ECE 480 Brief Project Descriptions - Michigan State University



ECE 480 Brief Project Descriptions

Fall, 2008

HUMANITARIAN PROJECT:

Team 1. Universally engineered production equipment for manufacturing floor

Sponsors: Wochholz Endowment, MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities (RCPD), Chrysler Foundation, Marathon Oil

Prior ECE 480 teams have redesigned the “beep baseball” and the remote-controlled beeping bases used in a game played by players with limited or no eyesight. These projects were so successful that beep baseballs, bases, and controllers are going into production in a Michigan business, Lettuce Duit, with a staff including many persons with disabilities. This project is to incorporate assistive technology into some of the production equipment so that it can be operated by a person lacking the strength or fine motor control to operate the manual machinery currently in use. The project would put several of the manufacturing operations under microprocessor control, activating linear actuators, stepper motors, etc., and enabling operation by a specific person to be employed by Lettuce Duit. A specialist in RCPD will assist the team with fabrication of any custom mechanical parts required. The project will illustrate the kinds of accommodations needed to enable persons with motoric disabilities to be involved in efficient manufacturing production.

Team 2. Prototype of Solar-Powered, Internetted Multi-Seat Computer System for Tanzanian Classrooms

Sponsor: Lenovo Corporation

Multidisciplinary, International Project: 4 students in 480 + 4-student team in Telecomm + 2 Tanzanian EE students

Many schools in rural Africa are without computers and network access, and have almost no books for their students to use. Internet access could greatly improve the situation, but many schools are in locations with no electrical service or network connectivity. Lenovo is supporting development of a system to allow charging of batteries using solar panels, then powering one or more computers, a satellite Internet link, and 4-8 LCD-based seats. Prior work in 480, and by a team of Telecomm students, and by ECE personnel have produced a working system, but it is not maximally power-efficient and lacks the monitoring/control and safety features needed to make it usable in the field. Lenovo will design an enclosure for what is seen as a modular system, but the F’08 MSU team and two EE students from the University of Dar es Salaam must explore technology tradeoffs, internet connectivity tradeoffs (with Telecomm, Info. Sys. & Media team members), safety features (circuit breakers, etc.), and power monitoring/control, so that a user can look at an LCD panel and LEDs on the main module and determine solar charge rate, present power consumption, time until battery exhausted at current rates, internet connectivity, LAN connectivity, and a variety of fault conditions. Simultaneously, the teams must implement open-source (Linux-based) software to allow users to browse the Internet, but with the capability to restrict access to a specified list of sites. TISM students must assure that the system provides access to appropriate content for the school children. In December, 2008, two MSU student team members will be given the opportunity to visit Tanzania under funding from Lenovo, to install and conduct initial testing of the prototype system in a school near Mto wa Mbu, Tanzania, working with the faculty and with two students from UDSM. The team should contain at least one student who will be able to travel to Tanzania approximately Dec. 10-17, 2008, funded by Lenovo.

OTHER PROJECTS:

Team 3. Visual/Motion Ship Simulator/Trainer

Sponsor: P.I. Engineering

Multidisciplinary Project: 8-person team, 4 from ECE 480, 4 from ME 481

A joint team of four members from ECE and four members from ME will build, calibrate, and test a ship simulation with full sized, fully operational controls (provided by sponsor), navigation display, and visual display, on a motion platform provided by the sponsor. Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) will be used as a reliable and accessible physics and graphics engine for modeling buoyant vehicles. By changing the parameters of the vehicle and fluid through the MSFS API, the team will model a pilot boat moving in water (a really slow, wingless airplane moving through really thick air). Input from the controls (rudder, prop, bow & stern thrusters) will drive the model. The resulting output from MSFS will determine the visual display, the navigation display, and the motion of the tipping platform. The team will have the prototyping and technical resources of P.I. Engineering available, including an adaptable tipping platform design, required computer hardware, and expertise in simulation modeling.

Team 4. Inexpensive Radar for Through-Object Viewing

Sponsor: U.S. Naval Research Labs

The United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC is sponsoring a Senior Design project on the development of inexpensive methods to view objects behind obstructions via radar. Using radar to “see” through obstructions could be of use in life-saving applications such as:

• Firefighters detecting presence of victims in burning buildings before entering

• Earthquake rescue workers locating victims in collapsed buildings

Existing ultra-wideband (UWB) radar methods such as the UVSS LifeLocator can cost as much as $30,000. By using an LFM radar waveform, we desire to determine what performance may be obtained at low-cost, with design considerations allowing for future development of a portable product (the current design need not be fully portable).

The Senior Design team will be responsible for development of an appropriate radar system design, likely using RF modules such as available from Minicircuits. Antennas will be chosen/designed by the team that will fit within the project budget. The end product of the semester will be a one-dimensional "A-scope" display of the targets downrange, with MTI (moving target indicator) designations applied. Background in electromagnetics will be useful to members of this team.

Team 5: Telematics Local RF Network

Sponsor: Terex Corporation

Telematics systems are mounted to pieces of construction equipment. They gather data (e.g. GPS location, run time hours, engine fault codes, etc) and may also relay information to the unit (e.g. shut down codes, software updates, etc.) through cell phone or satellite phone services. Current telematics systems require each piece of equipment to have a cell phone to communicate data with the central system. Cell service typically costs $20 per unit per month, a significant cost in large fleets. Many, if not most, pieces of equipment are on job sites with multiple pieces of equipment on the same site. An ability to communicate locally could limit the number of required cell services since, theoretically, only a single cell service is required per site. Any system like this would have to be simple enough that it automatically dealt with any units being shipped in and out of a job site.

Tasks: Develop a system of Telematics Cell Servers (TCS) and Telematics RF units that communicate over a short distance. The TCS units would have cell phone hardware (and service) and would collect data from the RF units prior to transmitting. Each TCS would have a small RF transceiver and would be programmed with an Owner Code and Unit ID. Prior to sending its data packet by cell, it would send an RF signal out with the owner code. RF Units would have an owner code and a unit ID as well. When they received a signal from a TCS of the same owner code, they would transmit their data packet with their ID. The TCS unit would then compile all data packets received and send them, via cell service, back to the owner’s tracking system.

Team 6. Bar code cooking “GPS”

Sponsor: Whirlpool Corporation

*** CONFIDENTIAL PROJECT REQUIRING STUDENTS TO ASSIGN THEIR IP RIGHTS: No student needs to agree to work on this project. Putting a ranking other than “NO” on the preference form indicates the student’s willingness to sign a confidential disclosure agreement and an assignment of intellectual property rights to the sponsor of this project. If you do not agree to sign those agreements, you MUST rank this project “NO.” ***

This project entails the exploration and application of bar code and other low-cost product identifying technologies within the cooking and laundry processes. Through research and testing of various technologies, building prototypes including advanced UI’s, and writing software algorithms, participants will ultimately make recommendations regarding the feasibility of implementing process improvements via product identification. For example, scanning the label on a frozen food item might automatically program a microwave oven for cooking it, and put additional directions up on the microwave’s display panel, much as a GPS gives directions for getting to a destination. The team will have the opportunity to interact on a continual basis with corporate sponsors to deliver a prototype that will be evaluated for production implementation.

Team 7. An automated trapping system for improved estimates of N2O and CO2 efflux from soil

Sponsor: MSU Biogeochemical Environmental Science Initiative (BERI)

Multidisciplinary team: 4 students from ECE 480, 4 from ME 481.

Agricultural soils are the greatest source of human derived greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Because of this a number of efforts are underway to minimize the emissions of greenhouse gases from soils that include use of organic fertilizers and no-till practices. Such mitigation practices, however, require verification particularly at national and international levels where carbon credits can be bought and sold. For this reason, we propose the development of an autonomous soil gas flux chamber that, once deployed, automatically traps greenhouse gases (CO2 and N2O) being released from soils to the atmosphere for months at a time (an Automated Trace Gas-Trapping System or ATGTS). The ATGTS consists of a flux chamber to collect gas evolving from soils, chemical or molecular sieve traps to remove water and trap CO2 and N2O, a pumping system that periodically turns on and off to move gases through the chemical traps, a system for collecting and distributing rain-water within the flux chamber, and a power system consisting of a solar panel and 24 V battery (Figure 1). We have previously demonstrated that a prototype system is capable of quantitatively trapping CO2 and N2O gases evolving from soils and now seek to (1) design an independent electronic control system and (2) finalize the mechanical design for an autonomous system. We envision a final ATGTS system that could be sent to farmers and educators across the country as a basis for them to participate in greenhouse gas accounting programs.

Team 8: Trackside systems for sensing/responding to changing conditions

Sponsor: Norfolk Southern

This MAY or MAY NOT be a multidisciplinary ECE/ME project team; if not, team will be 4 ECE students only.

Sponsor has needs for a variety of trackside measuring/communication devices for tasks such as: measuring level of lubricant in a wayside top-of-rail friction modifier system, measuring amount of grease in a wayside gauge face lubricator without introducing back pressure on the system, counting axles passing a location and determining the direction of motion (with a solar-powered system), and reading of the AEI (RFID) tags on train cars in order to determine the path of a train, particularly on double track with crossovers. Sponsor will make final determination of devices to be designed and prototyped after initial discussion with team, based on team composition and sponsor’s determination of highest priority needs.

Team 9. Project for an Automotive OEM or Supplier

Sponsor: (one of three large automotive companies yet to be determined)

*** CONFIDENTIAL PROJECT REQUIRING STUDENTS TO ASSIGN THEIR IP RIGHTS: No student needs to agree to work on this project. Putting a ranking other than “NO” on the preference form indicates the student’s willingness to sign a confidential disclosure agreement and an assignment of intellectual property rights to the sponsor of this project. If you do not agree to sign those agreements, you MUST rank this project “NO.” ***

Three large automotive companies are working on final project definitions, but have not been able as yet to obtain necessary approvals or adequate specifications. One of these projects will be done, but it is not yet certain which one. Therefore, if you are willing to work on an as-yet-unspecified task for a major automotive OEM or supplier, rank this project preference appropriately. Depending on which company is finally selected, you may or may not be asked to sign confidentiality and IP assignment agreements, so you should proceed AS IF YOU WILL be asked to do so.

Team 10. Efficient Source and Demand Leveling Power System

Sponsor: KELD, LLC

The project scope is to use electrical storage technologies (e.g. new nano dielectric supercapacitors) combined with steady state electrical generation sources for renewable energy power back-up systems (UPS) or transportation power plants. The concept is that an intelligent electrical load leveling system can reduce overall system costs and size - by enabling more efficient "steady state" electrical generation sources (activated when demand exists or is planned) to replace the "peak-demand" generation that is typical of UPS and transportation systems commonly in use today. The Otto Cycle engines used in current automotive technology are an extreme example of peak-demand generation mechanical and fuel inefficiencies. They are designed with mechanical and thermal capacities to supply peak instantaneous power and power to a wide range of load

variations. Two examples of efficient steady state electrical generation engine alternatives are constant speed natural gas or methane turbines (e.g. wave rotor research in the ME Department?) and thermal source power turbines.

In a system integration and control approach, the understanding and engineering of combined mechanical and electrical source and usage demand characteristics is needed to develop innovative solutions to the cost, size, weight, and fuel inefficiency problems that plague current transportation and uninterruptible power systems. This design project challenges students with interdisciplinary understanding and team work. The project goal

has headline news relevance to national and global energy dependence and conservation problems - and would be an accomplishment of interest to many technology and research employers. It may also inspire additional interdisciplinary research and funding for the MSU College of Engineering in this urgent area of economic importance.

The team can define a more specific project with respect to their interests (for example, transportation or renewable energy UPS) and expertise that meets the broader goal statement above, in discussion with the sponsor. It may be helpful for members of this team to have taken ECE 420.

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Figure 1 - Flow diagram of a conceptualized soil gas sampling chamber where gases collect in the main chamber, are equilibrated in a smaller sub-chamber, and are then pumped through a series of chemical and physical traps.

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