutions make tradeoffs between personalization and speed, compromising what it takes to have fluid, natural) and rewarding conversations. Our solution speeds up personalized communication by applying Machine Learning principles, Artificial Intelligence, and Natural Language Processing. Our project will predict how a user will respond based on natural …

Taking Afrobarometer Data Everywhere, Christen Nguyen, Sean Thomas, Adrienne Tina

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

According to statistics gathered by research group Afrobarometer, many countries in Africa lack infrastructure and basic necessities. In fact, Afrobarometer knows the specific rates of need and availability sampled across thirty-six countries but more prosperous African countries do not know these numbers. These more developed countries are in a position to help their less fortunate neighbors if only made aware of the social and economic climate in the respective areas. Our partnership with Afrobarometer will allow us to advertise these statistics through the use of a mobile application. The data will be displayed in a way that is easy for …

Biofabrication Using Recombinant Spider Silk Proteins As A Biomaterial, Tamara B. Aigner, Elise K. Desimone, Thomas Scheibel

Biofabrication for Hierarchical in Vitro Tissue Models

Biofabrication for applications in regenerative medicine is a rapidly expanding field. Remarkable about this approach compared to traditional approaches is its feasibility for larger scale production at high quality and reproducibility. However, there is a lack of process-compatible materials for biofabrication due to the need for mild, aqueous processing conditions. More specifically, the solvents used must have neutral pH, and salts in proper osmolality, temperatures used cannot be too high or low, and so forth. The recombinant spider-silk protein eADF4(C16) (engineered Araneus diadematus fibroin 4) is biocompatible, biodegradable and hypoallergenic and can be provided in large quantities with consistent material …

Ambient Life, Ryan Scott, Shaun Suezaki

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Health Monitoring applications and devices are becoming very useful tools for people that want to take a more active role in their personal health. However, no current health-monitoring device is capable of harvesting its own power for operation. In our Senior Design project, we use an energy harvesting wireless sensor system that is designed to be easily worn on the wrist, or on the foot of an infant, in order to help people monitor their temperature and pulse rate. Our personal health-monitoring device operates using an Arduino pro mini microcontroller that reads in data from our sensors and passes them …

A Comparative Analysis Of Pretreatment Strategies On The Properties And Hydrolysis Of Brewers’ Spent Grain, Rajeev Ravindran, Swarna Jaiswal, Nissreen Abu-Ghannam, Amit Jaiswal

Articles

In this study, brewer’s spent grain (BSG) was subjected to a range pretreatments to study the effect on reducing sugar yield. Glucose and xylose were found to be the predominant sugars in BSG. Brewers spent grain was high in cellulose (19.21g/100g of BSG) and lignin content (30.84g/100g of BSG). Microwave assisted alkali (MAA) pretreatment was found to be the most effective pretreatment for BSG, where the pretreatment was conducted at 400W for 60s. A maximum reducing yield was observed with high biomass loading (1g/10ml), cellulase (158.76 μl/10ml), hemicellulase (153.3 μl/10ml), pH (5.4) and an incubation time (120h). Upon enzymatic hydrolysis, …

Evaluation Boundary And Design Method For Insulating Packages, Liao Pan, Jun Wang, Lixin Lu

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

To evaluate the failure potential of insulated packaging to heat outside, a so-called evaluation boundary for insulating packages was proposed for designing and estimating insulating packages based on the heat transfer law between the environment and a packaged product through packaging. Three evaluation parameters were suggested for describing the failure mechanism of insulating packages. The validity of the presented evaluation boundary was verified by the experimental data. Finally, a new design method of insulating packages based on the boundary was proposed and an application example was performed as a demonstration. The results indicated that the three evaluation parameters (which are …

Forge 2.0 Clean Burning Cook Stove, William Gebb, Matthew Lee, Thai Ha Sloan, Emily Gray-Gribble

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

Team Forge 2.0 is a team of mechanical engineers that has designed, modified, and manufactured a cook stove that creates a clean burn in order to help relieve respiratory disease and harmful environmental impacts resulting from the combustion of biomass in developing nations. The stove is developed specifically for developing communities in Nicaragua that still use traditional cooking methods which contribute to premature deaths due to respiratory illness. The designed product is a cylindrical cooking device that has a unique air flow system which optimizes the gasification process. Gasification is the process in which gas released from the primary combustion …

Scu Cube, Matt Condino, Andrew Drape, Evan Eberhardt, Cooper Mcdonnell, Brayton Mcknight, Isaac Mcquillen, James Olwell, Laura Tschudy

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Traditional forms of communication such as landlines and cell phones are unreliable during disaster scenarios. It is difficult to coordinate relief efforts in the aftermath of a disaster due to the unavailability of reliable communication methods. The SCUCube is a 3U CubeSat designed to aid disaster relief communications. The satellite has an amateur radio primary payload that can send and receive standardized data packets with compatible radios, and also has an experimental attitude control system secondary payload. The semi-passive attitude control system uses a gravity gradient boom and a reaction wheel to stabilize the orientation of the satellite. In addition, …

A Review Of Injectable And Implantable Biomaterials For Treatment And Repair Of Soft Tissues In Wound Healing, Shih-Feng Chou, Simi Gunaseelan, Mhd Hussam Hijazi Kiellani, Venkata Vamsi Krishna Thottempudi, Pierre Neuenschwander, Huarong Nie

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The two major topics concerning the development of nanomedicine are drug delivery and tissue engineering.With the advance in nanotechnology, scientists and engineers now have the ability to fabricate functional drug carriers and/or biomaterials that deliver and release drugs locally as well as promote tissue regeneration. In this short review, we address the use of nanotechnology in the fabrication of biomaterials (i.e., nanoparticles and nanofibers) and their therapeutic function in wound healing as dressing materials. Furthermore, we discuss the use of surface nanofeatures to regulate cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation, which is a crucial step in wound healing associated with …

Object Manipulation Using A Multirobot Cluster With Force Sensing, Matthew H. Chin

Mechanical Engineering Master's Theses

This research explored object manipulation using multiple robots by developing a control system utilizing force sensing. Multirobot solutions provide advantages of redundancy, greater coverage, fault-tolerance, distributed sensing and actuation, and reconfigurability. In object manipulation, a variety of solutions have been explored with different robot types and numbers, control strategies, sensors, etc. This research involved the integration of force sensing with a centralized position control method of two robots (cluster control) and building it into an object level controller. This controller commands the robots to push the object based on the measured interaction forces between them while maintaining proper formation with …

Conference Program, Jürgen Groll, Jos Malda

Biofabrication for Hierarchical in Vitro Tissue Models

No abstract provided.

Data Analysis And Processing Techniques For Remaining Useful Life Estimations, John Scott Bucknam

Theses and Dissertations

In the field of engineering, it is important to understand different engineering systems and components, not only in how they currently perform, but also how their performance degrades over time. This extends to the field of prognostics, which attempts to predict the future of a system or component based on its past and present states. A common problem in this field is the estimation of remaining useful life, or how long a system or component functionality will last. The well-known datasets for this problem are the PHM and C-MAPSS datasets. These datasets contain simulated sensor data for different turbofan engines …

Comprehensive Silica Removal With Ferric Compounds For Industrial Wastewater Reuse, Ehren D. Baca

Civil Engineering ETDs

Cooling towers, integrated circuit (IC) manufacture and reverse osmosis (RO) generate copious amounts of wastewater high in colloidal and reactive silica inhibiting on-site or synergistic reuse. Silica present in cooling water can reach solubility limits via evaporation and form impervious scale on heat transfer surfaces that decreases efficiency. When water is treated by RO operating at high rejection, silica forms difficult-to-remove scale on the membrane feed side in the form of glassy patches and communities of aggregate particles, inhibiting aspirations for zero liquid discharge. Current methods for silica scale mitigation include abundant dosing with chemical antiscalents or complex operating schemes. …

Pilot Training Metrics At A Part 141 University Training Program, Steven Hampton, Dothag Truong, Ken Byrnes, Troy Techau

Publications

The study evaluates training at a collegiate flight training program providing metrics for time and costs from zero time to a Private Pilot. Training times for flights and activities are pulled from a sophisticated database used at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) and matched with flight and ground school lessons and then further subdivided to determine the amount of time spent training in areas of operation that are prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration in the published Practical Test Standards and Airman Certification Standards for those seeking pilot licenses and ratings. Provided are mean times and costs for a prospective pilot …

Static Testing Of Propulsion Elements For Small Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Robert W. Deters, S.C. Kleinke, Michael S. Selig

Publications

The growing use of small multirotor aircraft has increased the interest in having better performance results especially with the propulsion system. The size of the propellers used on these aircraft operate at low Reynolds numbers that are typically less than 200,000. Static performance testing of ten propeller pairs (tractor and pusher) were completed and is the beginning of a systematic test of propellers used on multirotor systems. The propellers chosen for this initial set of tests were selected from four popular quadrotors. Besides testing the propellers provided with the aircraft, propellers that are sold as replacements from third-party companies were …

Early Layout Design Exploration In Tsv-Based 3d Integrated Circuits, Mohammad Abrar Ahmed

Dissertations and Theses

Through silicon via (TSV) based 3D integrated circuits have inspired a novel design paradigm which explores the vertical dimension, in order to alleviate the performance and power limitations associated with long interconnects in 2D circuits. TSVs enable vertical interconnects across stacked and thinned dies in 3D-IC designs, resulting in reduced wirelength, footprint, faster speed, improved bandwidth, and lesser routing congestion. However, the usage of TSVs itself gives rise to many critical design challenges towards the minimization of chip delay and power consumption. Therefore, realization of the benefits of 3D ICs necessitates an early and realistic prediction of circuit performance during …

Miniaturizing America's Tallest Dam | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Engineers at Utah State University’s Utah Water Research Laboratory have constructed a 1:50 scale model of the Oroville Dam spillway.

Increasing Probability Of Mass-Mortality During Indian Heatwaves, Mojtaba Sadegh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Rising global temperatures are causing increases in the frequency and severity of extreme climatic events such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves. Here, we analyze changes in summer temperatures, the frequency, severity and duration of heatwaves, and heat-related mortality in India between 1960 and 2009, using data from the India Meteorological Department. Mean temperatures across India have risen by more than 0.5 °C over this period, with statistically significant increases in heatwaves. Using a novel probabilistic model, we further show that the increase in summer mean temperatures in India over this period corresponds to a 146% increase in the probability of …