The project ideas presented were very fascinating and informative. The summaries of some of the projects are discussed below:
NXP Cup Intelligent Car Racing
This project provides useful information on how to design, program and build a modified racing car. The car is controlled on track using a remote. Participants learn comprehensively about various electrical components including battery, high voltage interface and motor control, microcontroller development board and sensors & cameras. Therefore the project equips participants with knowledge on mechanical design, electronic design, control circuit design, control software design, and racing car components.
Network Interface Design for Radio Tomographic Imaging
The project is very informative on how to build a mobile radio tomographic imaging (RTI) interface for data acquisition and transmission of radio frequency & signals via wireless sensor networks. It provides useful information on how to overcome natural or human barriers in signal transmission for radio frequencies or mobile communications.
Anti-theft Automatic Metering Interface
This project aims at building a program that is capable of controlling and examining domestic energy meter without necessarily having to visit every house and will also reduce human mistakes. The program will also stop power theft. Participants will gain a lot of knowledge and experience about 3 phase transformer, 3 energy meters, microcontroller, bulb, universal motor and induction motor.
Locomotive under actuated implement guided via elastic elements (L.U.I.G.E.E.): Control of walking
This project entails designing versatile human robots with main focus being on building flexible legs with ability to work on a wide range of terrains. Participants are able to investigate movements of human legs, hip degree of freedom (DOF), knee & ankle DOF, leg muscles, and springs-muscles relationship. This enables them to use servomotors for robot actuation, use sensors for robot control loop, and build a control system to facilitate movement of LUIGEE.
Active Disturbance Rejection Control for Cargo Ship Steering
This project entails building an advanced and efficient control system for cargo ships. The main design and analysis model is Nomoto’s 2nd order model. The system designed would be able to control nonlinear systems. Participants will gain vast knowledge about the simulation package and the control system.
Interior brake pad inspection
The main target of the project is to design a technique that vehicle users or operators can use to examine and know the status of their vehicle’s brake pads. Many vehicle operators are not able to identify any signs of brake pad damages. This has caused several accidents on roads and claimed many lives. The designed system will be installed inside the vehicle, it will transferable, inexpensive, user friendly and has a compact design to occupy very little space. The system will use very little power sources from the vehicle’s battery.
CHErenkov Radiator Payload (CHERP)
The project enables participants to design and build a CHERP that has the capacity of detecting and measuring primary cosmic rays’ energy within the range of 15 and 20 GeV. The aim is to determine the proton-helium ratio as a function of energy especially at the altitude of balloon float.
Transponder for UAS
The project aims at designing a small compact transponder for UAS so as to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and security of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), especially drones. The transponder should be able to fit in commercial UAS, lightweight and energy efficient. It will also be tested by use of actual ATC radar system.
Design of a single circuit board for drone racing
Participants will learn how to design a circuit board comprising of desired electronics to facilitate racing of drones. The drone will controlled by use of various software and hardware components. A lot of knowledge about control theory, power electronics and programming and their implementation shall be acquired. Some of the major issues of concern are weight and cost.
Modification of my project idea: design of a wireless mobile charging system based on the electrical principle of mutual induction
There are four main areas which I would like to modify my project idea. They are as follows:
Compatibility
I would like to design a wireless mobile charging system that is compatible with all mobile phones and probably other mobile computing devices. Most of the typical mobile chargers are designed to charge only specific types or models of mobile phones. This means that the mobile phone cannot be charged if its specific type of charger is not available. The proposed wireless mobile charging system will be able to charge all models of mobile phones.
Automation
The system will be able to start charging automatically once the battery of the mobile phone reaches a certain level. Therefore there will be constant wireless communication between the mobile phone and the charging system. This means that the mobile users does not necessarily have to do anything for the mobile phone to start charging.
Compact design
The design of the proposed wireless mobile charging system will be compact enough for the system to occupy very little space. Various design models shall be developed to select the most optimized and compact one.
Cost
The main focus will also be to ensure that the charging system is low-cost. If possible, the cost of the system has to be less than that of ordinary mobile phone chargers.
