Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Engine Control Unit Tuning Module Test System, Efren Alonzo Cabebe Jr.

Computer Engineering

A test system has been developed to provide quality assurance and functional testing for soon-to-be mass produced engine tuning modules. The system is comprised of two halves: the front-end graphical user interface and back-end microcontroller platform. The use of the interface is intuitive in starting tests and reporting the status of completed tests. The back-end microcontroller platform performs the physical tests. Two high precision analog-to-digital converters and two digital-to-analog converters provide the inputs to and receive the outputs from the module, with another pulse-width-modulated pin tied to the tachometer input. Alongside the test system infrastructure, a simple suite of tests …

Investigation Of Degradation Effects Due To Gate Stress In Gan-On-Si High Electron Mobility Transistors Through Analysis Of Low Frequency Noise, Michael Curtis Meyer Masuda

Master's Theses

Gallium Nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) have superior performance characteristics compared to Silicon (Si) and Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) based transistors. GaN is a wide bandgap semiconductor which allows it to operate at higher breakdown voltages and power. Unlike traditional semiconductor devices, the GaN HEMT channel region is undoped and relies on the piezoelectric effect created at the GaN and Aluminum Gallium Nitride (AlGaN) heterojunction to create a conduction channel in the form of a quantum well known as the two dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Because the GaN HEMTs are undoped, these devices have higher electron mobility crucial for …

The Garage Band Lightshow, Jason Descenzo

Electrical Engineering

The expenses musicians accrue make it hard to afford all the different equipment needed to perform and very unlikely that the average start up band or artist can afford the luxury of a musical light show in their early performances. The Garage Band Lightshow provides an easily set up and affordable way for musicians to use concert lighting in their performances. The Garage Band Lightshow provides one LED box. The light box responds to an audio signal and provides varying pulses and colors of light depending on the high, mid, and low frequencies of the audio signal. The Garage Band …

Singing Arc, Justin Kis

Electrical Engineering

This project aims to develop a singing arc. A singing arc is commonly, though mistakenly, referred to as a plasma speaker. Whereas a traditional speaker uses a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal to move an electromagnet, which in turn moves a cone, which generates sound waves, the singing arc sends a PWM signal through a standing spark, which vibrates, which generates sound waves.

Several plans for the singing arc are readily available online. This project will analyze the similarities between a selection of them, try to eliminate any faults in design, and improve the function of the circuit. The final …

The Trackpacer, Alexandra Kline

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

Competitive and recreational runners struggle to maintain a target pace during workouts and currently have no easy-to-see visual feedback on their pace. Lack of real-time, easy-to-see pace feedback makes it difficult for athletes to maintain a target pace and thereby makes their workouts less effective. Some GPS watches provide pacing feedback, but they are impossible to read while running hard.

Pacing is a basic yet essential component of track and field, no matter what type of running event is taking place. During practice, certain paces are prescribed to evoke certain physiological responses from athletes. For example, a coach might ask …

Fuzz Pedal Design Project, Kyle Schaefer

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of this project was to design and build a high quality, yet affordable, analog “fuzz” guitar pedal kit to be sold to other members of Cal Poly’s Audio Engineering Society. The Audio Engineering Society (AES) has hosted pedal-building projects in the past, but my project partner Michael Twardochleb first had the idea to build an original kit to be officially affiliated with the club. Michael had built other pedals of his own in the past, making him an excellent partner to have for this project. Our design was based on the classic Vox Tonebender’s circuit, which was in …

High Voltage Pulse Measurement System, Angelo J. Ballungay

Master's Theses

Using isolation and noise immunity techniques, this thesis designs and constructs a low cost measurement system to safely and accurately measure high voltage, high frequency pulses in harsh EM environments. High voltage pulses apply to medical, plasma, and food industries. The difficulty of accurately measuring high voltage pulses continues to pose an issue. Measuring high voltage systems can cause damage to the system, the measurement system, and the user. High voltage and high frequency pulses create a harsh environment of electromagnetic fields that can disrupt the circuitry of the measurement system and harm the user. Implementing isolation from the high …

Design Of A Low Power Cargo Security Device Using A Micropower Ultra-Wideband Impulse Radar, Brian M. Wihl

Master's Theses

Each year, thousands of cargo containers are broken into during shipping, costing billions of dollars in lost and damaged goods. In addition to removing its contents, intruders can also add unwanted and dangerous materials to a container, posing a threat to National Security. The possibilities of cargo container break-ins require that the containers go through check points at which they are physically searched. These searches often require the opening of the container, unloading and inspecting all cargo, and then loading the container and resealing it. This is a long and costly process.

Because of the high costs of break-ins and …

Portable Nano-Hydro Power Generator For The Dc House Project, Andrew Aw, James Biggs

Electrical Engineering

This senior project report explains the construction and design of a small, portable water generator that converts kinetic energy flowing in small creeks to electrical energy as a renewable source of energy for the DC House. The DC House, in short, is a project to build a self-sustainable house for Third World countries that utilizes only DC electricity. The system consists of two converters and a charge controller for a 12V lead-acid battery. The first converter converts the hydro generator voltage output to 15 Volts for safe and proper charging of the lead-acid battery by the charge controller. The second …

Digital Control Board For Phased Array Antenna Beam Steering In Adaptive Communication Applications, Mayur Bansal

Master's Theses

The application of adaptive communication techniques for mobile communications has attracted considerable interest in the last decade. One example of these techniques is spatial filtering through planar antenna array beam forming.

This thesis describes the development of a digital system that adaptively controls a phased array antenna. The radiating structure of the phased antenna array is tetrahedral-shaped and contains four antenna elements on each of its three faces. The overall system comprises of a digital control board with an external computer interface, an RF control board, and the phased antenna array. The RF controls the main lobe direction on the …

A Compact, Reconfigurable Uhf Communication System Design For Use With Polysat's Embedded Linux Platform, Austin Williams

Master's Theses

The beginning of this thesis provides an overview of the heritage UHF Communication System design flown on CP2, CP3, CP4, CP5, and CP6, summarizing previous analysis of its performance, and providing the justification for a complete system re-design. High level requirements for the new UHF System are defined, and a trade study is performed on state-of-the-art single chip transceivers, low noise amplifiers, and transmit power amplifiers. These components are then designed into a functional communication system, with key components analyzed for proper impedance matching and performance characterization compared to expected datasheet values. Next, the system as a whole is characterized …

Tools And Methods To Optimize The Analysis Of Telescopic Performance Metrics On Sofia, Steven R. Wilson, Holger Jakob, Stefan Teufel, Zaheer Ali, Jeffrey Van Cleve, Brian Eney, Greg Perryman

STAR Program Research Presentations

SOFIA is an infrared observatory mounted on a modified 747 engineered to do infrared astronomy at 45000 feet. The telescope equipment contains a number of sensors and stabilizers that allow the telescope to capture images while mounted in a moving plane. We have developed methods to analyze the performance of the telescope assembly that will help improve the stabilization and image capturing performance of the observatory. Here we present reusable methods to analyze telescope performance data that will enable improvements in the quality of the scientific data that is produced by the SOFIA. This poster focuses on the multi-flight performance …

Lunalight - Bringing Light To The Expanding World, Gabriela M. Igel, Daniel J. Patrick, Kimberley M. Smith

Materials Engineering

The LunaLight, a solar rechargeable light and cell phone charger, addresses the lack of access to electricity faced by 1.4 billion of the world’s population (International Finance Corporation). The LunaTech team has developed a product that is bright, simple, compact, versatile and competitive with existing products. Through a partnership with the non-profit organization One Million Lights, LunaTech has improved a previous team’s design to address user feedback, concerns of durability, and manufacturability.

The LunaLight design includes a 5 component plastic housing held together by 4 screws, a surface mounted PCB, a lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery, one high-brightness LED, a solar panel, …

The Bicycle-Powered Smartphone Charger, Chris Arntzen

Master's Theses

This thesis entails the design and fabrication of a smartphone charger that is powered by a bicycle dynamo hub. In addition to the design and validation of the charger prototype, this thesis involves the testing and characterization of the dynamo hub power source, the design and construction of specialized test equipment, and the design and prototyping of a handlebar-mounted case for the smartphone and charging electronics. With the intention of making the device a commercial product, price, aesthetics, and marketability are of importance to the design. An appropriate description of the charger circuit is a microcontroller-based energy management system, tailored …

Bi-Directional Flyback Dc-Dc Converter For Battery System Of The Dc House Project, Austin J. Luan

Master's Theses

The DC House project strongly relies on renewable energy sources to provide power to the house for various loads. However, when these sources are unable to provide power at a certain time, a back-up energy source from a battery must be readily available to fulfill the house’s power needs. This thesis proposes a bi-directional flyback power converter to allow a single-stage power path to charge the battery from and to discharge the battery to the DC House 48 V system bus. The design, simulation, and hardware prototype of the proposed flyback bi-directional converter will be conducted to demonstrate its feasibility. …

Eye "R" Glasses: Development Of An Infrared Sensor System For Detecting The Human Body, Rick Wong

Master's Theses

Throughout the years, sensors have been an integral part of automation, alert, and medical systems. Many of these systems measure physiological characteristics of the human body to alert themselves of their current conditions. Drowsy driver systems, for instance, measure the eyes and facial movements with a camera to determine if the driver is falling asleep at the wheel. Electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG), and electromyography (EMG) employ electrodes on the human body to measure electrical activity of a patient’s REM sleep cycle patterns. Pulse oximeters use optical light through a process called photoplethysmography (PPG) to measure heart rate.

As diverse as …

A Novel Unit Cell Antenna For Highly Integrated Phased Arrays In The Shf Band, Timothy Bryan Ogilvie

Master's Theses

Phased arrays are electromagnetic antenna systems comprised of many radiating elements and processing electronics. Radiating elements are typically positioned in an orderly grid within the antenna aperture. In the receive mode of operation, radiating elements capture some of the signal energy from incoming radiation and guide these signals to processing electronics. Signals are filtered and amplified to maintain the desired sensitivity and complexly weighted using circuits with reconfigurable amplification gain and phase delay. Finally, all signals are combined. The summation of these complexly weighted spatial samples forms a spatial filter in the same way complexly weighted temporal samples establish a …

Multiple Input Single Output (Miso) Tablet/ Phone Charger, Kevin Wong

Master's Theses

This thesis entails the design and implementation of a multiple input single output (MISO) DC-DC converter using the flyback topology to charge tablets/ smartphones or any USB powered portable device. The MISO converter will enable the use of various renewable energy sources such as a solar panel/ rechargeable battery combination, bicycle dynamo, hydroelectric power, and wind turbine. This paper will cover the design, simulations, and test results of the MISO converter. The flyback topology was chosen due to its low part count and its efficiency at low power. The proposed converter has a nominal 12V input to output USB 2.0 …

Design, Fabrication, And Testing Of An Emr Based Orbital Debris Impact Testing Platform, Jeffrey J. Maniglia Jr.

Master's Theses

This paper describes the changes made from Cal Poly’s initial railgun system, the Mk. 1 railgun, to the Mk. 1.1 system, as well as the design, fabrication, and testing of a newer and larger Mk. 2 railgun system. The Mk. 1.1 system is developed as a more efficient alteration of the original Mk. 1 system, but is found to be defective due to hardware deficiencies and failure, as well as unforeseen efficiency losses. A Mk. 2 system is developed and built around donated hardware from the Naval Postgraduate School. The Mk. 2 system strove to implement an efficient, augmented, electromagnetic …

Cal Poly Wind Power Research Center Power Regulator, Ricardo Rodriguez, Steven Bounchareune

Electrical Engineering

Through funding from the California Central Coast Research Partnership (C3RP) the

CPWRC, led by Dr. Patrick Lemieux, has erected a horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) at the

Cal Poly Escuela Ranch site EL04. With the help of Dr. John Ridgely and Dr. Art MacCarley, the team has implemented a controller that delivers the power being generated by the turbine to a resistor bank which maintains a safe working speed for the turbine. The authors objectives for this project are to (1) become familiar with the operation of the turbine, (2) develop an AC-DC converter that regulates the output of the …

The Visual Representation Of Sound For The Hearing Impaired, Jonathan Brophy

Electrical Engineering

There are many difficulties that arise when one is faced with a hearing disability. New applications of advancing technology have the potential to enable designs capable of assisting the hearing impaired with the ability to see sound. This project seeks to provide a user with a visual representation of loud noises detected using small directional microphones. The microphones determine the location of the sound above a set decibel level and a microprocessor determines the approximate location of the sound source and displays a vertical colored bar on a video image in the direction of the noise using virtual reality glasses. …

Pscad Modeling Of One-Cycle Control Var, Andre Keir Azares

Electrical Engineering

Voltage support has been a common problem utilities have faced for many years and although there exists many solutions, the advent of renewable energy devices and electric vehicles make the problem of voltage support an even greater challenge today. The increasing use of electronic devices by consumers also increases the magnitude of dealing with voltage support. A promising new solution to voltage support is seen in One Cycle Control, a new control method that uses a nonlinear feedback technique on power electronics to produce high quality sine waves with fast dynamic response. This control paradigm is seen in its application …

Cal Poly Brocade Challenge 2013, Chandler Morehardt, Alexa Coburn, Juan Silva, Kerry Sun, Greg Wang, Raul Chagoya, Jd Torres

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Multiplicative Feedback Audio Distortion Circuit, Colton Parsons

Electrical Engineering

This circuit aims to distort an audio signal input in a novel and aesthetically pleasing manner. When it comes to the timbre of a note, even harmonics generally sound better than odd harmonics. Most forms of audio signal distortion (usually for electric guitar) primarily add odd harmonics to a signal, as this is easily accomplished by clipping the waveform. This project instead utilizes a signal multiplier in a feedback loop, with one multiplier input coming from the circuit’s input, and the other from the multiplier’s own output. This process creates even harmonics. A delay line is placed in the loop, …

Cubesat Launch Sequencer, Billy Beecher

Electrical Engineering

I am working with the Naval Postgraduate School to develop a low cost CubeSat launch sequencer for NPSCuL that is designed to operate in low Earth orbit. The system will be capable of providing programmable delays with a minimum delay of one second to a maximum delay of five minutes. Delays must be accurate to within ± 10% or within one second, whichever is less. After the delay, the system will provide the necessary launch signal. To ensure protection from radiation, the system will feature triple redundancy and voting logic stages to ensure that the proper signal is propagated.

Broadband, Rugged, High Linearity, Low-Noise Amplifier, Shane Smith

Electrical Engineering

This report examines the application of a low-noise amplifier module for a Global Positioning System (GPS). This low-noise amplifier module helps allow the carrier signal to get the amplification needed to give a smoother analog to digital conversion. However, the frequency range of the GPS spectrum reaches up to 1.6GHz, where component noise becomes an issue and can create a disrupted signal. This low-noise amplifier needs to create a reasonable gain, while achieving a low noise figure. An amplifier with high gain and low noise figure becomes difficult because they create a design trade-off, higher the gain brings higher the …

Alternative Wheelchair Control System, Jessica Hendricks, Tara Keigharn

Electrical Engineering

We geared this project towards assisting an individual with limited[1] motor function to operate a wheelchair. The product targets individuals who find use of a joystick is ineffective or painful. We focused our design on the wheelchair bought from Adaptive Driving Systems (Driving, 2013); but ultimately we would like to field a final product capable of applying to any electric wheelchair. Our goal: a person to operate the electric wheelchair using sensors that transmit a translation of an individual’s hand movement through a wireless transmission to a microcontroller installed on the wheel chair that then controls the wheelchair’s movement. …

High Frequency Open Air Optical Communication System, Alexander C. Wolff

Electrical Engineering

The goal of this project is to create a wireless optical communication system that operates at high frequencies (up to 3 GHz). The system will function by taking a digital electric input signal, converting it to a photonic signal, recovering the signal at the other end of a short distance (~1 foot) and converting it back into a digital signal. Unlike the more common fiber-optic data transmission systems, this system will transmit light through air, instead of fiber, as its medium. Doing so will have the benefits of a wireless system combined with the benefits from an optical system, including …

Modeling And Analysis Of A Dynamic Voltage Regulator, Timothy David Haskell

Master's Theses

Increased government funding and incentives in recent years has led to an increase in the number of grid-tied renewable energy sources as their economic benefits become more renowned. Unfortunately, the outputs of these renewable resources are often highly variable, resulting in undesirable voltage disruptions that are harmful to sensitive loads. In addition to the energy variability of renewable energy sources, random voltage sags, swells and disruptions are already a major issue in power systems. Recent advances in power electronic devices have provided a platform for new solutions to the voltage support problem in power systems. One promising solution is the …

Dc, Rf, And Thermal Characterization Of High Electric Field Induced Degradation Mechanisms In Gan-On-Si High Electron Mobility Transistors, Matthew Anthony Bloom

Master's Theses

Gallium Nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are becoming increasingly popular in power amplifier systems as an alternative to bulkier vacuum tube technologies. GaN offers advantages over other III-V semiconductor heterostructures such as a large bandgap energy, a low dielectric constant, and a high critical breakdown field. The aforementioned qualities make GaN a prime candidate for high-power and radiation-hardened applications using a smaller form-factor. Several different types of semiconductor substrates have been considered for their thermal properties and cost-effectiveness, and Silicon (Si) has been of increasing interest due to a balance between both factors.

In this thesis, the DC, …