EECS

This project hopes to explore renewable energy on a personal scale. The Power Blades team is working on developing a small scale wind turbine suitable for camping applications. The wind turbine will be compact enough to fit a hiking backpack and should be easily deployed and assembled. It will be able to reliably provide enough electricity overnight to charge common camping appliances(cell phones, flashlights, camera battery, ...). The project consists of 2 teams, mechanical and electrical, that will practice the design process in order to plan and design the manufacturing of the small scale wind turbine. The actual manufacturing of this product will not be conducted.

UAV Forge is a multidisciplinary engineering design team that focuses on the design, manufacturing, programming and testing of autonomous aerial vehicles. The design aims to fulfill the constraints that allows the team to participate in the AUVSI SUAS 2021-2022 competition season. The AUVSI competition requires that the system’s UAV have autonomous flight capabilities, ability to perform object avoidance of stationary and dynamic objects, the ability to do object detection, localization, and classification. The system must also perform an airdrop task wherein UAV Forge will be manufacturing an assembly that will interface the UAV with a descent and autonomous ground vehicle. The ground vehicle,once landed, will autonomously drive to its’ set destination to complete payload delivery. Though the emphasis for this year’s team is to perform well in the competition setting, the primary objective is to ensure the undergraduate students participating in the project apply their engineering skills to a compelling real-world problem.

Background/Summary:

UAV Forge is a multidisciplinary engineering design project with a focus on designing, building, and programming unmanned aerial vehicles in order to complete the flight missions specified by the AUVSI SUAS 2021 Competition. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, AUVSI canceled the 2020-2021 UAV competition; however, UAV Forge decided to continue development using the same time constraints and mission needs. Since the construction of our UAV was already underway, we continued building and improving our design to produce a drone that meets competition requirements. Although we will not see it compete this year, we will have learned important lessons for the future and solved the intricate technical challenge. 

The project had historically been a research project at UCI and has grown more popular over the years. Only recently has the project grown to encompass the competition aspect and grown our team to 60 members. With such growth came a remodel...

BACKGROUND:

The CubeSat team at UCI is a student-led effort to launch a 2U nanosatellite into orbit to test two UCI research payloads. The satellite operates with five subsystems (Power/Payload, Communications, Avionics, Structures/Thermal, and Systems Engineering), in addition to housing two payloads. The first payload is a variable emissivity device (VED) that will be tested as a thermal regulator, and our job is to test its performance in various degrees of solar exposure and at varying adjustable emissivity values. Similar materials to the sample are hoped to be used as a cheap method of thermal management on future spacecraft. The second payload is in collaboration with the ASPIN lab at UCI. The satellite will carry a transceiver meant to function as a transmitter of a “signal of opportunity”, helpful in researching novel navigation methods in the absence of or in place of a traditional GPS signal.

OBJECTIVES:

• Ensure that payload requirements
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We developed a drone that is capable of autonously following another drone through machine vision. 

Temporary

The Brightway Smart Cycler Backpack is aimed to promote safety on the road for cyclers. The Smart Backpack uses a Raspberry Pi alongside a PiCamera module on the openCV platform to detect hazards on the road and warn the cycler of imminent collisions before they occur. The backpack also integrates a heartate sensor and a gyroscope/accelerometer that work together to monitor the health and state of the cycler. Using audible alarms and haptic feedback, the Smart Backpack alerts the cycler when an abnormal heartrate is detected or when the gyroscope detects that the cycler is off balance.

Antchain present Cryptomon, a blockchain-based game that is available on a portable gaming device built on the platform EOSIO and inspired by Tomagatchi. The advent of blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) presents a novel computational architecture that is trustless, immutable, tamperproof, decentralized, and scalable depending on the consensus algorithm which dictates validation of transactions. Leveraging the properties of blockchain, Cryptomon grants unprecedented control to users over their digital assets that does not require mediation by a central authority to validate any actions regarding their Cryptomons. Blockchain also provides users with assurance that their data will remain secure against malcious parties that wish to tamper, modify, or steal it. Additionally, this technology eludes the single-point-of-failure attacks as each node of the network will execute the smart-contract deployed on an account and contains identical copies of a database consisting of smart-contract data for the purpose of achieving consensus and validating correct data. For Cryptomon, each...

■ Design a framework to locate, define, and report radio frequency power levels given a general predefined location.

■ Determine the GPS location of an RF source using a Software Defined Radio mounted on a drone.

■ Utilize MATLAB to merge, analyze and process the digital signals captured and generate a heat map of the acquired power levels dependent on their GPS location.

This project uses machine learning to analyze hand gestures formed by the user through the webcam and maps them as computer input.

Why build an autonomous food delivery robot? Why can't people just walk to pick up their food? What's wrong with traditional food delivery couriers?

The Autonomous Food Delivery Robot addresses the problem of time consumption. People could spend extra time to pick up their food, but they may end up spending more time than they'd prefer to. Team AutoFood is focused on solving this problem, as time is not a luxury many students can afford to waste, especially in the ever-stressful exam season.

So why not use UberEats, GrubHub, or any of the countless manual food delivery services? Most human couriers will travel using vehicles and will have a much greater environmental impact than Team AutoFood's proposed robot. Also, businesses like UberEats and Grubhub have to pay their workers a constant wage, when they could instead pay a higher initial fixed cost for the robot and eventually paying far less...

The project aims to achieve 3D reconstruction in real time by using multiple 2D images from the scene but with different views. The project combines machine vision, multiprocessor coding, and computer graphics to be able to acheive accurate results in real time. Initially, the camera's internal parameters (focal length, pixel size, etc...) and external parameters (location in the relation to other cameras) needed to be determined. After calibrating the cameras, these measurements are used to determine the epipolar geometry of groups of camera, so that these images can be rectified. Recitification helps with the main problem that these project looks to optimize, finding corresponding points between signals. Corresponding points are found by sliding a window across the image and comparing the normalization of all the points on the same location. Finally these points will be triangulated and their depth can be easily found. The speed of this algorithm will determine...

The Image and Video Streaming Doorbell with Local Storage is a project intended to provide a house monitoring system with local private storage for security concern. The goal for this project is to offer consumers with a mobile app and web access to video live-streaming and to receive notifications. The database is used to store all the historical records and the users' information. Our end goal is to allow the users to have a smart doorbell without worrying about their personal information being disclosed by other parties through the cloud storage.

The purpose of the Smart Pill Container is to assist consumers with taking pills on time and keep record when they do take them successfully. Our product achieves that by having an alarm system to alert the user that it’s time to take their pills; we then check if the correct day on the pill box has successfully been opened and closed using reed switch sensors. Both those parts currently work and are the base functionalities for the prototype right now. The next goal is to add the data tracking and internet connectivity, so that all the data regarding pill consumption can be laid out in an app and securely shared with others. With this goal in mind, we hope to achieve a global audience because we believe that this device can save lives.

Smart parking system is a fog-based manager that aims to establish channels of communication between autonomous vehicles, wireless devices, fog system, and the cloud in order to optimize parking logistics across various parking structures. The goal of this project is to develop the technology that will provide autonomous vehicles with the optimal path to the closest available parking spot, broadcast parking availability and manage parking structure capacity.

We are faced with a future where there will not be enough land to produce food for the entire population. By 2050, the world population is projected to increase to about 9 billion people. However, an estimated 50% of the world’s arable land may be unusable by then, as traditional agricultural practices in the last 50 years have left 60% of all ecosystems degraded. 

In an effort to mitigate these issues, producers are increasingly interested in controlled environment agriculture, especially in regions where there are concerns about soil and groundwater pollution. One promising solution is hydroponics, a highly productive, resource-efficient, and eco-friendly alternative to traditional farming.

People hesitate on which category their waste belongs to and inevitably make mistakes when separating them. With our design, the general public/users no longer need to spend time separating waste. The waste disposal and recycling service can have higher overall efficiency. 

The goal of this project is to design and construct a waste bin capable of separating the waste into different categories by using image recognition. 

This project is aimed to build a device that simplifies the process from acquiring pH electrical signal to finalize the results by utilizing wireless transmission technology. Then, the data is uploaded onto the cloud and users can manage and visualize the results remotely on the cloud.

To build a small-scale smart hydroponic greenhouse by using several sensors that monitor various parameters related to plant nutrient levels and environment parameters and is able to adjust them when a deficiency is detected. Moreover, O2 and CO2 densities will be monitored to estimate plant health. All this information will then be access via an Android application.

The project uses RFID technology to read in tags' information and stores the data in a database, which can be accessed from anywhere to remotely monitor inventory items.

Current PCB manufacturing methods utilize wet chemicals that are either reprocessed for recovery or disposed of as wastewater. Moreover, current manufacturing of PCB have not been scaled down to the consumer level, unlike FDM/SLA printing and CNC machining which now take forms in profiles fit for “prosumer” use.

EchoSense is a personal surrounding safety detection system that alerts cyclists of approaching vehicles. It uses a Lidar sensor on a rotating platform mounted on the back of a bicycle to scan for approaching vehicles at the 180-degree range. If a vehicle's velocity relative to the cyclist is too fast, EchoSense will send a Bluetooth Low Energy signal to the cyclist's Android phone to alert the cyclist of the approaching vehicles.

In today’s digital ecosystem, hackers are a concerning threat. It is widely known that any system connected to the Internet is vulnerable. But what about an “air-gapped” computer? One that is not directly connected to the Internet or any other system that is connected to the Internet. The goal of this project is to demonstrate data leakage from an air-gapped computer via ultrasound. We envision an external system with WiFi for outside access that can bidirectionally communicate with the hacked computer efficiently and accurately.

There are cars could follow traffic or maintain in the lane and keep distance. We wish to design a module, that allow our vehicle to follow a target object in complex situation where there are interference from non-targeting objects. This module could then be implemented to other vehicles platforms such as drones.

A new type of drone is designed to make short-distance delivery more efficient and convenient. A powerful controller and many sensors are adopted in this project to ensure the flight stabilization and autonomous landing on the predetermined destination. We have already tested and finalized the ultrasonic sensor that will be employed in our drone for obstacle detection purposes. Besides, we have implemented the camera to capture the logo at the destination. The logo is served as a marker that signals the drone destination when employed. Since we have run the simulation of the flight in the lab, further tests of the system will begin very soon.

The goal of our project is to enhance the experience of flying business class. With the help of Thales, we are implementing cameras into the cabin of the business class to monitor the well-being of passengers. We plan to use object detection software to retrieve information in order to allow flight attendants to better serve passengers. This information would include if a passenger has a drink or plate that is almost empty, if they have their seatbelt fastened, or if the seat is reclined. With the technology we are developing, we hope to allow flight attendants to better strike a balance between being too intrusive and not checking up on passengers often enough. We are using the TensorFlow Application Program Interface (API) for the object detection and Python with OpenCV2 as the programming language to access the live camera feed. We plan to implement a user interface to allow flight...

The goal of the project is to design and implement a smart wearable device that can measure ECG, Respiration and other health data for the user. The results can be displayed in real time graph on the phone apps for Android.

In extension of cities and technology there is always a need of surveillance to monitor for incidences of interest. Traditionally, the surveillance systems are stationary, and they are only able to cover limited areas. To achieve reliable monitoring via stationary sensors in a large area, it is necessary to deploy a huge number of them. Even in cases where the cost is not a major prohibitive factor, with the current technology, the communication bandwidth utilization certainly is a limiting factor. Therefore, to solve the coverage within the limits of the system, use of mobile sensors, which the infrastructure can move within the urban area is of interest (especially aerial sensors that have wide measurement zones). The aim is to compensate for the lack of full spatial coverage at all times by context-­aware temporal dynamic distribution of a set of mobile sensors. In one of the projects we pursue in the...

This project is aiming to design and build a Robotic Arm which is able to pick and place items on the table and sort them by color and shape.

• The robot arm is based on XYZ system and powered by 3 closed-loop step motors.

• The image processing part includes a web camera and a computer. The camera will detect color and shape of items and give feedback to the robot arm how to move each item.

This project was origianlly created with the intent to take video calling to the next level. Our idea was to create a robotic avatar that could be controlled by one of the users during a video call. This lucky user would be able to see eveything that the robot's camera could, through their computer screen. With this as their visual aid, they would control the movements of the robot though sensor gloves. The second user would see their partner's face on a screen mounted on the robot, and would witness the movement of the robot's arms mimic that of their friend. By simulating another human's pressence in the 3D world, we can establish a stronger emotional response through this method of communication. 

Although, we quickly came to realize the potential telepressence could really have. This type of project had the potential to aid in:

• the medical field, where a doctor can consult with
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