Brief Scholar Team Descriptions
2005 - 2006 Academic Year
Advisor: Sung Kwan Joo, Ph.D.
What is Power ACE?
A Power ACE is an expert in the field of Power system Analysis, Computation, and Economics. If this is the kind of engineer you want to become, then join the following multi-disciplinary research group.
Economic Analysis of Multiple Electricity Markets
Team Size: 1 Grad, 1~2 Junior & Senior, 1~2 Freshman & Sophomore (Total: 3~5)
The goal of this project is to analyze the effect of electricity market rules on energy trading between regions. Different inter-regional coordination of market rules will be compared for the purpose of social cost and benefit analysis of overall markets. Finally, you will explore how different inter-regional coordination of market rules influences the strategic behaviors of the market participants and the market equilibrium of an individual market in interconnected grids with multiple markets.
Advisor: Dr. Mark Schroeder
Approximate Team Size: 2 Grads, 3-4 Jr. & Sr., 3-4 Fr. & Soph. (Total: 8-10)
Brain-computer interface(BCI) systems aim to enhance the quality of life of severely disabled individuals by augmenting their ability to communicate. This is done through the use of a computer that can acquire brainwave data, process the data in real-time, make an informed "guess" of the user's intention, and perform a task based on the guess. This scholar team will perform the following tasks:
- Learn about the basic components that make up a BCI system
- Acquire experimental training data from human subjects
- Analyze the results from the experiment
- Learn techniques to process and classify brainwave data
In addition to being exposed to a lab environment conducive to peer-to-peer learning, you will learn about data acquisition, analysis, and classification methods using tools such as MATLAB and LabVIEW.
Advisor: David Rogers, Ph.D.
Approximate Team Size: 5
This team will study the design and application of RF, microwave, and lightwave devices for wireless communication and control.
Advisor: Prof. Val G. Tareski
Approximate Team Size: 10 with a uniform distribution of freshmen to graduate students
This team will develop and implement the protocols necessary to capture ECE technical presentations so that they can be later viewed from the department's web site. This team will also work to improve the overall look and feel of the ECE Department web site.
Team members will work with internet protocols for video streaming and will develop processes to capture the significant portions (video, audio, graphics) of ECE technical presentations so that they can be stored in a standard form and subsequently viewed over the internet.
Advisor: Prof. Val G. Tareski
Approximate Team Size: 10 with a uniform distribution of freshmen to graduate students
Major competing products provide for computer network directory services; for example, Microsoft ADS, Novell (legacy) NDS, and NDS e-directory. This project examines each of these services in the NDSU CEA networking environment, in an attempt to measure and document the features of each product in an actual academic setting.
Elastance Catheter Scholar Team
Link to Webpage
Advisor: Dr. Dan Ewert
Approximate Team Size: 10
This team will work on developing an instrument to measure the elastance, ie "stiffness" of a heart, or heart model. While a heart contracts, the strength of the heart, and its stiffness, vary over time. To adequately model the heart with computer simulations, the characteristics of the heart must be determined.
Based on prior muscle work, a model was created using three different elements, one resistance, and two elastic. To create a simulation using this model, the three characteristics must be determined, and one way is by direct measurement using this new instrument.
The team will start by researching different methods of prior measurements and simulation, work on a computer simulation to predict the actual and measured results when using the new instrument, and incorporate previously collected data to generate predictions as to how a heart reacts to the instrument. Research into viable heart models and equipment will be done to create a platform from which to measure true elastance and compare that to the instrumentation results.
Additionally, a prototype unit was built last year, and work will continue on making the device to collect preliminary data with a heart model. The senior design portion of the team will also submit a proposal to NASA to compete to fly on the KC135 Parabolic Flights. This will involve creating a system to control the instrumentation, mount and support a heart model, and collect and analyze data from the experiment.
Advisor: Dr. Dan Ewert
Approximate Team Size: 10
I am looking for a group of student interested in space suit design, physiological instrumentation, and wireless communication. I am forming a design team to work on this project beginning summer 2005. If interested in working on the project please send me an e-mail stating your interest.
Table of Measurements
Data to be
Measured |
No. of
Sensors |
| Body Temperature |
2 |
| External Temperature |
1 |
| Heart Rate |
1 |
| Respiration Rate |
1 |
| Carbon Dioxide Level |
2 |
| Oxygen Level |
2 |
Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) Impedance Control
Link to Webpage
Advisors: Dr. Dan Ewert and Dr. Jacob Glower
Desired Team Size: 20, composed of 4 grads, 8 junior & seniors, 8 freshmen & soph.
Target: University of Louisville
This scholar team will focus on trying to control the impedance of a DC servo motor. Impedance for a motor can be thought of as the motor behaving like a spring / friction / inertia system. Conceptually, given the 'correct' control law, the motor can be made to behave like an arbitrary mass & spring system (i.e. with an arbitrary impedance.) This is not the typical control problem, however, which seeks to control a position, voltage, or current. As a result, this scholar team will focus on both theoretical and hardware implementation of an impedance controller. This device will be used to develop a prototype of a new ventricular assist device in cooperation with the University of Louisville.
Advisor: Dr. Jacob Glower
Desired Team Size: 10, composed of 2 grads, 4 junior & seniors, 4 freshmen & soph.
Examples:
Autonomous vehicles are receiving considerable attention - ranging from remote controlled surveillance cars for SWAT teams to mechanical 'horses' for the army, where the vehicle performs the same functions a horse did in the 1600's to 1800's for the army.
Initially, this project will focus on developing a small, versatile, capable, and inexpensive remote controlled vehicle to serve as a development platform for future research. Follow on projects will use this platform to test ideas and algorithms for self-forming networks, distributed sensing, distributed control, etc.
LED Dome: Dr. Brady (NDSU Dept of Psychology) is interested in building a lighting system which can duplicate the lighting anywhere in the world. Ideally, you should be able to take a photo of the sky in Paris, download this image to this device, and the LED Dome will then recreate the lighting.
The electronic design was developed over Spring 2005 and consists of 750 RGB lights, driven by 125 PIC processors. These PIC processors allow you to download the picture via a serial port. They then monitor an optical encoder to know the orientation of the target, telling the processor which part of the image the LED is to duplicate.
As of August 2005, the status of this project is...
125 Circuit Boards: 45 built and soldered.
Software to convert an image to a data file for download: not started.
Hardware to connect a serial port of a PC to the boards: not started (should just be a UART)
Delivery: Hoping for early Fall 2005
System Modeling: A better way to run the ECE 461 Controls labs may be to use a PIC processor. The idea is to have a processor implement a differential equation. The labs would then be a) to define the differential equation which describes your system (system modeling), b) program in this differential equation, and c) control this system using a PID regulator with op-amps.
This project involves building a new circuit board which has +/- 12V analog in, +/- 12V analog out, a processor in the middle, and in-circuit programming capability.
PIC EVB Ver 3.0: The PIC evaluation board used at NDSU works pretty well and is the basis for most senior design projects. One knock against it is the LCD display, however. In 2002, a low power LCD display came out, which uses 50uA (vs. 10mA of the presently used one.) In addition, it uses SPI communications -- meaning you only tie up 1 line from the PIC (chip select).
Advisor: Dr. Roger Green
Desired Team Size: 10
Digital signal processors (DSPs) and digital signal processing (also called DSP) techniques are found in a wide variety of products including MP3 players, digital audio equipment, HDTV technologies, PC graphics cards, cell phones, medical imaging devices, and others. Essentially, a DSP chip is a high-performance computer chip capable of implementing the DSP algorithms that make these products work. For those without DSP experience, the sophistication of DSP makes system design and implementation somewhat intimidating.
DSP scholar group activities will concentrate on becoming acquainted with DSP, particularly DSP hardware. Team members will have opportunities to investigate a specific DSP processor, design a basic stand-alone DSP system, layout printed circuit boards to implement the DSP system, and program the DSP system to accomplish various signal processing tasks. Activities will concentrate on team-selected real-world applications reflective of team member interests. By participating in the DSP scholar team, you should gain comfort with DSP, acquire skills and experience sought by employers, be better prepared to tackle DSP-related projects for senior design or thesis work, and hopefully have fun!
While a primary focus of the DSP scholar group is to understand and develop a DSP system in hardware, the group will also periodically meet with other signal processing scholar groups to exchange ideas and share information. Additionally, the DSP scholar group will serve as resource to assist other scholar teams with DSP-related topics.
Advisor: Dr. S. Yuvarajan
Desired Team Size: 10, freshmen to graduate students
Environmental factors and oil crisis have led to increased interest in renewable energy sources like solar panels and hydrogen-based fuel cells. Power Lab has prototypes of solar panels, a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell, and hydrogen generator, and research is being conducted in these areas. The scholar-team project is:
- To study the characteristics of Photovoltaic (PV) panels and PEM fuel cells available in the Power Lab. Both analytical methods and simulation tools will be used in the study. The students will have hands-on experience working with the solar panels and the fuel cell.
- To study the common methods of producing hydrogen for fuel cell applications. The team members will install and test the recently acquired electrolysis-type hydrogen generator. Power from the solar panels will be used to run the hydrogen generator.
Advisor: Dr. Raj Katti
Desired Team Size: 5
Learn how to send secret messages from one computer to another. Members of the team will figure out how encryption/decryption algorithms work. They will also learn how e-commerce and banking rely on digital signatures for achieving authentication. Applications of cryptography include, IP protection, e-commerce, banking, and more. Come join us and learn more about this exciting new subject.
Advisor: Dr. David Farden
Desired Team Size: 10, this work would benefit from all levels of student experience, freshman to graduate.
Time reversal signal processing techniques have been applied to undersea communications, lithotripsy (blasting kidney stones), and improving communications in severe multipath wireless networks, amongst other applications. In various communication systems, time-reversal signal processing is a method of obtaining measured data which is then used in various ways to improve system performance. It involves sending a signal over the channel in one direction, receiving and recording the signals at each sensor in a receiving array, then transmitting a time-reversed version of the received signals. Consider a multipath channel between one transmit and one receive sensor. The frequency response of this channel is frequency-selective, since different paths have different delays so that as the frequency is varied, alternating constructive and destructive interference from the different paths is observed. Now, with multiple receive sensors distributed over at least several wavelengths in space, the frequency response of each channel between a single transmit sensor and each receive sensor will be different. If there are enough paths (scatterers) and the array is large enough, then the time-reversed signals transmitted back through the array will result in a well focused field (in both time and space) at the single originating sensor. Modeling, simulations, experiments, hardware, and theory investigations will begin by studying acoustic signals in buildings. Imagine two people conducting an error-free conversation across a crowded noisy auditorium. Applications using ultrasonic waves, underwater acoustic waves, and radio waves are all possible.
Advisor: Prof. Floyd M. Patterson
Desired Team Size: 10
Clustered impulse inputs which excite system functions are difficult to count and localize if only the system outputs can be monitored. This is true in both traditional one-dimensional time-dependent signals, and in two-dimensional spatial dependent signals such as images. This proposed activity will involve hardware design and assembly to test specific realizations, theoretical analysis to find analytical solutions, and computer programming for automated data collection and analysis. It therefore can utilize upper level undergraduates, graduate students, and lower level undergraduates. We will utilize knowledge from MATLAB and C++ programming calculus and linear algebra, signals and systems, probability, automated data acquisition, and some optics phenomena. The system function, linear or non-linear, tends to smear the very short duration (or space) impulses to a larger time (or space) domain and this combining of results is somewhat of an averaging phenomena. The system function can be modeled as a point spread function or an impulse response in linear system analysis. It is true that under assumptions of identical amplitude impulse inputs, known identical linear system functions, and addition of all system outputs to achieve an observable and overall signal, that the problem is simplified. Relaxation of these severe restrictions dramatically increases the analysis complexity. A feasibility demonstration is possible by designing hardware which attempts to accurately count small objects impacting a surface and can be done as an initial project with very little money. Imagine an experiment in which we try maintain hearing two identical audio clicks as the time interval between them becomes less, or identifying small optical light sources on the image plane, film or digital camera, as the lens is defocused or as the light spacing becomes small. The work that needs to be done is to conceive and implement ideas which can be modeled and built that are of the impulse input, system response, output signal type. The way the system incorporates closely spaced inputs to form outputs may be linear or non-linear, time varying or time invariant. We will look for clear commonality as well as significant independence of these responses in these various systems. Team members can design and assemble the physical object(s) to be tested, determine and connect the test equipment, program the equipment to gather data and analyze test results, and help form generalized concepts. Counting the number of closely spaced shots from a firearm and determining the number of near consecutive explosions in space are of obvious interest in forensic work and military analysis, and this class of problems appears to be applicable also in astronomy, in rapid automatic counting of small parts, emission of radioactive particles, impact grain loss monitors in harvesting equipment, and separation of action potentials of neurons thriving within a larger vital biomass.
Advisor: Dr. Ivan T. Lima, Jr.
Desired Team Size: 13
The scholar team will preferably consist of six senior undergraduate students, which will carry out two independent senior design projects, two junior students, one freshman, one sophomore student, and three graduate students. The team members will be selected based on academic merit.
The goal of the Biophotonics Group is to carry out research projects, to develop devices and systems, and to organize educational activities in the fields of photonics applied to communications and to biology (biophotonics) and in the field of electrical bioengineering. The group members will prepare one or two fifteen minute presentations that will be presented during the weekly meetings. These presentations will address either well established topics already covered in textbooks or research topics in the fields of interest of the scholar team. Each member of the group should present at least one seminar per semester, which should be directly related to the educational and the scientific contributions that this member is pursuing. The senior undergraduate student members will be required to have their senior designs project carried out within the scholar team. The senior design student members will develop devices and systems that will enable research and educational activities within the scholar team. Therefore, the choice of the projects will be decided by the team coordinator. A report will be prepared at the end of each semester summarizing the contributions of each member of the team and the achievements of the scholar team.
The scholar team should use the Lab of Photonics and Bioengineering (EE 227) and the Lab of Biophotonics and Bioengineering (EE 225) exclusively for the activities related to the scholar team. Those activities do not include homework assignments and preparation for tests. This rule does not apply to undergraduate and graduate research assistants.
Advisor: Dr. Rajesh G. Kavasseri
Desired Team Size: 10
The creation of quadruped locomotory gaits is a challenging topic in robotic motion control. An interesting approach to this problem starts out by observing locomotion in animals. The legs of animals are among the finest coupled oscillators found in nature (try figuring out the pattern of limbs for a cheetah or giraffe in the rotary gallop mode where the hind legs appear in front of the front legs! - it's a miracle that the legs never get tangled up!). The oscillatory patterns such as walking, trotting, galloping (called `gaits') are generated by rhythmic movements produced by what is known as a Central Pattern Generator (CPG). CPGs are biological neuronal networks that can autonomously generate a pattern of neural activity that controls and co-ordinates the rhythmic movements of limbs. The simplicity, robustness, and ease by which CPGs generate rhythmic patterns that maintain inter-limb coordination make them attractive for studying problems in robot locomotion.
The activities envisaged for the scholar team are as follows.
- study and understand animal gaits.
- construct a neuronal oscillator circuit (CPG) in software capable of exhibiting various gaits.
- find an optimal means to transition from one gait mode to another.
- implement the CPG circuit in hardware (analog CMOS circuits).
- possibly incorporate the CPG based motion controller in an existing quadruped robot.
What do you gain?
You will be exposed to a set of diverse topics and depending on your interest(s), the activities may help prepare you for a career in
- Bioengineering : with a leaning towards computational neuroscience
- Robotics : locomotion and control
- Circuit Design : hardware implementations of neural systems/architectures.
Advisor: Dr. Fei Dai
Desired Team Size: 5 to 8
The scholar team will preferably consist of 1 to 2 graduate students, 2 to 3 juniors and seniors, and 2 to 3 freshman and sophomores.
You will develop a system that uses IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) wireless technology to determine a user's location. The well-known Global Positioning System's accuracy (GPS) does not perform well either inside buildings or outside where structures block satellite signals. A Wi-Fi-based system, on the other hand, is dependent on Wi-Fi deployment and effective in urban area.
Team members will collect the Wi-Fi deployment information in a certain area of the campus, learn localization methods to determine the user position using nearby wireless router/access point signals, and create software for automatic data collection and localization.
Advisor: Dr. Robert Nelson
Desired Team Size: 5 to 10
Are you interested in creating some arcs and sparks, and building something? If so, this scholar team project may interest you! Please read on...
Lightning strikes on modern aircraft are a common phenomena. When lightning strikes an airplane, it generally attaches to a leading edge such as the nose, wing tips, forward part of a vertical tail, or some other protrusion and leaves via a sharp trailing edge such as the rear wing tip or tail. Aircraft may suffer damage both from lightning that becomes attached as well as from induced electromagnetic effects of lightning flashes that pass nearby. In order to better understand where lightning attaches to aircraft, a senior design project was undertaken several years ago, sponsored by the U.S. Navy. A lightning simulator was designed, constructed and delivered to the Navy, who now use the device at seminars, conferences, and in classrooms to demonstrate the effects of lightning on modern aircraft.
This scholar team project will consist of building at least two new lightning simulators. New design is not required (unless you want to!). Students can use the results from a previous design team to construct and test new lightning simulators. That might sound too easy, but it is anticipated that students will learn about the importance of careful documentation in the process. In addition, students are likely to learn how to create arcs and sparks, learn some physics/engineering concepts about electromagnetic fields and lightning, and even have some fun in the process
Welcome