UPDATED: Fall 2024 Capstone Design Expo Winners from ECE
This semester’s Capstone Design Expo winners in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) stood out not just for their technical skills, but for their vision and creativity in solving real-world problems. See them below, along with the preview article where all ECE Capstone Expo projects were highlighted.
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Best ECE Project:
Doortle BotHeavy doors can be difficult for anyone, but imagine facing that struggle every time you try to enter a building or room. For individuals with physical disabilities, this challenge is a daily reality, often hindering their independence and mobility. Enter Doortle Bot, the cane-shaped robot that took home the Best ECE Project award.
The innovative device is designed to assist people with disabilities in opening heavy doors effortlessly. Equipped with a variety of sensors, Doortle Bot aims to restore confidence and freedom to those who need it most, making the world a more accessible place. Advised by Professor Patricio Vela, the Doortle Bot team comprises of:
- Archer Liu (Electrical Engineering)
- Darren Li (Electrical Engineering)
- Pengyu Mo (Computer Engineering)
- Shibao Su (Computer Engineering)
- Yunkai Zhang (Electrical Engineering)
Team Doortle Bot and their the cane-shaped robot that helps individuals with physical disabilities open doors won the Best ECE Project award.
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Best Interdisciplinary Project:
TreeTapIn the heart of nature, where cellular signals fade, TreeTap shines. This low-powered communications system, which won the Best Interdisciplinary Project award, allows national park visitors to stay connected even without a cellular signal. Solar-powered and discreet, TreeTap can send text messages and locations, ensuring safety and connectivity in the great outdoors. Initially conceived as an emergency network for lost hikers, the project evolved to address a broader need.
The TreeTap team, part of the CREATE-X entrepreneurship program and advised by ECE Professor David Anderson, includes:
- Aryan Gupta (Electrical Engineering)
- Songji Eun (Computer Science)
- Jongseob Lee (Mechanical Engineering)
- Juan Macias Romero (Computer Engineering)
- Daksh Sehgal (Electrical Engineering)
They plan to continue developing their network and test it in Atlanta-area parks, bringing their vision to life.
Team Tree Lab's TreeTap communications system for national park visitors to stay connected won Best Interdisciplinary Project.
View ECE Photos from the Capstone Expo
The Overall Best Project of Design Expo went to team Air Detective. A group of five biomedical engineers who created a device to use alongside a surgical scope and other instruments that uses an infrared detector to find air leaks in the thoracic cavity. Read all the highlights from the 2024 Capstone Design Expo.
Below is the original preview article published on 11.20.2024:
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) seniors are prepared for the Fall 2024 Senior Capstone Design Expo taking place on Monday, December 2 at McCamish Pavillion. The showcase will feature the work of 16 ECE teams and approximately 10 interdisciplinary teams that include at least one ECE student. These teams will present their innovative, real-world solutions as they culminate their undergraduate engineering journey.
This semester’s ECE teams projects tackle a range of issues and topics from wearable sensors that monitor unseen lizard behavior to heat sensing drones that classify intruders based on infrared signatures.
One project to look forward to is the development of a high-efficiency power inverter.
“We’re excited that our team has been able to design, fabricate, and test an inverter that is cheaper but maintains its efficacy,” said Mario Neves Lopez from the High Efficiency Inverter team, advised by Professor Baoyun Ge. “We hope to create an open-source inverter that is more accessible than options currently available.”
Team SCC is developing an open-source inverter that is more accessible than options currently available.
The team has been able to design, fabricate and test an inverter that is over an order of magnitude cheaper than other off-the-shelf options, while maintaining nominal efficiency.
The team's aim is aim is to provide participants with a crucial yet affordable component of their powertrain system to enable the construction of more cost-effective solar vehicles.
Another project aims to improve the efficiency of parking garages.
“Our aim is to revolutionize the parking garage experience by making it more seamless and hassle-free,” said Timothy Ninan from The Smart Camera Parking System team, which is advised by Professor Callie Hao. “Instead of waiting at gates for tickets or standing in queues to pay upon exit, we envisioned a system that allows drivers to effortlessly enter and exit.”
Team Lizard Backpacks lizard backpacks hardware associated with the transmitting device (primary component of the backpack without the harness).
Team BLISS (Bipedal Locomotion and Integrated Simulation System), an open-source bipedal robot designed as a low-cost, easy-to-assemble testbed for gait trajectory algorithms.
The Tool Retrieval Robot was built from the ground up, with most hardware being designed and fabricated by the team.
Team 3D ANC project aims to create spatial active noise cancellation system. It is meant for users sleeping to create a small bubble in which noise is actively being cancelled, while not having anything touching the user.
The Capstone Design Expo Experience
The Capstone Design Expo is the culminating event where teams showcase their semester-long efforts. Students present their projects to a diverse audience of judges, guests, peers, and media while competing for cash prizes. These prototypes often address pressing societal and technological challenges, providing attendees a glimpse into the innovative minds of tomorrow’s engineers.
Through this hands-on experience, students master the engineering design process—defining requirements, conceptualizing solutions, analyzing feasibility, identifying risks, and building physical prototypes to validate their designs.
In addition to tackling open-ended, interdisciplinary challenges proposed by industry sponsors and research partners, students attend lectures from industry and academic experts on critical topics such as industrial design, intellectual property, manufacturing, marketing, and ethics. These sessions help prepare them for the complexities of engineering in the professional world.
Mark your calendar for December 2, 2024, to witness the creativity and ingenuity of ECE’S seniors' bright minds!
View all the ECE Capstone projects below.
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ECE CAPSTONE DESIGN TEAMS
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Autonomous GT Campus Navigation Drone
This project aims to develop an autonomous drone to help users navigate the Georgia Tech campus. The drone will provide real-time navigation guidance, allowing users to follow it visually as it autonomously avoids obstacles. It will also return to its base automatically when the battery is low, ensuring uninterrupted operation.
BreathBand
The BreathBand project is focused on creating a user-friendly, wireless respiration sensor strap designed to asses and train the breathing patterns of individuals.
Team BLISS
This projects presents an open-source testbed tailored for research in bipedal robotics by offering a platform for testing 2D and 3D biped controllers.
Doortle Bot
Doortle Bot is a cane-shaped robot equipped with a variety of sensors, designed to assist people with disabilities in opening heavy doors effortlessly. Opening a heavy damped door is easy for most people, but for individuals with physical disabilities, it can be a daunting task. This challenge often becomes a significant barrier to their independence, safety, and mobility.
Embedded Based Hardware Security Analyzer
Firmware extraction and analysis tool to showcase the potential of a dedicated embedded system toolchain to ensure system zero trust.
FPGA Smart Camera
FPGA Smart Camera for detecting and reading license plates with computer vision.
Guitar Robot
A prototype of a robot that is able to take chords inputted to a User Interface and play them on the guitar.
Hardware Machine Learning Accelerator
Machine learning algorithms are getting more and more complex. There is a need for specialized hardware that is optimized to be able to handle the mathematical operations that ML algorithms require. The goal is to utilize an FPGA to be able to speed up ML algorithms, specifically ones involving Convolution Neural Networks.
Heat Sensing Security Drone
Autonomous Drone that classifies an intruder based off its infrared signature and can alert a mobile user of such unidentified person.
High Efficiency Inverter
Development of high efficiency, high voltage motor controller to make solar car competitions more accessible.
Lizard Backpacks
Design and develop a wearable sensor with an accelerometer to monitor unseen lizard behavior.
Secure Boot Team
The Secure Boot Team is interested in making a secure booting system that uses multiple factors of authentication and physical tamper resistance/detection before initiating the boot process on a computer.
Smart Dipstick
A vehicle dipstick replacement that would relay oil condition, temperature and level to the user so they can get oil changes when they're needed and not at arbitrary mileages.
Smart Camera Parking System
Raspberry Pi-based system to read car license plates and reduce the time customers would spend entering/leaving parking garages/lots.
Tool Retrieval Robot
A robot that allows users to request tools for automatic retrieval, organization, and cataloging.
3D Active Noise Cancellation
Spatial implementation of active noise cancellation, to decrease noise during sleep in a non-intrusive manner to the user.
Read more about the Fall 2024 Capstone Design Expo and view all the Fall 2024 Projects.
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