Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Autonomous Terrain-Mapping Robot For Search And Rescue, Soumil Joshi, Seann Calub

Electrical Engineering

This report documents the design, modular testing, and challenges faced while developing an autonomous terrain-mapping robot intended to navigate to a destination waypoint and deliver a small payload for search-and-rescue applications. The system combines a LiDAR sensor, an IMU sensor, and a Raspberry Pi 3B as the onboard processor, and an ESP32 microcontroller interfacing with motor drivers over a four-wheel chassis. A companion mobile application was developed to enable remote control and monitoring of the robot over a WiFi hotspot connection. A lithium-ion battery pack supplies power to all onboard components, with power budgets verified against component datasheets. Testing progresses …

Energy Efficient Load Balancing In Multi-Band Cellular Networks Via Reinforcement Learning, Ahmed Shoukry El Soukkary

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates energy-efficient load balancing in homogeneous multi-band cellular networks through the joint design of user association (UA) and transmit power allocation (PA). The original mixed-integer nonlinear formulation is decomposed into two coupled yet tractable subproblems: a UA stage and a PA stage for high-frequency bands. For UA, a SINR-ratio-based heuristic is proposed to prioritize users that are most sensitive to suboptimal band assignments, and it is benchmarked against a Max- SINR baseline. For PA, the high-band power control problem is addressed using reinforcement learning, where a Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) agent learns power levels and band-activation decisions under …

Portable Food Pasteurization Using Pulsed Electric Fields (Pef), Thomas E. Mcmillan Iii

Electrical Engineering

Foodborne illnesses remain a significant public health concern, motivating continued development of alternative food pasteurization technologies. Pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment is a non-thermal pasteurization method that inactivates microorganisms through electroporation while minimizing thermal degradation of food products. The long-term objective of this project was development of a portable PEF food pasteurization system.

An iterative design approach was used to investigate generation of the high-voltage pulses required for PEF treatment. Multiple pulse forming network topologies were evaluated through simulation, leading to selection of a solid-state Marx generator architecture. A low-voltage five-stage prototype was designed, constructed, and tested to validate the …

Riki&Dolphin: Real Time Data Transmission From The Bottom Of A Cave To A Website, Luca Tringali, Giacomo Canciani Dr., Tecla Tripari, Alexander Debenjak, Caterina Bearzotti

International Journal of Speleology

Coming from over 10 years of experience in cave monitoring in northeast Italy, Gruppo Speleologico Talpe del Carso, has designed Riki and Dolphin: customizable, low cost, and easy to assemble tools for getting real time data transmission from the bottom of a cave, even underwater, to a webserver. Their use has been tested to monitor air temperature inside the Abisso Bonetti Cave (Classical Karst, Italy), proving for the first time that a cave in Gorizian Karst can systematically be colder than the outdoor temperature even in winter, recording an internal temperature even lower than 0°C. The Dolphin device can be …

Data-Driven Physical-Layer Optimization For Rf And Optical Communications: Transmitarray Metasurfaces, Contextual-Bandit Mud, And Coherent Optical Links, Chengtao M. Xu

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This dissertation studies three physical-layer optimization problems that share a common difficulty: the forward model, whether an electromagnetic solver or a statistical channel model, is either too expensive to evaluate at design scale or too unstable to hold across a single processing block. The first two problems are treated in their own right, as problems in antenna design and in multi-user detection over time-variant channels; the third carries the methodology onto a coherent optical link, where size, weight, and power constraints make a small-satellite deployment the natural target.

The antenna work targets a tri-layer pixelated unit cell fabricated on Avient …

Developing A Multi-Band Gnss Remote Sensing Station To Measure Precipitable Water Vapor For Flash Flood Nowcasting, Madison Gleydura

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Flash flood nowcasting in Central and Southern Appalachia is particularly challenging due to steep terrain, narrow valleys, highly localized rainfall patterns, and limited measurement coverage. Traditional remote sensing methods, such as Doppler radar and microwave radiometry, suffer from reduced resolution at long range and signal blockage by mountains. GNSS-meteorology offers an established alternative for measuring precipitable water vapor and is currently integrated into several numerical weather models. Recent research demonstrates that commercial-grade GNSS receivers can produce tropospheric products comparable to those from geodetic-grade equipment. The gaps in mountain coverage can be addressed by developing a low-cost, self-contained embedded system that …

Flexible Fault-Tolerant Multi-Die Fpga-Based Architectures For Varying Space Environments, Yosof Ali Seif El Din Ali Maklad

Theses and Dissertations

It is well-known fact that spacecraft’s electronic components operate in an extreme harsh and varying space environments, beside changing orbit or passing through Van Allan Belts during orbital course results of radiation levels change. This thesis focuses on SRAM-based FPGA systems on-board of such spacecrafts, that are commonly utilized in space applications’ critical applications due to their capabilities and flexibility to reconfigure, since these systems are vulnerable to frequent negative impacts of ionizing radiation, thus inducing soft and hard errors leading to disastrous failures that could jeopardize the entire spacecraft. The soft errors’ effects are frequent yet can be mitigated, …

Parking Information And Supervision System, Joshua A. Thum, Alex J. Kinch, Jacob A. Dye

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In densely populated areas, finding parking can be an arduous and time-consuming struggle, especially in large and tall parking decks. Drivers would benefit from a convenient way to find an open parking spot without having to scour the entire lot first. The goal of this project is to sense available parking spots in a parking garage or parking lot using physical object detection and visual detection with computer vision verification, and display the open spots to drivers entering the lot. This information will be displayed locally at the lot and in an app, with the latter allowing someone to see …

Code-Net++: An Attention-Guided Deep Learning Framework With Grad-Cam-Based Explainability For Covid-19 Detection Using Chest X-Ray Images, Fareesa Amina, Dr Krishnanaik Vankdoth

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Chest radiograph imaging has emerged as a practical and scalable diagnostic modality for respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. However, accurate discrimination of COVID-19 manifestations from other pulmonary abnormalities remains challenging because of low contrast, imaging noise, and overlapping radiographic patterns. This work presents CODE-NET++, an enhanced attention-guided deep learning framework with Grad-CAM-based explainability for reliable COVID-19 detection using chest X-ray images. The proposed framework integrates adaptive trilateral filtering for image enhancement, Reverse Edge Attention Network (RE-Net) for lesion-aware segmentation, and an Enhanced LinkNet architecture with dilated convolutions for multiscale feature extraction and classification. Grad-CAM-based explainable artificial intelligence visualization is incorporated to …

Array Signal Processing And Machine Learning In 5g/6g Networks, Roopesh Kumar Polaganga

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation investigates advanced methodologies in Array Signal Processing (ASP) and Machine Learning (ML) to enhance the performance, efficiency, and intelligence of next-generation wireless networks, with a primary focus on 5G and emerging 6G systems. As wireless networks face rapid traffic growth, increasingly heterogeneous service requirements, and more complex propagation environments, conventional design and optimization approaches become insufficient to meet evolving demands in reliability, capacity, spectral efficiency, and energy efficiency. On the network intelligence side, this work develops data-driven frameworks for causal discovery, scheduler enhancement, session-duration prediction, and Radio Resource Control (RRC) state optimization using real-world telecommunication network data. On …

Adaptive Lighting System, Jacob Samerdak, Ethan Schwartz, Brandon Breen, Matthew Carozza

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Adaptive Lighting System is a modular network of components that requires minimal installation in homes. Additionally, all components of the system communicate wirelessly and interface with a mobile application. The system utilizes occupancy and daylight sensors to detect the environment of a room and adjust the lighting accordingly. The system detects ambient lighting as well as occupancy within a room. Using the data collected from the sensors, the system adjusts lighting temperature, color, and brightness. The user can also manually control these settings. The Adaptive Lighting System aims to help regulate circadian rhythm, so there is a configuration in …

Aquaflow Pro, Ashton Henley, Jeannie Fritz, Khalin Rubbo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Changing aquarium water is a hassle, and when done incorrectly, it will result in changes in water quality and potential harm to aquatic life. Aquarium water changes are crucial in removing toxins such as ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. There is a need for an automated, stressless fish tank water-changing solution that ensures aquatic safety. To this end, an automatic temperature-controlled fish tank water changing system was designed, carrying out a water change for a designated main tank in which water heated within an inbound reservoir is pumped into the tank to replace the outbound water, responding to both the tank’s …

Brrbox, Shawn J. Myers, Lane Cline, Michael Davis, Christian Secrest

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This report details the project known as “The BRRBOX”, a reusable, insulated thermoelectric cooler developed to keep internal temperatures at refrigeration levels or cooler for at least 48 hours. The cooler will track its internal temperature during this period and be able to give the data at the end of its delivery cycle to keep up with food and pharmaceutical standards during delivery. The BRRBOX uses Peltier-based cooling alongside vacuum insulation panels and fans to achieve efficient thermal control. An onboard microcontroller will monitor temperature, record the data, and adjust the cooling output to minimize power consumption. The box will …

Timing And Stability Of Uav Operations In Smart City Environments: Experimental Analysis And Design Implications, Rabia Ipek Yasar

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the deployment and performance of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) within the Virginia Commonwealth University Open Cyber City (OCC) testbed. The study focuses on evaluating real-time indoor positioning performance using the Crazyflie drone platform. High-precision position measurements are obtained using the Vicon motion capture system, enabling analysis of the latency between the drone’s actual position and the system-reported position. In a closed-loop control system, the time difference between the position measurement and the application of the control command is called the system delay. Both stationary (hovering) and trajectory-following experiments are conducted to evaluate system performance. Communication delays in …

Experimental Validation Of Optical Wireless Communication And Power Transfer For Uav Applications, Fnu Dhruv

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have revolutionized emergency response, disaster assessment, and search-and-rescue operations. However, their operational efficacy is fundamentally constrained by limited battery endurance and the susceptibility of traditional radio-frequency communication to disruption in adverse weather. To address these limitations, this thesis proposes and experimentally validates a novel architecture integrating Free-Space Optical (FSO) communication with Simultaneous Lightweight Information and Power Transfer (SLIPT). This system utilizes a split-beam configuration to concurrently enable high-bandwidth data transmission and optical energy harvesting to replenish the UAV's battery pack. The research was conducted in three progressive phases. Initially, system feasibility was established through rigorous optical …

A Light-Dependent Resistor Based Embedded Image Acquisition System For Use In Low-Resolution Application-Specific Data Processing, Connor Best

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

This paper proposes an efficient hardware-based approach to image acquisition & processing to replace complex camera systems in simple industrial & commercial applications.

Environment Mapping And Gps-Based Trailer Parking Using Low-Cost Peripheral Sensors And Post-Processing Algorithms, Connor Best

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

This paper explores the merit of software data optimization through two practical examples: environment mapping & GPS navigation.

Owl Solar-Powered Link: Duck Radio Mesh For Autonomous Monitoring, Jaden Tran, Shane Williams

Electrical Engineering

The Solar Duck Sensor Node transforms a standard DuckLink into a fully self-sustaining environmental monitor. A compact solar panel / power bank module plugs into the power ports of both the DuckLink and the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, keeping them charged through day-night cycles. The Pi Zero 2 W will perform local processing of sensor data. Sensor output will come from the Raspberry Pi AI Camera and its object detection capabilities. This output will be distilled into metadata and advertised over BLE. The DuckLink captures these packets, encapsulates them into LoRa payloads, and forwards them across the ClusterDuck mesh …

How’S It Growing? Tools For Observing Snow And Sea Ice In A Changing Arctic Ocean, Ian Alexander Raphael

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

September Arctic sea ice extent has diminished by roughly 50% in the 45 years since satellite observations began. The Arctic Ocean may experience ice-free summers within the next decade, with implications for habitat, resource extraction, geopolitics, and local and global climate change. To predict how Arctic sea ice will change in the future, we need to understand its behavior in the present. In situ sea ice mass balance measurements (snow accumulation, ice growth, snow and ice surface melt, and bottom melt) are essential for studying the processes driving rapid changes in the ice pack, and for validating remote sensing measurements …

Study On The Application Of Smart Electric Meters For Secondary Voltage Protection, Jayaditya Sisodia

Master's Theses

The purpose of our research is to utilize PG&E’s Smart Meters installed across California to protect the Secondary Voltage delivered to the meter. This means detecting electrical faults between the utility’s distribution transformer and the installed Smart Meter. Our goal is to propose and implement various solutions through additional devices and protocols to detect and prevent these faults, communicate them with the meter, and forward fault information to the utility. A device will be designed to be installed on the transformer, detect faults, shut off power transmission, and communicate to the meter via fiber optic cable. Research will then be …

Project Owl: Quad Rc2, Ethan Cy Zane

Electrical Engineering

Quad RC2 is a new radio designed to be compatible with the Cluster Duck Protocol (CDP). It must be able to act as all parts of the mesh network and be able to find its location with GPS. Much of the RC2 effort is already completed. This project ports the previously developed firmware to the new board and runs tests to assess its capabilities.

Development Of A Cost-Effective Daq For Measuring Brake Performance In Race Cars, Adrin Alias

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This project explores the feasibility of creating a cost-effective data acquisition (DAQ) system for high-speed, real-time brake performance testing of Formula SAE racecars. The research addresses the limitations of the current MoTeC DAQ system currently employed by the team, which is costly and time-consuming to set up for on-car testing. The team will use a brake dynamometer for steady-state comparisons of different brake pad compounds (senior design project), but evaluating real-world performance requires on-car testing. By systematically comparing various hardware platforms, sensors, communication protocols, and storage solutions, this project aims to balance cost-efficiency with reliability and performance. The research evaluates …

Using Rf Hardware Technologies To Counteract Interference Within Dsrc Caused By Adjacent Unlicensed Bands, Grayson Hatcher, Billy Kihei, Nathan Kirkwood, Marco Tello

Symposium of Student Scholars

In recent years, competition within Radio Frequency (RF) communication bands has led to an overlap between the U-NII-4 band used by low-cost consumer devices, and the Dedicated Short Communication Band (DSRC) used by the Georgia Department of Transportation. Past research con- firmed that this interference leads to drastic reduction in Packet Reception Rate (PRR) for Roadside Units (RSUs) and On- Board Units (OBUs) throughout the country, resulting in a reduction of stability between different components of the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). Our research team set a goal to prove that a low-cost and simple modification can be made to RSUs …

Vector Estimation For Continuous Tracking Of Observed Radio Signals (V.E.C.T.O.R.) Lunar Navigation System, Dimitry Melnikov, Evan Bartel, Andrew Burrier, Goran Gjorgievski

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

NASA's Artemis program requires precise navigation capabilities to establish the first sustained presence on the lunar surface. However, as launches bring necessary orbital infrastructure, the Artemis program will face a critical period during which reliable lunar navigation is not possible. To address this challenge, the V.E.C.T.O.R. system tracks assets, such as rovers and astronauts, as User Terminals relative to a pre-existing cell tower, or Base Station. To do so, the system leverages existing Base Station hardware to calculate the location of User Terminals in conjunction with existing communications infrastructure.

Mobile Weather Satellite Receiver, Luke Datsko, Sam Watts, Jason Do, Adam Bechtler

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The "Mobile Weather Satellite Receiver" project aims to create a portable, user-friendly device that receives and displays weather information from geostationary satellites, addressing the limitations of traditional weather sources like the Internet and weather radio, particularly in remote areas. This device will collect and demodulate satellite data, including imagery and Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN) forecasts, to provide users with detailed local forecasts and real-time alerts.

Designed with a user-centric approach, the system includes a satellite dish, Software Defined Radio (SDR), a Raspberry Pi, and a custom software interface for ease of use. Its portability and ability to function …

Batteryless Nfc-Enabled Wireless Sensor Node: Design, Optimization, And Implementation, Rishin Patra

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis presents the design, construction, and testing of a batteryless Near-field communication (NFC) powered wireless sensor node intended for maintenance free, short range Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The work focuses on harvesting energy from a 13.56 MHz NFC field to power a very low-power sensing platform capa- ble of measuring temperature, pressure, and humidity without the use of batteries or wired power. The motivation behind this approach is the growing need for reliable, sustainable, and low-maintenance sensing systems that can operate in environments where battery replacement is impractical, undesirable, or environmentally costly. The prototype is built around a …

Leveraging P4 Programmable-Hardware Switches For In-Network Pmu Packet Recovery, Evan Michael Bonar

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) systems are essential for real-time power grid monitor- ing but often face data loss due to network delays, equipment malfunctions, or transmis- sion errors. Traditional centralized recovery solutions introduce significant latency and scalability challenges. This thesis presents a P4-based in-network recovery mechanism that embeds detection and recovery directly into the data plane of P4-enabled programmable switches, significantly reducing recovery time and infrastructure complexity. Using the Aurora 610 switch, the system detects missing packets via sequence number analysis and recovers magnitudes with an efficient register-based algorithm.

Evaluation demonstrates high accuracy and low latency, achieving a mean absolute …

Sustainable Mobility: Machine Learning-Driven Deployment Of Ev Charging Points In Dublin, Ruairí De Fréin, Alexander Mutiso Mutua Mr

Articles

Electric vehicle (EV) drivers in urban areas face range anxiety due to the fear of running out of charge without timely access to charging points (CPs). The lack of sufficient numbers of CPs has hindered EV adoption and negatively impacted the progress of sustainable mobility. We propose a CP distribution algorithm that is machine learning-based and leverages population density, points of interest (POIs), and the most used roads as input parameters to determine the best locations for deploying CPs. The objects of the following research are as follows: (1) to allocate weights to the three parameters in a $6$ km …

Measurement Automation & Measurement System Research Endowment, Brian Bivinetto, Beneda Loya, Shiron Bendrihem

College of Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program

Road travel safety is always the most important issue in transportation systems. In general, several factors cause road accidents, such as human error, vehicle mechanical failure, roadway limitations (e.g. pavement, lane geometry, etc.), and inclement weather conditions. The major focus of today’s transportation developments is related to making highway transportation safer, smarter, and greener to enhance livability. Many accidents are caused when drivers lack a better understanding of the surrounding traffic conditions because the driver not only needs to control his/her vehicle but also needs to be aware of the movements of the vehicles around him/her. A driver cannot be …

Sal-E: Responsive Space Pathfinder Mission, Liam Duckworth, Berfredd Quezon

College of Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program

The main objective of the SAL-E mission is to grow the Cal Poly CubeSat Lab’s (PolySat) capabilities in rapid spacecraft design, as well as to provide the current generation of students with the opportunity to design, test, integrate, and communicate with a satellite. This summer we will be focusing on a few aspects of the spacecraft design and preparing our test facilities for Fall. Specifically, we will be ordering electronics boards that were designed in Spring, testing the boards as they arrive, developing software to interface with the payloads, begin integrated testing, updating the control system in our thermal vacuum …