Fall 2013 Senior Design Projects

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Design Class

Adaptive Lighting Power and Control Applications

Emotive Facial Expression Robot

In everyday life Rehabilitation Engineers, Environmental Specialists, Concierges, and various other professions try to interact with individuals with disabilities, geriatric patient, environments not suitable for human habitation, or simply giving basic instructions and/or directions to patrons. There is a misconception that all problems within a niche require the same solution, however, no two disabilities, patients, environments, and/or instructions are completely the same. Communication is not always relayed successfully, but it is crucial for day-to-day life. The user interface is the bridge that is shared by two or more disciplines, in the field of human–machine interaction (HMI); this is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. This project will focus on a simple HMI robotic head that is capable of accepting six different emotional queues and expressing these six emotions mechanically. As human-machine interaction engineers, we have produced a user interface machine in which the operator will provide minimal input to achieve the desired output.

Project Prometheus

The purpose of Project Prometheus was to design a low cost IED detection vehicle. IED detection is a costly and slow process and Project Prometheus’ goal was to reduce costs and use easy to acquire materials to make the detection vehicle. Project Prometheus used a Traxxas RC Car kit as our vehicle. The vehicle was integrated with encoders, a GPS module, a Magnetometer and three EM receivers to make it autonomous. Using this combination, Project Prometheus was able to compete and place in first position in SDSU’s Payload Delivery Challenge.

Fast Find Technologies

An Autonomous Payload Delivery Challenge was held at the San Diego State University campus. Teams were to design and build a vehicle capable of navigating autonomously to several different predetermined locations, deliver a payload as close as possible to the delivery locations and return to the starting point within two minutes. The delivery locations were communicated to each team the day of the challenge and were also marked by a small loop of wire which emitted an 80 kHz signal. Speed and accuracy were part of the judging criteria. Of the four teams competing, FFTec was the only team to successfully deploy all three payloads near the beacons and return to the starting point. From our Android phone “brain” with embedded sensors, to our pre-built chassis, we’ve chosen to take the “high road” – the high-level design road, that is. We believe that by simplifying our design and choosing only a few powerful devices, we’ll be able to focus on what truly matters – winning

Discovery Bot

From our Android phone “brain” with embedded sensors, to our pre-built chassis, we’ve chosen to take the “high road” – the high-level design road, that is. We believe that by simplifying our design and choosing only a few powerful devices, we’ll be able to focus on what truly matters – winning

Fuzzy Logic

The problem that was addressed to Fuzzy Logic was to design a vehicle that would autonomously travel to three predetermined GPS coordinates that would drop a golf ball sized payload within a circular beacon. Because of the inaccuracy of GPS, for the robot to drop the payload inside the target beacon, we would have to design an antenna that would detect an 80kHz signal that the target beacon would emit. We tried to take the simplest approach to solve this problem by obtaining sensors and integrating them together on a powerful microcontroller onto an all-terrain chassis.