EE499 SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS AND TOPICS

EE499 SENIOR DESIGN TOPICS AND PROJECTS

Updated 1-18-05

1. IEEE Robot (Advisor: Dietz)
   
   The IEEE Robot project involves creating a good entry for UK at:
   
   http://sec05.nova.edu/hardware_design.htm
   
   The contest is run April 8-10 in Fort Lauderdale, FL; all team members are likely to be offered free travel to attend SouthEastCon conference and the robot contest.  To have a good entry, it really helps to have a small competition locally to focus on the best possible robot design elements; ideally, we would like to have two small teams each develop their own robot design and these two designs would then compete with each other at EDay (Feb. 26).  The local competition is simply to pick which subsystems of the two robot designs are best; the robots do not have to be fully functional by EDay.  After EDay, the two teams would merge to create the best possible single robot entry for UK.  Design and construction of the robots must be done by the team members, but various faculty are available to help, and we also are purchasing kit robots that can serve as "parts supplies" for the more mundane aspects (e.g., the drive motor(s) and wheels).  You need not be an IEEE member to participate in this EE499, but you will want to join IEEE in order to participate in SouthEastCon.
   
   
   2. Apollo Oil Remote Sensing (Dietz & Dieter)
   
   As a long-term project, we have been working with Apollo Oil to develop a sub-$200 system for remotely sensing the precise level of oil in a storage tank (which can be outdoors and up to 35 feet tall).  Apollo Oil has literally hundreds of such tanks, so many remote sensors must also be networked to a PC.  Apollo Oil's home page is:
   
   http://www.apollooil.com/
   
   You can see a few of the tanks in the photos there.
   
   The project, which began a year ago, has progressed fairly well.  At this stage, sonar sensing technology, a microcontroller, and CAN bus networking have all been selected as the "most viable components," but have yet to be integrated or field tested.  The goal for this semester is the field testing of a complete prototype unit.  The project team is free to build on the previous work or to override any aspect -- although any decision to not build upon work already done must be justified.  The previous work is summarized on-line at:
   
   http://courses.engr.uky.edu/ECE/ee499/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view.cgi
   
   
   3. Self-Powered Audio Kiosk (Dieter & Dietz)
   
   We cannot say too many details about this in a public posting, as the people you would be working with are interested in patenting the device's specific functionality.  Basically, the device must be self-powered (using batteries, solar, etc.), able to withstand being exposed to weather and some physical abuse, and must implement the general function of playing a specific recording upon command.  The recording must also be able to be reprogrammed.
   
   The project is fairly simple, and we believe it can be completed by a single EE499 team within one semester.  For example, there are many cheap and easy ways to digitally record/playback audio.  The total parts cost should be under $150 per unit, and a significant fraction of that cost is expected to be spent on the weatherproof housing.

4. Medication Monitoring (Adviser: Dieter)

In drug studies pharmacists and doctors want to monitor patient's use of drugs.  Studies often last a period of months, so keeping patients in a lab for the length of the study is not practical.  In this project students will work with members of the manufacturing center to design a device that monitors the taking of prescription drugs to verify the patient followed the prescription.

The system is envisioned for pills in small plastic bubbles attached to a foil sheet (many over the counter drugs, like Sudafed use the same packaging.)  The system will indicate when the patient should take a pill, record when a patient actually does take a pill, and communicate the recorded data back to a PC at the end of the study. Many questions remain about the design: How should the packaging be modified to sense when a pill is removed? How should the time and date at which a pill is taken be recorded?  How should the device communicate the results back to a PC?

Students will be expected to explore design options, and to design and build a prototype system.