Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

3-Input Pre-Amp, Daniel Pico, Carla Salome Ramirez

Electrical Engineering

There is no commercial available pre-amplifier that takes 3 individual input signals and synthesizes them for an acoustic guitar. The acoustic pre-amplifier takes three separate small signal inputs and combines or isolates to endure amplification depending with user setting. The user deciphers which signal or signal combination is desired. The device features coil pick-up, microphone pick-up, and piezo disc pick-up for variety of tone quality and control.

Automated Pet Food Dispenser, Kevin M. Shibley

Electrical Engineering

Electronics revolutionize the world and simplify life. The Automated Pet Food Dispenser (APFD) revolutionizes the pet industry and provides unprecedented food capacity and delivery capability, giving pet owners worry-free vacationing. Sensors and timers optimize functionality and reduce waste while improving reliability and usability. User-defined settings and customization gives the device adaptability to meet every customer’s needs.

Merry-Go-Round Human Powered Generator, Sarah Lorraine Ashe, Salvador Navarro

Electrical Engineering

How do you bring electricity to families who have limited resources in a developing country? The DC House project, advised by Dr. Taufik, provides a way for kids to have fun, exercise and generate power for their homes – play-park human powered generators. This project intends to create a more efficient and cost effective way for playground equipment to be implemented for power generation. The redesigned and reconstructed merry-go-round human powered generator converts mechanical energy into electrical energy to power the DC house. This was a fully functioning generator that needed a better voltage gain, as well as, a more …

Bipolar Pulse Width Modulation Inverter, Xin Chen, Ryan Harada

Electrical Engineering

The project entails the design of an improved PWM inverter circuit for the inverter lab experiment in the introductory power electronic course. The improved PWM inverter uses bipolar switching with a half bridge control circuit. The inverter utilizes two ICL8038 chip to generate both the control and carrier signals. The improved inverter enhances the system's portability, protection and is easy to understand from the prior design. The improved PWM inverter provides AC variable single phase 65 Hz AC output voltage from DC input signal. The finished product will be used specifically in the EE 410 laboratory course.

Human-Powered Swing Generator, Danny Cai, Timothy Lai, Brandon Wong

Electrical Engineering

Many developing countries lack sufficient resources to provide enough electricity for every family to live with a satisfying level of comfort and convenience. Our project proposes a solution that provides families with an alternative access to electricity using a playground swing. This project addresses the design and construction of the Human-Powered Swing Generator, which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy for charging a battery. The charged battery serves as a source of DC energy for potential DC purposes, such as charging a cell phone.

Rapid Battery Exchange (Rbx) Charger Interface, Adam Morris

Electrical Engineering

As fossil fuel prices steadily rise and concerns associated with burning the fuels increase, electric vehicle sales continue to grow. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, EV sales “tripled from about 17,000 in 2011 to about 52,000 in 2012” [1]. In order to meet consumer transportation expectations—molded by fuel-powered vehicles—electric cars must have the ability to “refuel” quickly. Rapidly charging an EV’s traction battery poses one solution but doing so requires large power levels “five times as much as the average office consumes,” [2] making rapid charging less than ideal for the masses. Alternatively, swapping an EV’s depleted battery …

Integration Of Pv & Simulated Dc Sources For The Dc House, Arvind Ramesh, Kevin Gingrich, Scott Chau

Electrical Engineering

The DC House, an ever improving project, uses only pure DC power which most renewable energy sources generate, from solar to wind power. The DC House and this project expect a donation of photovoltaic modules to supply a constant source of DC power. At the moment, the DC House desperately needs power sources because not only does the house have various loads unaccounted for, but the distribution system to determine proper power flow needs a redesign. The project chose to account for these issues by implementing a solar panel onto the DC House and a power distribution module to have …

Rfid Door Lock, Ralph Ting, Mackenzie Keane

Electrical Engineering

The RFID Door Lock is a lock that is simple to install and allows the user to easily lock and unlock doors. It will contain a RFID reader/writer and a magnetic door lock for simple use. All the user will need is an RFID tag to be able to unlock and lock the door. A LED will be used to let the user know when the door is in fact locked. The components included in the module are small and compact. Additionally, the door lock is simple and easy to install. It does not require the consumer to disassemble the …

Low Temperature Battery Monitoring And Control System – Lithium-Ion Low Temperature Case Study, Aaron Lee, Richard Tham, Ken Huynh

Electrical Engineering

This open-ended research project, co-advised by Dr. Prodanov and Dr. Dolan, studies electronic and battery failures at low temperatures (between -70 ºC to 0 ºC). The main battery technology used for this project is Lithium-ion. The research project consists of two systems: the monitoring system and the actuating system. This project accomplishes the first part and assesses the feasibility of measuring the internal impedances of batteries for low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites as a means to monitor battery health. It also monitors the effects caused by low temperature conditions through internal impedance measurements from 0 ºC through -70 °C. It includes designing …

Study Of Grating Layer Location Of A Gan Nano-Grated Led And Comparison Of Triangular And Squared Ito Nano-Grating Of Gan Leds, Ashli Lauren Behill

Electrical Engineering

Reducing energy consumption is one the most critical and necessary actions being continually worked towards by many. According to the U.S. department of Energy, solid-state lighting (SSL) has the potential to reduce the light consumption in the United States by nearly one half and that light-emitting diodes (LEDs) will change the way of lighting in our homes and businesses. Gallium Nitride (GaN) based light emitting diode (LED) technologies are continuing to have a fast growing contribution to various applications in today’s society. GaN LEDS are already replacing the esteemed incandescent light bulb, and are transforming traffic lighting, optical interconnects, backlight …

Continuous Hand-Tool Leveling Device, Shaun Villa Koide

Electrical Engineering

To produce clean and precise cuts, hand-tools (e.g. knives and saws) must maintain a consistent angle of orientation during the entire cutting process. The Continuous Hand-Tool Leveling Device mounts on the desired hand-tool and the user inputs the desired angle of the cutting plane. The device utilizes a microcontroller unit (MCU) and accelerometer to implement real-time angle measurement. When using a hand-tool, the device uses an LED that indicates that the hand-tool’s angle deviates from the user-set desired angle, which prevents any potential mistakes from occurring due to user error. The device easily mounts on many common cutting tools. Additionally, …

Clear Circuit Contact Lens, Paul Hecker Ii, Phillip Azar, Alexander Do, Benny Ng, Errol Leon

Electrical Engineering

The clear active contact lens project aims to address safety and hazard awareness with an unexplored field of eye wear technology. With advancements in nanotechnology and the advent of circuits on contact lens, this project is one of the first research and development into this new field, following University of Washington and Google. The team focuses on the safety and biocompatibility of the contact lens for a comfortable ease of use. The designs push the limits of thin film printed technology with its pursuit of fine designs of 250μm antennas. The project streamlines the manufacturing process for a combination substrate …

Fpga Based Bitcoin Mining, Philip Dotemoto

Electrical Engineering

This project attempts to implement an open source FPGA based Bitcoin miner on an Altera DE2-115 development board. Bitcoin is an experimental peer-to-peer digital currency based on public key cryptography. The advantages of Bitcoins are that they can be transferred between any two people anywhere in the world, and they do not have the same fees and lack of control associated with traditional methods of currency transfers. The first part of this project focuses on detailing how the Bitcoin network and open source miner work. The second part of the project attempts to improve the performance of the open source …

High-Speed Mobile Networks For Modern Farming And Agricultural Systems, Santos Najar

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

High-Speed Mobile Networks for Modern Farming and Agricultural Systems

J.Santos Najar-Ramirez

High-speed mobile networks are necessary for agriculture to inventory individual plant health, maximize yield and minimize the resources applied. More specifically, real-time information on individual plant status is critical to decisions regarding the management of resources reserved and expended. This necessity can be met by the availability of environmental sensors (such as humidity, temperature, and pH) whose data is kept on storage servers connected to static and mobile local area networks. These static and mobile local area networks are connected to cellular, core and satellite networks. For …

Rubidium-Based Atomic Clock, Kate Miles

Physics

In this paper we will explore the process of building an atomic clock from a function generator, go into an in-depth introductory discussion of the Datum LPRO, and examine how rubidium function generators work.

Coherence Extrapolation For Underwater Ambient Noise, Jorge Quijano, Stan E. Dosso, Martin Siderius, Lanfranco Muzi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper considers extrapolation of the vertical coherence of surface-generated oceanic ambient noise to simulate measurements made on a longer sensor array. The extrapolation method consists of projecting the noise coherence measured with a limited aperture array into the domain spanned by prolate spheroidal wave functions, which are an orthogonal basis defined by array parameters and the noise frequency. Using simulated data corresponding to selected multi-layered seabeds as ground truth, the performance of the extrapolation method is explored. Application of the technique is also demonstrated on experimental data.

An Eigenvector-Based Test For Local Stationarity Applied To Array Processing, Jorge Quijano, Lisa M. Zurk

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In sonar array processing, a challenging problem is the estimation of the data covariance matrix in the presence of moving targets in the water column, since the time interval of data local stationarity is limited. This work describes an eigenvector-based method for proper data segmentation into intervals that exhibit local stationarity, providing data-driven higher bounds for the number of snapshots available for computation of time-varying sample covariance matrices. Application of the test is illustrated with simulated data in a horizontal array for the detection of a quiet source in the presence of a loud interferer.

Alternate Computer Input Device For Individuals With Quadriplegia, Tobais Elder, Michelle Martinez, David Sylvester

Biomedical Engineering

This project details the design development of an alternative computer input system that allows a person with quadriplegia to move a computer's cursor and activate left and right click button inputs. After researching and analyzing possible solutions, an end design was chosen that most appropriately satisfied all user requirements and engineering specifications. This final design employs a head mounted Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) with 9 DoF (Degrees of Freedom) to track head movements and correlate these motions to computer cursor movements. A Sip-Puff Transducer monitors and interprets a user's application of negative and positive air pressure differentials to a vinyl …

Dual High-Voltage Power Supply For Use On Board A Cubesat, Nicholas Weiser

Master's Theses

Since their conception in 1999, CubeSats have come and gone a long way. The first few that went into space were more of a “proof of concept,” and were more focused on sending simple data and photographs back to Earth. Since then, vast improvements have been made by over 40 universities and private firms, and now CubeSats are beginning to look towards interplanetary travel. These small satellites could provide a cost effective means of exploring the galaxy, using off the shelf components and piggy-backing on other launch vehicles with more expensive payloads. However, CubeSats are traditionally launched into Low Earth …

Improvements To A Bi-Directional Flyback Dc-Dc Converter For Battery System Of The Dc House Project, Michael Wu

Master's Theses

The DC House project relies primarily on renewable energy sources to provide DC power to the various loads of the house. However, not all renewable sources are capable of providing power at all times of the day. A back-up energy source in the form of a battery storage system must be available to meet the electrical needs of the house. A bi-directional flyback power converter was initially designed to allow a battery to charge from as well as discharge to the 48V bus line of the DC House. The design provided a 35W prototype to demonstrate the converter’s feasibility. Further …

Virtual Reality Engine Development, Varun Varahamurthy

Master's Theses

With the advent of modern graphics and computing hardware and cheaper sensor and display technologies, virtual reality is becoming increasingly popular in the fields of gaming, therapy, training and visualization. Earlier attempts at popularizing VR technology were plagued by issues of cost, portability and marketability to the general public. Modern screen technologies make it possible to produce cheap, light head-mounted displays (HMDs) like the Oculus Rift, and modern GPUs make it possible to create and deliver a seamless real-time 3D experience to the user. 3D sensing has found an application in virtual and augmented reality as well, allowing for a …

Ac Power Combining Strategy With Application To Efficient Linear Power Amplifiers, Rudi Matthew Bendig

Master's Theses

With the ongoing push for wireless systems to accommodate more users and support higher data rates more efficient modulation schemes have been created that are more advanced than simple FM and AM modulation used for radio broadcasting. These modulation schemes, such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), suffer from high peak to average power ratios. Standard Class A and Class AB amplifiers cannot simultaneously achieve good linearity and efficiency, and therefore there has been an increase in the development of new topologies to combat this issue. Common features to these circuits is power combining of two or more separate transistors. …

Atrengine: An Orientation-Based Algorithm For Automatic Target Recognition, Justin Ting-Jeuan Kuo

Master's Theses

Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) is a subject involving the use of sensor data to develop an algorithm for identifying targets of significance. It is of particular interest in military applications such as unmanned aerial vehicles and missile tracking systems. This thesis develops an orientation-based classification approach from previous ATR algorithms for 2-D Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. Prior work in ATR includes Chessa Guilas’ Hausdorff Probabilistic Feature Analysis Approach in 2005 and Daniel Cary’s Optimal Rectangular Fit in 2007.

A system incorporating multiple modules performing different tasks is developed to streamline the data processing of previous algorithms. Using images from …

Reduction Of Vibration-Induced Artifacts In Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery, Qi Wang, Matthew Pepin, Aleck Wright, Ralf Dunkel, Tom Atwood, Balu Santhanam, Walter Gerstle, Armin W. Doerry, Majeed M. Hayat

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Target vibrations introduce nonstationary phase modulation, which is termed the micro-Doppler effect, into returned synthetic aperture radar (SAR) signals. This causes artifacts, or ghost targets, which appear near vibrating targets in reconstructed SAR images. Recently, a vibration estimation method based on the discrete fractional Fourier transform (DFrFT) has been developed. This method is capable of estimating the instantaneous vibration accelerations and vibration frequencies. In this paper, a deghosting method for vibrating targets in SAR images is proposed. For single-component vibrations, this method first exploits the estimation results provided by the DFrFT-based vibration estimation method to reconstruct the instantaneous vibration displacements. …

Electrical Machine Topologies: Hottest Topics In The Electrical Machine Research Community, Aldo Boglietti, Ayman M. El-Refaie, Oliver Drubel, Avoki M. Omekanda, Nicola Bianchi, Emmanuel B. Agamloh, Mircea Popescu, Antonino Di Gerlando, James Borg Bartolo

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

In this article, the state of the art in electrical machine design is outlined underlining the problems and challenges to be solved by engineers. As highlighted in this article, even if electrical machine design is often considered a mature issue from the technical and technological point of view, every year, new progresses and steps forward are made. New and more sophisticated design tools can be used worldwide, and innovative manufacturing processes, new insulation materials, and higher performance magnetic materials are available on the market. In addition, the evolution of the hardware used in digital control and new powerful power electronic …

Is Biofuel A Feasible Long-Term Chief Energy Source? A Global Perspective, Rajee Olaganathan, Aston Lee, Debra Tong, Mameegate Zheng Jun Cheston, Zack Ho Xuan Yi

Publications

This scientific paper examines the feasibility of officiating biofuels as the future chief energy source of the world. It weighs the pros and cons of the four different generations of biofuels that have been discovered over time, explaining how the raw materials used in each generation determines each individual level of long-term sustainability. It then further analyses both general advantages and disadvantages, comprising of economic, social, health and environmental impacts; giving the reader an unbiased perspective. Few case studies have also been reviewed to better understand the implications of drawing energy from biofuels, as well as the current state of …

Characterization Of Li-Air Batteries: Lithium Peroxide Formation In Li-Air Electrodes, Claudia Torres Garibay, Jeremiah Deboever

TREC Final Reports

Li-air batteries are attractive candidates to be used in electric vehicles (EV) due to their high theoretical capacity, which results in an improved range, a requirement to make EV competitive against fossil fuel powered vehicles. However, Li-air battery technology is considered to be far from commercialization, due to its short lifespan. The decomposition of the electrolyte and its effect on cyclablity has been widely studied, no so much the cathode. This work will make use of recently reported novel adaptation of titration techniques to study cathode degradation in Li-air batteries, along capacity, cyclability, and EIS studies, to characterize the effect …

Global Optimization Methods For Localization In Compressive Sensing, Marco Rossi

Dissertations

The dissertation discusses compressive sensing and its applications to localization in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars. Compressive sensing is a paradigm at the intersection between signal processing and optimization. It advocates the sensing of “sparse” signals (i.e., represented using just a few terms from a basis expansion) by using a sampling rate much lower than that required by the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem (i.e., twice the highest frequency present in the signal of interest). Low-rate sampling reduces implementation’s constraints and translates into cost savings due to fewer measurements required. This is particularly true in localization applications when the number of measurements is …

Congestion Control, Energy Efficiency And Virtual Machine Placement For Data Centers, Yan Zhang

Dissertations

Data centers, facilities with communications network equipment and servers for data processing and/or storage, are prevalent and essential to provide a myriad of services and applications for various private, non-profit, and government systems, and they also form the foundation of cloud computing, which is transforming the technological landscape of the Internet. With rapid deployment of modern high-speed low-latency large-scale data centers, many issues have emerged in data centers, such as data center architecture design, congestion control, energy efficiency, virtual machine placement, and load balancing.

The objective of this thesis is multi-fold. First, an enhanced Quantized Congestion Notification (QCN) congestion notification …

Modeling, Control And Simulation Of Control-Affine Nonlinear Systems With State-Dependent Transfer Functions, Roger Kobla Kwadzogah

Dissertations

There has been no known research that applies nonlinear transfer function to a nonlinear control problem. The belief is that nonlinear systems have no transfer functions. The Laplace transformation required to define transfer functions is not tractable mathematically when the coefficients of the differential equation are functions of state, output and control variables. In other words, it is not defined for systems that do not obey principles of superposition. Only linear systems obey this principle. Therefore, this dissertation work represents the very first research to demonstrate how transfer functions can be used to represent and design feedback control for nonlinear …