ECE Senior Design Projects

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Bradley Jackson, brad.jackson@csun.edu

Project Description:

Smart antennas combine antenna arrays with digital signal processing to enable the ability to sense the environment and dynamically adjust radiation characteristics. In this senior design project, wide bandwidth smart antenna arrays are being designed for application on small satellites in cooperation with The Aerospace Corporation. The project includes the design, simulation, and measurement of broadband circularly polarized antenna arrays and microwave circuits, as well as the development of digital signal processing algorithms, and automated testbeds for characterizing the performance of prototypes in CSUN’s anechoic chamber.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Bradley Jackson, brad.jackson@csun.edu

Project Description:

Design and test a complete X-band (8 GHz - 12 GHz) radar system
that is capable of detecting and tracking an unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV, or drone).

Software design:  Digital signal processing, programming software defined radios.

Hardware design: RF/microwave circuit design and testing, antenna design and testing.

Faculty Advisor: Rasoul Narimani, rasoul.narimani@csun.edu

Project Description:

This project focuses on the development of an energy management device designed to leverage electricity price arbitrage, ultimately reducing electricity bills for end-users. The key functionalities include:

• Electricity Price Arbitrage: We aim to optimize cost savings by charging a battery during periods of low electricity prices and discharging it during high-price periods.
• Load Shifting: To avoid demand charge fees, we implement a load-shifting strategy, moving energy consumption from peak to non-peak hours.

This project provides students with a hands-on experience in designing and implementing solutions that address real-world challenges in energy management.

Faculty Advisor: Ashley Geng, xjgeng@csun.edu

Project Description:

This project focus on developing a robust navigation system tailored for Mars Science Helicopters. Dual processors and coprocessors running Linux will be implemented to execute state estimation algorithms. System components include main processors, coprocessors, flight controller, fault management unit, IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), LRF (Laser Range Finder), and stereo cameras.

Faculty Advisor: Ashley Geng, xjgeng@csun.edu

Project Description:

The focus of the project is to develop drones that capable of autonomous flight for search and rescue operations, without the need for human intervention. Key components of the system include an autopilot flight controller, a Raspberry Pi, speed controllers, motors, and various sensors.

Faculty Advisor: Shahnam Mirzaei, shahnam.mirzaei@csun.edu

Project Description:

This project focuses on the design and analysis of robot control systems using a digital PID (proportional-integral-derivative) controller. CE students are highly encouraged to join; however, EE students with focus on digital systems and C programming/Microcontrollers are also welcome.

Students interested in this project must have some experience with C programming, embedded system, microcontrollers. Students taking ECE 425/L and/or ECE 595/L are well-suited for this project.

Faculty Advisor: Shahnam Mirzaei, shahnam.mirzaei@csun.edu

Project Description:

This project focuses on the design and analysis of an edge detection system using FPGAs. Applications of edge detection systems include computer vision, machine learning, and medical imaging, as well as military and aerospace applications such as radar processing, face detection, and object detection and tracking. CE students are highly encouraged to join; however, EE students with focus on digital systems and FPGA/Verilog/VHDL experience are welcomed.

Student in this project should be enrolled in, or have completed, ECE 425/L and have some experience with FPGA/VHDL/Verilog programming. Students taking ECE 420/L, ECE 520/L, ECE 524/L, ECE 526/L, or ECE 527/L are well-suited to take this project.

Faculty Advisor: Sahabul Alam, md-sahabul.alam@csun.edu

Project Description:

The senior design students on this project are developing an optical communication system using lasers that will be able to establish and maintain links on orbit with a capacity of 1 Gb/s at separations of 200 km between satellites. Students are need for transmitter and receiver designs and to develop aiming and tracking algorithms.

Faculty Advisor: Sahabul Alam, md-sahabul.alam@csun.edu

Project Description:

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have been extensively deployed in recent years in a variety of applications. The concept of providing cellular connectivity to UAV nodes is relatively a new idea. Cellular networks for terrestrial communications, for example, ubiquitous cell towers called base stations (aka access points) to provide connectivity for cell phones, are encountered in everyday life and have been studied extensively. Engineers have a firm grasp on the requirements and common issues encountered when designing such a system. However, when it comes to UAVs, engineers still appear to be coming across new challenges. In this senior design project, 5G transceivers will be designed to provide cellular connectivity for UAV nodes where the UAV nodes will act as a user equipment (UE). For this, any communication node (access point or UE) can be composed of a software defined radio (SDR) and a laptop/desktop/Raspberry Pi based on the complexity where the digital processing in the laptop/Raspberry Pi can be accomplished in GNU radio.

Faculty Advisor: Somnath Chattopadhyay, somnath.chattopadhyay@csun.edu

Project Description:

Senior design students are designing and building an ultrasonic transponder system to be used with robotic vehicles in navigation and location.  Students are needed for analog transmitter and receiver designs, signal processing and programming.

Faculty Advisor: Somnath Chattopadhyay, somnath.chattopadhyay@csun.edu

Project Description:

Design a charger using GaN (gallium nitride) technology with low power loss and fast charging features.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ruting Jia, ruting.jia@csun.edu

Project Description:

Open to students in ECE or ME. The goal of this project is to design a fuzzy logic controller / fuzzy inference system with simulation or hardware implementation to achieve various control objectives for a variety of applications, including but not limited to Face recognition, Handwriting Recognition, Robot Arm Control, Gas Turbine’s speed control, Cruise Control, Solar Panel MPPT System, Drone flight control, EV Breaking System and Traffic Light Control, etc.

Specific Tasks of this Project Include:

• Programming in MATLAB, C/C++ to design the Fuzzy Inference System/ Fuzzy Logic Controller,
• Design and implementing algorithms,
• If hardware included, process the sensor data and working with microprocessors,
• Integrating software and hardware designs are also required.

Reach out to these professors for more information if you are interested.

Note: If you work on a project from a different department, you still need to complete all requirements of ECE 492/493 (these will likely be different that the requirements in other departments). This includes the individual and group reports and presentations following the instructions/deadlines provided on Canvas for ECE 492/493.