VLSI and Circuits, Embedded and Hardware Systems Commons^™

Signal Adc Converter Simulation On Cadence Virtuoso For Audio Applications, Maxwell Kazuki Fukada

Electrical Engineering

Audio signals are representations of sounds with a mixture of multiple analog signals between the frequency of 20Hz to 20,000Hz. To record snippets of audio data onto a mobile phone or computer, the signal needs to be converted to a digital format. For this purpose, many devices utilize a converter, specifically a sigma-delta modulator with a digital filter. By using a converter, electronics can receive binary data about the audio signal accurately and quickly without losing important signal information. This project aims to simulate a fully functional audio converter with a sigma-delta modulator and decimation filter. The system will receive …

Smartphone Control Of Rc Cars, Weston R. Fitzgerald

Electrical Engineering

The smartphone-controlled RC (remote-controlled) car is an inexpensive remote-controlled car designed to be fast and portable. Instead of manufacturing, packaging, and shipping a separate controller, the remote control is implemented in a phone application, which saves time and money in both the design process and the manufacturing process. Utilizing the user’s smartphone is more cost-effective since mobile devices are a common recurrence, and packaging fewer devices results in overall better portability of the product.

This smartphone-controlled car is speedy and intuitive to learn for typical smartphone users. The user can change the car’s speed and direction wirelessly using their phone; …

Tractor Hacking, Jin Huang, Kyle B. Kesler

Electrical Engineering

Tractor hacking arose from tractor owners' desire for full control over the tractors they purchase. Tractor manufacturers set strict security on the electrical components of their tractors, making it difficult for tractor owners to diagnose and monitor their tractors on their own. The UltraBlue Tractor Hacking project is a solution to this problem, allowing tractor owners to perform diagnostics and monitor the equipment they purchased without having to go through dealerships. From talking to farmers, we found that they valued a diagnostic tool that allows for clearing and resetting Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs), viewing diagnostic data pertaining to a specific …

Polyone Smartphone, Joshua Zalmanowitz, Chi Nguyen, Gerome Cacho, Chris Lim

Electrical Engineering

The Poly One Smartphone is a student designed smartphone built to explore the implementation of 5G, provide a hardware solution to ensure personal information security and privacy, and provide longer battery life. The key features of this smartphone include but are not limited to a main cpu, some form of network connectivity in the form of Wi-fi or Cellular Data, calling functionality, a rechargeable battery that works with common power connection protocols, and compatibility with popular applications.

Portable High-Definition Audio Spectrum Analyzer, Alex Zahn, Jamie Corr

Electrical Engineering

The Portable High-definition Audio Spectrum Analyzer (PHASA) allows the user to visualize the audio frequency spectrum of an incoming line-level stereo audio signal. Upon pressing the touch screen spectrum graph, the PHASA displays the corresponding frequency and volume levels as well as crosshairs at the touched location. The PHASA features multiple left/right channel display modes— Left channel only, right channel only, both channels simultaneously, and the average between the two channels. The PHASA features multiple resolution display modes (standard-resolution and high-resolution) and multiple dynamics display modes (standard dynamics, averaging, and peak/hold). The PHASA accepts input audio via a 1/4" TRS …

Metrology Computer Redesign, Natalie Lizama, Melinda Ong, Mitchell Aiken

Electrical Engineering

We are M[EE]² and our project is to redesign Micro-Vu’s metrology computer (the Q16) with modern components and updated firmware. Metrology machines take high precision and high accuracy measurements, and a computer attached to each machine reads out the measurements. We will be redesigning the logic and display circuit boards on the Q16. The ports and communication methods with the machine will stay the same as it must be a drop-in replacement.

The motivation behind the redesign stems from the age of the current design. The current design was created in 1986, and has not had significant modifications since. …

Electronic Drum Machine (E.D.M), Nyssa Marie Backes

Electrical Engineering

Many people argue that a drummer plays the most important role in a band of any genre. During live performances, the other band members rely on the drummer to keep the song moving forward at a proper steady pace. Even in recorded music, drums help listeners sing and dance along with their favorite songs. Thus, achieving success as a band, both in terms of recordings and live shows, absolutely requires a drummer. So, if a band does not have a drummer, and cannot afford the hefty cost of hiring a session drummer, a touring drummer, or both, how can they …

Smart Safeguard, Stephen J. Marrone

Electrical Engineering

Smart Safeguard is designed to provide people with an affordable device that will notify the authorities when the buyer gets in a car crash. The device will operate off the 12V car power that is present in every car and use an accelerometer to detect if an accident has occurred. If an accident is detected the device will proceed to light up and make a noise until the passenger pushes a button on the device. If the passenger doesn’t push the button within 15 seconds the device, which is wirelessly connected to the passenger’s phone, will initiate a text to …

Remote Cable Gantry, Allen L. Bailey

Electrical Engineering

The Remote Cable Gantry is a robotic system that was initially intended to aid in the art of aerial videography. It was designed to enable novice and expert users alike to capture both video footage and audio from perspectives unachievable by current methods. This system uses a series of cables to control the position of a camera gimbal in a defined 3D space and, as a self-contained unit, is portable and easy to use. The Remote Cable Gantry offers a quiet, intuitive, and safe alternative to existing technology, which has been limiting the market and potential of aerial photography and …

Music Synthesizer Senior Project: Individual Report, Bryan Bellin

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Music Synthesizer Senior Project: Danalog, Vikrant A. Marathe

Electrical Engineering

The Danalog is a 25 key portable digital music synthesizer that uses multiple synthesis methods and effects to generate sounds. Sound varieties included three synthesis methods including FM, subtractive, and sample-based, with up to eight adjustable parameters, at least four effects, including reverb, chorus, and flange, with five adjustable parameters, and at least two note polyphony, and a five band equalizer. The user would be able to adjust these effects using digital encoders and potentiometers and view the settings on two LCD screens. The finals project was unable to meet the original design requirements. The FM synthesis method was primarily …

Danalog: Digital Music Synthesizer, Evan R. Lew

Electrical Engineering

The Danalog is a 25 key portable digital music synthesizer that uses multiple synthesis methods and effects to generate sounds. Sound varieties included three synthesis methods including FM, subtractive, and sample-based, with up to eight adjustable parameters, at least four effects, including reverb, chorus, and flange, with five adjustable parameters, and at least two note polyphony, and a five band equalizer. The user would be able to adjust these effects using digital encoders and potentiometers and view the settings on two LCD screens.

The finals project was unable to meet the original design requirements. The FM synthesis method was primarily …

Wireless Audio Bridge, Daniel L. Hodges

Electrical Engineering

Bluetooth, a wireless technology standard used to exchange data using radio transmissions, has made a significant impact on the audio technology industry, specifically the way people listen to music. This technology enables a wireless listening experience, eliminating the need for wires or cables between audio devices as previously required. Audio can transmit from a cellphone or laptop (an output device) to a pair of headphones or speakers (an input device) without any physical connection. Compared to alternative wireless listening solutions (i.e. FM transmitter, radio broadcast), Bluetooth offers greater reliability, audio fidelity, portability, and ease of use. To obtain this functionality, …

Active Contact Lens - Low Power Backscattering Sensor-To-Antenna Integration Circuitry, Caleb B. Porter

Electrical Engineering

The Active Contact Lens measures the cornea-scleral radius of the wearer’s eye, which correlates to intraocular pressure (IOP), Glaucoma’s primary indicator. IOP varies throughout the day, and is drastically different from person to person, so constantly measuring it over a period of a few days can provide individualized tracking of the disease’s development and will help doctors develop personalized treatment schedules to treat the disease more precisely.

The Active Contact Lens sensor measures strain, based on the cornea-scleral radius, and reports the results wirelessly, to allow monitoring of an individual’s IOP over time. The lens is powered similarly to a …

A Stroke Therapy Brace Design, Evan Kirkbride

Electrical Engineering

Victims of stroke often have difficulty with rehabilitation. With limited movement on their affected arm, patients often do not want to move much for physical therapy. In this project, we design a robotic brace that helps stroke patients move their arm more effectively in a reaching or pulling motion. By giving patients more movement in their affected arm than they would have otherwise, patients gain more from rehabilitation. The brace also adapts to the patient’s needs, providing more inclination or resistance as needed for their physical therapy. This kind of therapy engages patients rather than relying on their likely dwindled …

Cal Poly Supermileage Electronic Fuel Injection, Alexander Pink

Electrical Engineering

Cal Poly Supermileage is a student-run engineering club that builds prototype gasoline vehicles optimized maximum fuel-efficiency. To power their vehicles, the Supermileage team makes use of single-cylinder, 4-stroke, electronically fuel-injected (EFI) gasoline engines. This report details the development, iterative design & test cycles, and integration of an EFI system for the Supermileage club. This project develops an EFI system that interfaces to the most common types of sensors found in the low-power Supermileage-range of engines, including throttle-position sensors, manifold absolute pressure sensors, gear-tooth hall-effect sensors, variable-reluctance position sensors, engine coolant temperature sensors, intake air temperature sensors, and exhaust oxygen sensors. …

Analog Vlsi Circuit Design: Linear Voltage Regulator, Brett Colteaux, Kirstie Fung

Electrical Engineering

The project outlined in this report is the design, layout, and routing of a linear voltage regulator using Cadence VLSI (very-large-scale integration) software. The design specifications for this regulator are as follows: input voltage range of 5V + 1V, load current capabilities of 150mA, and output voltage range of 1.15V to 3.3V. Furthermore, the design of this circuit was broken into three main sub-circuits: an error amplifier, bandgap reference circuitry, and biasing circuitry for the bandgap. Together, these sub-circuits integrated to make the final design.

Research for different topologies for a voltage regulator was done and the Brokaw bandgap reference …

Sun-Tracking Solar-Powered Led Street Light, Wesley Ballar, Harrison Wong

Electrical Engineering

Street lighting is an essential utility especially in urban and industrialized areas because it provides illumination and safety for vehicles and pedestrians throughout the night. However, street lights are relatively inefficient; they consume large amounts of power from electrical grids and have predetermined operation times that are often non-optimal for the surrounding environment. The Sun-Tracking Solar-Powered LED Street Lamp is a self-sustaining device, built to replace the current lighting sources. The device features sun-tracking capabilities for maximum energy gathering and darkness recognition to establish optimal operation times. The project provides a reliable and enhanced alternative to current street lighting systems.

Phase Locked Loop Integrated Circuit, Scott Buchanan, Jonathan Bonello

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Current Protection For The Energy Harvesting From Exercise Machines (Ehfem) Project, Colton Crivelli

Electrical Engineering

The Energy Harvesting from Exercise Machines (EHFEM) project intends to create an exercise machine that recycles the energy expended by an athlete operating the machine by sending it to the electric grid. The work done by the user goes through a DC-DC converter and an inverter in order to prepare it for delivery to the grid. A protection circuit ensures that the inverter does not try to pull too much current from the DC-DC converter. The project implements a current protection system that ensures the system doesn’t experience an overcurrent condition.

Chipper: Capacitive Bed Occupancy Sensing For An Intelligent Alarm Clock, David Levi

Electrical Engineering

What if your alarm clock knew when you got out—and stayed out—of bed? Current alarm clocks happily let you go back to bed after turning them off. In this project, I build an alarm which only stops ringing when you get out bed, and starts ringing again if you lie back in bed.

This project uses capacitance to detect bed occupancy. A person on or near the bed creates a tiny, picofarads level increase in capacitance, as seen by a sensor placed under the mattress. A microprocessor interprets this signal, and also drives an audio alarm. Shielding of the sensor …

Dual Channel Matrix Switch Audio Receiver, Austin Fox

Electrical Engineering

The Dual Channel Matrix Switch Audio Receiver controls 2 separate audio output channels. Each channel plays any of the system's 3 inputs. This controller enables a user to play two separate audio signals through two separate speaker channels. The system design allows audio input from 2 RCA sources or 1 RCA source and a phono source. The system outputs an audio signal for each output simultaneously at up to 36W on each channel for an 8Ω load. The device allows a user to control the audio input and the volume of each output channel. An Arduino Uno R3 microcontroller interfaced …

Wd Data Aquisition Board, Charmaine Guintu

Electrical Engineering

The Data Acquisition (DAQ) Board project is a continuation of a project that started last year. It is a project in collaboration with Western Digital. Western Digital (WD) Power LSI Systems Validation group has stress testing equipment called the Torture Stand. Inside the Torture Stand hard drives are compacted and tested until failure. However, the transient responses of voltage and current signals from the hard drives are currently obtained from oscilloscopes. The oscilloscopes are bulky and expensive, so to replace the oscilloscopes the DAQ was created. The small size and much cheaper cost of the DAQ allows Western Digital to …

Bike Safe: An Automatic Turn Signal System, Betty He Chan, Ricardo Alberto Duran

Electrical Engineering

Bicycles are vehicles that do not require a license to operate and share the road with cars, motorcycles, and other fast moving vehicles. An improper lane change from a bicyclist, such as one without any warning, can lead to great injury or death (especially after sundown). Bike Safe addresses this safety concern by providing a low-cost device that mimics the warning system motorists’ use every day. The system consists of a red brake light and amber turning signal lights that mounts to the rear of the bike, as well as a white headlamp that mounts to the front handlebars. The …

Low Voltage Cmos Sar Adc Design, Ryan Hunt

Electrical Engineering

This project centers on the design of a single ended 10-bit successive approximation register analog to digital converter (SAR ADC for short) that easily interfaces to a micro-controller, such as an Arduino. With micro-controller interfacing in mind, the universal data transfer technique of SPI proved an easy way to communicate between the ADC and the micro-controller. The ADC has a range of 1V (highest code value) to 0V (lowest code value) and operates from a single voltage rail value of 1.8V. Typical SPI clock speeds run on the order of 2MHz and with a 10-bit ADC this means a sampling …

Ad-Hoc Hid: Modular Wireless Human Interface Device, Joseph A. Mazzanti

Electrical Engineering

Ad-Hoc HID is a modular, reprogrammable Human Interface Device. This device is intended to function as a keyboard, gamepad, or mouse, according to the user's needs. The final project is intended to be switch agnostic, making the final product adaptable to the user’s needs.

Real Time Swim Instructor, Konrad Antoniuk

Electrical Engineering

Both competitive and recreational swimmers want an efficient swim stroke but often lack consistent feedback with technical insight. Competitive swimmers rely on coaches for instruction but have to stop swimming to listen. The Real Time Swim Instructor project provides live feedback to a swimmer so they can feel their stroke correction while they’re swimming. The developing swimmer feels the difference between correct and incorrect form instantaneously.

The project takes on the responsibility of measuring the moving body, accurately determining stroke improvement, functioning under water, and providing recognizable feedback. Additionally, the user can review their swim from data stored in memory. …

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, …

Imu Based Tracking And Stabilization System, Aaron Barton

Electrical Engineering

The objective of this project is to develop a system that can track a user selected point in space given displacement, vibration and rotation of the device. Stabilization systems are used in various forms over the years, with the military amongst the foremost adopters. More recently, with the increasing popularity of quad-copters for RC hobbyists, and small cameras capable of take high quality video during recreational sports such as skiing or mountain biking, the need has emerged for a cheaper, more accessible version of stabilization systems for use in photography. Additionally, while some devices do exist for hobbyists can take …

Poly_Sense: Modular Wireless Sensor Network, Ian Andal, James Shirley, Haleigh Vierra

Electrical Engineering

Poly_Sense provides a platform for developers to use for a wide range of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications. This modular system supports different sensing applications by allowing the developer to easily change between supported sensors through the graphical user interface (GUI). The platform also allows developers to integrate new sensors by writing device drivers which follow the platform’s guidelines and utilize the application programming interface (API). This low-power and cost-effective wireless solution not only provides a basic platform for entry-level developers, but also accommodates larger-scale applications.