senior design electrical engineering project ideas

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Top 35+ Electrical Project Ideas for Engineering Students

Engineers are always in search of projects, and finding meaningful projects makes that search worthwhile. Listed below are some electrical engineering project ideas for such engineers.

A lot of them may deal in a higher power than electronics engineers are used to, hence safety first.

These hand-picked Electrical Project Ideas are simple as well as interesting and contain a few mini projects too. The EEE Students can use these project kits as their final year project.

Electrical Project Ideas

The list contains a total of 35+ Electric project topics. These projects will be very helpful to Electrical Engineering Students. Have a look.

1) Dual Axis Solar Power Tracker System

This system requires the involvement of a wide range of engineering including mechanical, electrical, and electronics. The mechanical part would involve designing a smooth gear system to move as per requirement. The electrical part would be the working of solar panel and battery requirement.

The electronics would involve designing the sensor system that would generate commands for the gear system to act accordingly. The system employs spur gear for the implementation of the dual-axis solar tracker. The system is implemented using Atmel IC AT89C51.

This project is available at Dual Axis solar tracker system .

2) 5V DC To 48V DC Converter

This circuit presents a simple and low-cost DC-to-DC converter for phantom power supplies used in mixing consoles, microphone preamplifiers, telephone systems, and similar equipment.

This project is available at 5V DC To 48V DC Converter .

3) Electric Vehicle Battery Charging Solutions

The application note below should help designers make their own electric vehicle battery charging solutions. If required, help is available from the company.

The Design Guide is available at Design Your Own Electric Vehicle Battery Charging Solutions .

4) USB Power Electric Socket

The circuit system of a versatile USB power socket safely converts the 12V battery voltage into stable 5V.

This circuit system is available at USB Power Socket

Recommended: Mini Projects Ideas

5) make your own energy meter.

Presented here is a simple energy meter using Analog Device’s ADE7757 chip for single-phase, 2-wire (phase and neutral) systems used in households.

This circuit system is available at Energy Meter

6) Joystick-Controlled Industrial Automation System

This project can be used to control up to four industrial electrical appliances with the help of a joystick and an Arduino Nano board.

This project is available at Make This Joystick-Controlled Industrial Automation System

7) Brushless DC Motor Driver

The brushless DC motor driver circuit described here uses a DRV10866 driver IC to drive a small BLDC fan, without using any position sensors.

This project is available at Brushless DC Motor Driver

8) HVDC Power Supply Design

Circuits like Geiger counters, insect zappers, Nixie tubes, and sensors require high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) supplies. There are various types of HVDC supplies available in the market, including voltage doublers or quadruple, flyback converters, and boost converters.

Some of these have low current-output capacity. But with the right calculations using basic boost conversion formulae, we may achieve HVDC supplies capable of clean and high current capacity. Presented here is a boost converter design using an MC34063 DC-DC converter.

This project is available at HVDC Power Supply Design

9) Micro Inverter

A simple low-power inverter circuit is described here, which converts 12V DC into 230V AC. It can be used to power very light loads like night lamps and cordless telephones but can be modified into a powerful inverter by adding more MOSFETs.

This project is available at Micro Inverter

10) Automatic Anchor Light

Federal and international regulations require boats to carry lights during sunset, sunrise, and in conditions with restricted visibility. The number and colors of light vary with the size of the vessel. A masthead anchor light is out of fashion as it is too high above the water level. This makes it difficult to judge the position of the boat, especially in a pitch-dark anchorage.

This project is a compact yet inexpensive automatic anchor light integrated with an ambient light sensor that turns it on and off automatically.

This project is available at Automatic Anchor light

11) High-Impedance Audio Buffer With JFET

The buffer circuit described here is useful in enhancing the AC input impedance of audio amplifiers used with pickups in musical instruments. Signal sources for amplifiers and passive pickups for electric guitars require very high impedance of over 5-mega-ohm. This can be achieved easily with a junction field-effect transistor (JFET) but may require a special design of the printed circuit board ( PCB ), appropriate construction techniques of the box, and proper cables and connectors.

This project provides a solution for a high-impedance, low-cost, low-quiescent current, buffer-follower based on PN4393 JFET.

This project is available at High-Impedance Audio Buffer With JFET

12) PIN Diode-Based Fire Sensor

This is an ultra-sensitive fire sensor that activates an alarm when it detects fire. In this circuit, a sensitive PIN diode is used as a fire sensor for longer-range fire detection. It detects visible light and infrared (IR) in the range of 430 nm – 1100 nm.

Visible light and IR from the fire activate the sensor to trigger the alarm. It also detects sparks in the mains wiring and if these persist, it gives a warning alarm. The anode can easily be identified from the top-view flat surface of the photodiode. A small solder point to which a thin wire is connected is the anode and the other one is the cathode terminal.

This project is available at PIN Diode-Based Fire Sensor

13) Plus-Minus 5V Supply From 9V Battery

Op-amps require a dual-polarity supply for proper operation. When working with a battery supply, it becomes difficult to get a dual power supply for the op-amps.

Presented here is a simple circuit that provides ±5V from a 9V battery. This is one of the most interesting projects among Electrical Engineering Project Ideas. Op-amps require a dual-polarity supply for proper operation. When working with a battery supply, it becomes difficult to get a dual power supply for the op-amps.

This project is available at   Plus-minus 5V Supply From 9V Battery

14) Infrared Motion-Sensing Relay Switch

This project is designed for use with all kinds of medium-power automobile/domestic 12V DC loads. It is a simple solid-state relay (SSR) switch, controlled by a standard passive infrared ( PIR ) motion sensor module.

A PIR sensor is an electronic device that can measure IR light radiating from objects in its field of view. Apparent motion is detected when an IR source with one temperature (such as a human being) passes in front of an IR source with another temperature (such as a wall). The PIR sensor module, centered on a PIR sensor, has elements made of crystalline material that generates an electric charge when exposed to IR radiation.

This project is available at Infrared Motion-Sensing Relay Switch

15) Low-cost LPG Leakage Detector

The circuit for an LPG leakage detector is readily available in the market, but it is extremely expensive and usually based on a microcontroller (MCU). This project presents a low-cost LPG detector that you can build a circuit easily.

The main objective of the circuit is to detect LPG leakage anywhere. At the heart of the circuit is dual comparator IC LM393 (IC2). It is used to compare two different voltages, in this case, reference voltage and MQ-6 gas sensor output voltage.

This project is available at Low-Cost LPG Leakage Detector

16) Low-Cost Dusk-Dawn Controller

This dusk-dawn controller is built around a light-dependent resistor among other components. The common battery supply is used for operating the circuit as well as for load, that is, for power LED/small inverter circuits. Resistors work as voltage dividers and current limiters in the circuit. LEDs are used as circuit deactivation indicators. An n-channel MOSFET is used for the switching action of an LED light.

This project is available at Low-Cost Dusk-Dawn Controller

17) Auto Power Switching Mains, Solar Inverter, or Generator

This project is based on the AEIOU heuristic framework of the Design Engineering Approach. Design for Performance, Safety, and Reliability is ensured in terms of switching modules. Design for Ergonomics and Aesthetics is ensured in terms of Priority set by the user regarding the availability of Power Source. Design for Manufacturability and Assembly is ensured in terms of Generator, Inverter, and Solar Plates.

Also, based on choice and availability, different circuits using Eagle can be worked upon.

This project is available at Auto Power Switching Mains, Solar Inverters, or Generator

18) Signal Generator and Inverter Using NE555 Timers

Often we require a squarewave signal generator with adjustable frequency, almost equal high and low output pulses, and adjustable amplitudes. Here we present a simple, useful, and low-cost signal generator built around NE555 timers. Using external switches, you can control or select frequency ranges as per your requirements.

This project is available at Signal Generator and Inverter Using NE555 Timers

19) Configurable RS232 to TTL to I2C Adapter

RS232 signals cover a much longer distance than standard TTL and I2C signals. These signals have better noise immunity as well. RS232 is a well-known standard supported by many popular ICs and therefore is still widely used. Sometimes we want to send TTL and I2C signals over a longer distance. This project describes how these signals can be extended through RS232 lines.

This project is available at Configurable RS232 to TTL to I2C adapter

20) Vibration Activated Smart CRO Probe

This is a simple, low-cost, energy-saving, and device-saving circuit for an electronics lab, service center, electronics workshop, or wherever a CRO is in use. Generally, in a repair station, a CRO is used for a very short time. But in most cases, the user fails to switch off the CRO immediately after use.

The service engineer mostly concentrates on faults rather than noticing whether the CRO is on or off. A vibration sensor turns the CRO off when the probe is idle for a specified amount of time.

This project is available at the Vibration Activated smart CRO probe

21) 4 Channel Multi-mode Audio Amplifier

Sometimes we need configurable multichannel amplifiers for experiments or for use in offices or schools. Here is a project based on TDA1554Q, configured for multi-mode functions with four-channel outputs. It has four channels and each channel can provide around 11W over a load of 2 ohms and around 6W over a load of 4 ohms.

The circuit will also work with loads of 4 ohms to 16 ohms. The gain of each channel is fixed at 20dB in single-channel mode and 26dB in BTL mode.

This project is available at 4 channel multi-mode Audio amplifier

22) Design and analysis of single-stage amplifier using C++

Many formulae are required to calculate the parameters involved in a circuit of a transistor-based audio amplifier. Some of these values involve resistors, coupling capacitor, bypass capacitor, power consumption, and the current flowing through different components. A good amount of time is required to calculate such parameters even with a regular calculator. Using a C++ program, all the parameters can be calculated in a fraction of a second.

This project presents a single-stage transistor audio amplifier that requires a total of 19 formulae to obtain the values of components and analyze the circuit.

This project is available at Design and Analysis of Single-stage Amplifier using C++ 

23) Four-channel Video and Audio Sequencer

This next project is a simple circuit for switching your CCTV camera outputs sequentially. It switches four video and audio channels sequentially, one at a time. It is built around a 555 timer few other components. The timer is configured as an astable multi-vibrator.

A single-side PCB of the four-channel video and audio sequencer is provided along with the component layout. After assembling the circuit on the PCB, enclose it in a suitable plastic box.

This project is available at a Four-channel video and audio Sequencer

24) Automated USB-controlled Power Switch

Power for TV and set-top box (STB) is derived from a common switchboard. The switched-mode power supply (SMPS) of the TV continues to draw a small amount of power from the mains and the STB is not switched off when you switch off the remote. This next project presents a circuit that can control the main power of an LED TV and the DTH STB. It also protects the devices from harmful initial surges when the power comes back after a power failure.

This project is available at Automated USB-controlled Power Switch

25) 1kW Sine Wave Inverter

An inverter provides power backup for mains-based appliances in the event of a power failure. Most of the inverters available in the market have complicated circuit designs and are not very economical. Some of them produce a square-wave output, which is undesirable for inductive loads. This project presents a simple inverter circuit that produces 50Hz quasi-sine-wave output using a single IC CD4047 and some discrete components making it a very cost-effective solution.

This project is available at 1kW sine wave Inverter

26) Four Frequency Generator

There is a need for TTL and CMOS signals by stable frequency sources for the development, testing, and maintenance of digital and analog electronic circuits. These sources are also useful for fast checking of oscilloscopes, probes, multimeters, frequency meters, and other measurement equipment. This project proposes a circuit that produces fixed frequencies of 4MHz, 6MHz, and 10MHz and adjustable square-wave with variable frequencies from around 10Hz to more than 100kHz.

This project is available at 4 Frequency Generator

27) Programmable 3-Phase Controller

A programmable time switch is useful in designing an automatic on/off controller for 3 phase electric motor. This next project proposes a system with two programmable time switches for setting the starting and stopping times of the motor. Two control circuits interface with the start/stop switches of the 3-phase motor starter. There is a provision for setting days of the week for the controller to function as well.

This project is available at Programmable 3 phase Controller for ON/OFF moto r

28) High Power LED Stroboscope

A stroboscope is a convenient and accurate enough instrument to measure the speeds of rotating objects in homes or industries. One can use it to find the speed of fans, motors, or any other rotating object. It is a flashing light that provides sharp light pulses at a variable rate. An object rotating with a frequency matching the pulsed light is observed as stationary.

This project is available at High Power LED Stroboscope

29) Password-Based Circuit Breaker

A circuit breaker protects electrical circuits from damage n case of overload or short circuit. Its basic function is to detect a fault condition and interrupt current flow. The system uses an 8-bit microcontroller of the 16f877A family. An EEPROM stores the password and is easily changeable. The password is entered through a keypad and a relay opens or closes the circuit breaker, which is indicated by a lamp.

This project is available at Password based circuit breaker

30) Over/Under Voltage Protection of Electrical Appliances

Presented here is an under/over-voltage protection circuit that protects refrigerators as well as other appliances from under & over-voltage. The operational amplifier IC LM324 (IC2) is used here as a comparator.

This project is available at Over/Under Voltage Protection of Electrical Appliances

31) DC Panel Meter using Arduino

Panel meters in regulated power supplies are used to display electrical parameters like voltage and current. Presented here is a circuit to display the DC voltage and current of power supplies, including DIY-type ones.

This project is available at DC Panel Meter using Arduino

32) Multi-Status Indicator Using Single RGB LED

The monitoring system in battery chargers, water-level indicators , etc. uses LEDs to indicate the status of certain conditions. Presented here is a multiple status indicator circuits that use a single RGB LED  for seven different indications.

This project is available at Multi-Status Indicator Using Single RGB LED

33) Simple Low Power Inverter

Here is a simple low-power inverter that converts 12V DC into 230-250V AC. It can be used to power very light loads like window chargers and night lamps, or simply give shock to keep intruders away. The circuit is built around just two ICs, namely, IC CD4047 and IC ULN2004 .

This project is available at Simple Low Power Inverter

34) Power-Saving Relay Driver

n many circuits, the switching action is performed by a relay, which in turn activates an external load. The power consumed by the relay may be unsuitable for battery-power system applications. Here is a simple solution using some inexpensive components to considerably save power.

This project is available at Power-Saving Relay Driver

35) Automatic Water Pump Controller

Here’s an automatic water pump controller circuit that controls the water pump motor. The motor gets automatically switched on when water in the overhead tank (OHT) falls below the lower limit.

This project is available at the Automatic Water Pump Controller 

36) Mobile Cell Phone Charger

This is a circuit for a mobile cellphone charger that uses three NiCd cells or eight pencil cells to charge the battery connected at the output terminals.

This project is available at Mobile Cellphone Charger

37) Generate Power Using Microturbine

Presented here is the Hydropower Generation circuit that generates power from a water pipe in a building using a microturbine. The generated electricity can be used to charge batteries, which can be used for emergency lighting or other such purposes. The microturbines produce kinetic energy and which in turn helps in Power Generation (Electricity).

This project is available at Generate Power Using Microturbine

Hope these electrical engineering project ideas were useful to you. If you have such interesting electrical project ideas, feel free to post them in the comments section below.

This article was first published on 18th October 2016 and was recently updated on 15 December 2022.

• electrical projects

81 COMMENTS

its helpful..thank u

I want a more new I ideas for the agricultural quickly

How about a English grammar book instead? I have no idea what you just said my friend.

Should be: “an English grammar”. You also need it!

ha ha.. they are same

Hypocrite, lmfaoooo!

Hi Venkat, you can get electronics projects related to agriculture here .

we have found that in power system especially distribution system meet with huge voltage drop, now there is a way of mitigation of such issues. if you have any ideas about it, you can because it serious issues in country. thank you

Microcontroller based Smart load management system can be a solution

Its really amazing … it helped me alot in my final year project.

Thank you for your feedback.

Hello sir, I’m EEE student i want relate electrical engineering skills to agricultural field, to make go green, by avoiding fuels can you give some ideas on that topics. please its my humble request

U may use sensor or timer

I need a innovative ideas for the innovation day.I am currently pursuing diploma in Electrical Engineering. Can anyone help me

HI can i have yr email to assists me in my final year project?

I am an electrical engineering student in Ghana,I wish to use your project for my project so please help me with the full project.thanks

Which project are you looking for, let us know.

Need help on the Wireless Power Transmission…..

Kindly elaborate your query.

Hello I’m a final year student and need a project topic can you assist me with that please

Are you looking for anything specific? If you are, we can direct you to the proper project. Let us know.

Hello… Plz can i get more new and innovative ideas about electrical projects .. I ll b thankfull if i get

Hi Shirin, Are you looking for anything specific? If you are, we can direct you to the proper project. Let us know.

Something more agriculture related!

electronic related smart project needed

Plz…can i get more new electrical projects ideas which cannot be implemented still now.I’ll be thankful if I get.

i am 6 semester student i want idea for final year project if u can give me idea about power generation

have u got an idea??????

Hello…..can I get a project that will send a text massage to specified phone numbers when there is a feeder outage in a distribution substation. Please I need your help cause I am an electrical student pursuing bachelor degree in electrical and electronics.

hi am joe frm gh..pls dont u guys have any progect on reneawble energy

Hi, You can search the projects from the search bar given at the upper right corner of the website with keywords like solar, wind turbine etc.

Sir, farmers are dying because of electric shocks while watering the field. I wanna do project such that it should be helpful them. Help me sir

something related to core electrical without use micro controller

hey I need a project topic construct of forward and reverse starter

I need a special projects so that it can help me in my master study in electrical engineering..

sir/mam i’m looking for an embedded system based major project based on very new idea.. plzzz…help me,

good day pls how do i get recents power related projects .am a PGD ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING STUDENT

I want new ideas about electrical projects ..

Hi sir/mam can I get more project ideas related to the agricultural.

I’m doing my mini project… I liked the idea of smart cro probe…can u help me with full project details.. Please

I need the new electrical based projects without microcontroller

i need the new harmonics filters projects full project details

Comment: Machine Vital Card

A project am working on to be able to monitor various machine operation parameters I.e. temperature, vibrations, stability and operational integrity. able to control any system abnormalities through electrical mitigation and intermittently send data to an off site PC. please help

haue u done this project???????/?// broo

I want Power reduction project for a production plant… can u please guide which project will help to reduce power . this can be Globely also…means what other industries doing there best in terms of power saving..

Hello Namasate sir/madam can get any new electrical project ideas on which i can work on it as i am great need of project ideas please help me sir/madam I hope you will do the needful

I want more details about password based circuit breaker.please help me with that.

I want your help to my final year individual project ..please give me good topics for that

I have 1 idea Sir I think it is a audio base active system where we can speak start up the gadjets like TV fan lights etc will be start automatically when the voice can be recognised it. I hope this idea can be like u Sir

its an old idea …siri and google assistant is available in market , and is functional in many smart homes in many areas..Thanks

Please sir, help me with electrical project topics on power, for ND level sir

hello sir, the I dears presented here are just amazing. however, am having project which I want build a circuit which should be functioning as a fuse but it shouldn’t burn out when times of over and undervoltage comes.

Could you please be clear on your query?

Looking for a electrotech project to achieve my b tech

Electronics4u is the Best platform to know about the world electronics .

Can i get some projects related to power for my fyp??

Hello i am studying in embedded system. I need a topic related to Hardware development along with testing, Research and development. Please can you suggest me some topics?

Good day , I’m an electrical engineering in need for thesis topic

Comment: please help us with B Sc/ HND final year project.

I’m james an electrical engineering student please I need you’re idea for our thesis.we want a not very hard to make but nice idea.please

Thank u v. much. They are really very good and useful projects. They can be done as graduation projects for Physics and Engineering students.

hello sir, im Bello an electrical engineering student, wanna know if you can help me on my graduation project of designing remote control device based on single chip microcomputer. any advices or help thank you

I want to start a project on “AUTOMATIC ANCHOR LIGHT” bt I don’t know where to start this project & also how to do this project. I want you to suggest me a right possible way to do this project. It will be very greatful to you sir.

It’s really helpful. Thank you so much. Pls I need help on how to step up DC.

i am final year student in electrical engineering please suggest a new ideals related to electrical project

We have added several projects on this page, please have a look: https://www.electronicsforu.com/category/electronics-projects/hardware-diy

could you please suggest me a final year project topic related to power system or renewable energy?

Is electronic engineering d same thing as electrical electronic engineering

Apart from that, Wireless Power Transmission is one of the great technology in electrical engineering which will change the world.

hello , sir you have provide better idea , but i want new inovatives idea about agriculture bcoz we need to build our word

I need something related to core electrical without using micro controller

You can check all the projects here .

Very interesting blog..looking forward to see more

That’s really a lot of ideas. Thanks for sharing

Thank you for your valuable feedback.

hi Everyone please help find a simple research topic with a clear promble statement

Overload protection of a transformer.please can it be a final year project work, and how would that be

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The Electrical Engineering Department offers a Bachelor of Science (BS) and Master of Science (MS) Degree in Electrical Engineering and a BS degree in Computer Engineering. The Electrical Engineering Department jointly sponsors the Computer Engineering Program with Computer Science. The department is distinguished for its laboratory-intensive curriculum, faculty-student interaction, and innovative hands-on educational methods. The department offers 35,000 square feet of well-equipped undergraduate laboratory space, unparalleled among other universities. It makes contributions to contemporary applied research, collaborates with industrial partners, sponsors award-winning student projects, and provides extensive outreach efforts with elementary and secondary schools.

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2020 Senior Design Projects

To wrap up their undergraduate experience at CU Boulder, electrical, computer and energy engineering students participate in a year-long senior capstone project that gives them a chance to put their skills into practice on real-world projects. Some projects are sponsored by companies and faculty members, while others are initiated by team members who had an innovative idea they wanted to work on.  

This year, 20 teams completed their capstone projects under challenging circumstances that required a lot of flexibility and creativity. Thank you all for your perseverance and  congratulations on a job well done!  

Because the Engineering Projects Expo couldn't be held as scheduled, the teams have shared their project posters, demonstration videos and photos of their teams. Please explore and feel free to leave comments for the teams using the form below.  

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Biological Optic Sensing System (BOSS)

The BOSS offers researchers in biological laboratories real time imaging, spectral data acquisition and temperature data to the user through the control of an easy to use GUI.

Demo Video Project Poster

FireBot is a robot that detects fire faster than regular smoke detectors using image processing and UV and IR sensors. 

Demo Video   Project Poster

Flying Electric Vehicle - 60 (FEV-60)

The FEV-60 is an electric propulsion system for an aircraft under 1500 lbs.

FOX (FMCW Radar with OLTRA in X-Band)

The FOX radar system scans an area in front of it for target detection using a phased array antenna.

Gesture Controlled Smart Lights

Instead using the traditional light switches this product will allow users to control their lights with initially four simple hand gestures.

Herbie Autonomous Car

Herbie is an autonomous, electric, scale-model car that acts as a proof-of-concept for future autonomous vehicles while exploring the current technology involved with autonomous cars.

MicroWaste is a high-powered solid-state microwave device designed to uniformly heat food waste that will eventually be used to convert several types of waste to different forms of usable fuel.

Myosine Ultrasonic Test Platform

The Myosine Ultrasonic Test Platform aims to be a test platform for biomedical engineers looking to develop surgical tools to address the problem of surgeons having several tasks occupying their attention in addition to the surgery they are performing.

Demo Video   Project Poster  

Orient Mobile Remote Viewing

Orient reduces both the cost and human risk of engaging in low-flying search and rescue operations by allowing rescue teams to scan search sites and manipulate their view of the situation without ever needing to step into a helicopter.

PELE: Polarization and Energetics in Line Emission

The sponsor needed a custom-designed PCB board dedicated to the control and communication systems between their on-board computer (OBC) and solar camera on a CubeSat.

PickIt! by Tuned Up enables guitar players to improve their speed playing technique by digitally recording the user’s picking at a high frame rate (HFR).

Pigeon Quadcopter

Pigeon is a quadcopter that delivers person to person through a smart phone app. 

RF Soil Moisture Mapping

This project seeks to complement the current microwave radiometric sensor in a unique airborne microwave system by adding a radar operating in the VHF and/or UHF bands (~50-600 MHz). 

Robotic Yard Weeder

The Robotic Yard Weeder can identify dandelions with neural nets, eradicate dandelions with vinegar solution and traverse lawns with object, boundary avoidance.

RotoBeam is a product that will allow long-range wireless charging of a battery in an electronic system. 

Self-Powered Aerial DElivery Stabilizer (SPADES)

The Self-Powered Aerial Delivery Stabilizer (SPADES) assists with efficient and safe delivery of packages.

SmartFly is an integrated solar panel system with severe storm early warning systems, device charging, and GPS tracking protection for campers.

The Incredible Fused Filament Fabricator

The Incredible Fused Filament Fabricator (IFFF) allows users to 3D print custom waveguide components directly from simulated designs.

Voice-Controlled Electrosurgical Generator

The VEG introduces many features that are not available in the current generation of electrosurgical generators.

Zoya’s Anechoic Chamber (Z.A.Ch)

Zoya’s Anechoic Chamber (Z.A.Ch) provides the modular testing system for researchers to test unique antenna configurations in a stable environment.

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Senior Design Projects for Electrical Engineering Students

Electrical engineering is concerned with power generation, transmission and storage. On the other hand, electronics engineering handles the matters which concern dealing with electrical appliances that run on electricity. Electricity is a major part of our lives and we cannot deny the fact that the educationists of the world are trying to solve as many problems as they can to improve the working of these areas.

Those working in electrical and electronics engineering, not only look for the basics of the subject to build the machines and applying them in power systems analysis but also they try on new things so that they could put innovation into use to increase the efficiency. The same sector of engineering is doing new things every day and the curriculum changes every year in schools and universities to make use of the new upcoming technologies.

Have you checked out our projects on Electrical yet? Electrical Kit will be shipped to you and you can build using tutorials. You can start with a free demo today!

1. Home Automation using IoT

2. Smart Energy Meter using GSM

3. Solar & Smart Energy Systems

4. Automatic Solar Tracker

5. 5 Arduino Projects

6. 4 Smart Energy Projects

7. PCB Manufacturing

8. Smart Traffic Lighting System

9. Automation using PLC

There have been many senior design projects that students look for to fit it in their certificates. One of the new developments is that the students are surfing through the net to look for projects that can actually solve problems. Various energy generation projects have been picked but the most famous of them all is solar energy.

While reading this article, you will come across various ideas about the electrical senior projects and electrical engineering senior design projects as well as many sources that you can go through to get the required information to carry the working of it forward.

The various senior design projects that are going to be discussed in this article are Traffic Lights management, Smart energy projects, Home Automation and others. The world of science and engineering have been developing and there are new innovations every day.

Explore more about senior design projects

Latest projects on Electrical

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How do I choose a senior design project?

Choosing a senior design project is not a simple job. A major project determines how well have you gained the understanding of your projects and this also shows up in your resume. Which college you go out for higher studies or what your career would be might depend upon the same.

All the students are not the same. Many of the students, as said above, choose their projects out of the internet and some choose to solve the problems they themselves face on a personal level. There is a similarity between both the methods that both of them solves major electrical or electronics related problems.

Discover more electrical senior design projects

What is senior design?

Senior design is that field of science and engineering that is responsible for leading the programs and project level designing and making prototypes. The other activities the engineers involved in are the fabrication of composite design solutions that helps in project building. It is one of the foremost steps in plant and energy system designing and production.

The senior designing is a subject that requires precision and a lot of experience which comes after years of study. We are very lucky that our universities of higher education offer a lot of opportunities in proving the potential of a lot of students. The students take the opportunities offered into serious notes and then prove themselves in front of the world.

Skyfi Labs helps students develop skills in a hands-on manner through Electrical Online Courses where you learn by building real-world projects.

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Good senior design projects for electrical (EEE) engineering students

The students have been involving themselves in projects that help them to come up with innovations and prove themselves in front of either companies or universities. These projects not only involve those which are inspired by the topics and problems available online, but they also include those topics that the students come up with. These include problems that the people around them face on a daily basis. The students come up with solutions to these problems on their own. Sometimes they even take help from their professors.

Electrical engineering students have been well known in writing research papers as there are so many areas from where they could take inspiration. They involve themselves in senior design electrical projects and electrical senior design projects and they also take responsibilities of solving the problems and serve the field of science. Skyfi Labs provides many topics on which the projects can be taken up. The students have the freedom to take over their own topics and figure out the solutions to the problems presented in those topics.

1. Smart Energy Meter senior design project

Smart Energy refers to the energy that not only gives efficiency out of the system but also leads to utilisation of energy resources very efficiently. The smart energy meter can be designed using GSM. There is a great push toward energy monitoring across the world. This senior design project helps you build one project to track energy usage and send it via SMS periodically. The data acquired during monitoring will help us to take necessary steps for saving energy.

Learn more about Smart Energy Meter

2. Home Automation using IoT senior design project

Various homes are turning into smart homes by applying the concepts of electrical and electronics engineering. All the users have to do is to just throw a command and enjoy the pleasures of automation. Home Automation is one such area that is tremendously impacted by IoT. Every room and light in the near future will be automatically controlled by computers. In this senior design project, you will design one such system as discussed above.

Learn more about Home Automation using IoT

3. Solar and smart energy system

Solar energy is the new technology that brings up opportunities to put the green energy in use. The field of energy production is doing wonders. But in recent years, the effects it has on nature is overwhelming. People have come across alternatives for the same as Solar Energy. Solar and Smart Energy Systems Course involve hands-on experience in renewable energy and smart systems. These two technologies, in combination with each other, are going to have a huge impact on our future.

Learn more about Solar and Smart Energy System

4. Smart Lighting system

Traffic is causing a lot of problems in the urban areas and we need to solve them. The red lights are only working half of the time and people are working to solve the problems. With urbanisation on the rise! Cities need to be made smarter to tackle problems. Road congestion is one such issue & a smarter way to manage it is by implementing an unmanned automation process! In this senior design project, you will build one such system to handle traffic in a smart way using IR sensors.

Learn more about Smart Lightening System

You can also check out the below list for more senior design projects:

• Automatic solar tracker
• PCB manufacturing
• Smart Traffic Lighting system
• Automation using PLC
• Wireless power transfer electrical project
• Industrial temperature controller using plc
• Dish positioning control senior design electrical project
• Bottle filling system using PLC
• PIR based energy conversation system
• Attendance management system – senior design project

Explore more electrical senior design projects

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Project Examples

Here comes the sun  -  team paccar completed design work on one of washington state's largest solar arrays.

Eric Hee is one of the SU students who worked on a path-breaking solar project with PACCAR.

Story by:Amy Haedt A man from Japan, a man from China, a man from France, a man from Hawaii and a man from Washington all walk into a truck factory… What's the punch line? The amazing truth is there is no punch line. This is a truly international SU Project Center team, working on a truly innovative solar power project with Kenworth Truck Company that will mark the company's truck production plant in Renton as one of the largest non-utility scale photovoltaic (PV) solar arrays in the state.

Electrical and Computer Engineering students Junya Motoike, Siyu Zhang, Christopher Rabotin, Eric Hee and Don Sable have been charged with creating a design for a series of solar panels to be installed on the top of a building on the PACCAR/Kenworth campus in Renton, Washington. "Drivers on I-405 will be able to look out their windows and see one of the largest PV systems in the state of Washington." says Kenworth Truck Company project sponsor, Facilities Engineer Frank Churchill.

"The goal of the project is to offset the annual energy consumed by the PACCAR Technology Center," says Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Henry Louie. "To do this requires a 36 kilowatt installation, consisting of over 190 PV panels," Louie adds. Seattle University currently has an array that produces 5.3 kW of power. The peak output of the Kenworth system will be nearly 7 times that of the SU system. "The largest challenge with this project was to learn about solar panels and how a system of PV arrays work," says Christopher Rabotin of France. "The international composition of our project team was really a great experience," adds Don Sable. "We have a lot of different cultural perspectives, but we learned about valuable technology that we can each bring to our future careers regardless of the country where we are employed." "Germany, for example, produces the most solar power in the world. It's heavily subsidized," says Louie. "In the US we must make the business case that the recovered energy justifies the investment," adds Churchill. He continues, "Energy costs increased 3.8 percent in the month of April alone. If this system can result in direct transmission to the facility, the cost savings on energy may be quite tangible."

Patient Data Tracking Using RFID Technology

Team ECE 08.05 Sponsor: Philips Medical Systems Collaborating Senior Design Team Members: Riley Higa, Andrew Kurniadi, Min Kyeong Lee, Robert Nguon, and Mark John Merin.

Philips Medical Systems and the Seattle University's Electrical & Computer Engineering Team collaborate on the development of a process of automation of patient data entry in hospitals and diagnostic ultrasound clinics using RFID Technology.

Traditionally, hospital patients are identified by wristbands, medical notes are physically carried from place to place, and schedules are hastily rewritten as things change. Mix-ups can result in patients having the wrong records, the wrong drugs being administered, and even the wrong surgery being performed.

In support of Philips Healthcare's commitment to quality patient care our team designed, built, and presented an innovative RFID solution using:

• Texas Instruments microprocessor -controller.
• Designing and building of a miniaturized printed loop antenna.
• Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit keys for personal data security.
• Compression Algorithm based on a combination LZ77 and Huffman Coding to store the quantity of data on the tag.
• The design was completed well within the original budget.

ONBOARD VEHICLE DATA ADAPTER

Team ECE 08.04 Sponsor: Paccar

In modern business models, data is key to increased competitiveness and profits. PACCAR Inc. wishes to acquire more data about the functioning of their trucks in day-to-day work in order to improve fleet productivity, accountability, and profitability The goal was to add more features to the existing Bluetooth Data Link Adapter built last year by SU design team ECE07.5. The final device has to be able to collect, store and send real-time heavy duty trucks' data such as speed, acceleration, battery potential, etc.

Hardware Work In order to design the general schematic of our project, we used a software called Express PCB. It is composed of two different applications: ·ExpressSCH to design schematics ·ExpressPCB to design the layout board

Dr. Moser (Faculty Project Advisor),Mark Fredrickson (Liaison Engineer), Fabio Florez, Eliott Cahen,Gina Castro Marine Pennaguer,Trent Styrcula, Not in the picture: Rob Branson & Rusty Lhamon (Sponsor Liaison)

Sky High Energy Harvesting

TEAM ECE 08.01 Sponsor: The Boeing Company

Everyone wants to save on fuel costs. Whether it's an automobile, a home gas furnace, or a Boeing 787 caring 35,000 gallons of fuel. Fuel efficiency is a priority. Just ask the Boeing and Seattle University team where their daily challenges lies in the application of a new developing technology to convert temperature gradients, those differences in temperature found between the inside and the outside of an airplane, into electricity. Their goal: design a solution to harvest electricity at a capacity to powering electrical devices in the passenger cabins of commercial aircrafts.

The Boeing Company is at the heart of modern aviation and space travel. The principal areas of Boeing operations include commercial airplanes, military aircraft, defense missile systems, and space and satellite communications. The Boeing Systems Concept Center and Seattle University have common goals. "We focus our work on products that Boeing manufactures today as well as products for tomorrow's customer," said Boeing Liaison Engineer "We're always looking at futuristic design concepts and finding new and innovative ways to implement ideas."

Energy Harvesting

Aircraft, especially at high altitude, are subject to large temperature gradients. Our team researched and designed methods to exploit these temperature gradients using thermoelectric devices that convert the thermal energy to electrical energy. The purpose is to reduce the weight of the airplane (eg the copper wiring) by distributing these harvesting power supplies throughout the aircraft.

Boeing Green Sky Thinking

The aerospace giant hopes to blaze a cleaner trail with its Dreamliner – it uses 20 per cent less fuel than most jets and is developing a light aircraft prototype powered by hydrogen fuel cells. If Boeing finds a way to make the hydrogen fuel cells lighter, cheaper and more powerful, the new technology could represent a radical breakthrough within the commercial aviation industry. It is an initiative by the world's aircraft maker to develop alternative fuels at a time when the price of jet fuel is soaring and amid growing environmental concerns.

One of the purposes for developing energy harvesting systems is to reduce the amount of copper power cables in an aircraft by placing small energy harvesting power supplies near the point of use. The harvested energy has the potential to power simple aircraft cabin systems such as convenience lights, reading and call lights, or electronically tinted windows. Another possible application of the harvested energy is to store the energy in rechargeable batteries for later use. These developments could lead to patentable intellectual property as well.

One of the challenges facing our team was developing a conditioning system to boost the low voltage outputs of the thermoelectric devices, typically in the range of 0.4 - 0.7 volts, to a more usable voltage capable of powering electronics. Other constraints where weight, extreme conditions and strains such as vibration and changing temperature gradients.

GPU Based Image Processing Real-Time JPEG Codec

Team ECE 07.03 Sponsor: Philips Medical Systems

Philips Medical Systems teams up with Seattle University to develop a new JPEG encoding process to save cost and improve reliability of it's ultrasound machines.

Our team accomplished the goal by transferring the processing load of encoding JPEG files from higher cost Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) of a video card .

Automated Multicolor In-Cluster Tell-Tale System

Team ECE 07.03 Sponsor: The Boeing Company

Seattle University Senior Students working jointly with Kenworth got their boots muddy in a project consisted of "proof of concept" design and prototype for Kenworth's Automated Tell-Tale Identification and multi-color Tell-Tale systems. These systems, when implemented, will allow Kenworth to provide a higher quality, more flexible product at a lower cost. It is joint projects such as these that provide students with an unprecedented opportunity to tap into the rich resources, knowledge, and unique skills of world-class companies such as Kenworth to produce the very best educational experience .

Kenworth Truck Company , a division of PACCAR Inc, is a leading manufacturer of heavy and medium duty trucks. Kenworth's success can be traced back to a philosophy established at the beginning in 1923: Build a custom truck and build it to last. Back then, it was said that Kenworth engineers weren't afraid to "get their boots muddy" as they journeyed into the field with customers to understand the demands put on their vehicles. Today, Kenworth continues to listen carefully to customer needs, then builds custom trucks that will meet those needs. That's why they call them "The World's Best."

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Senior design projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Senior Design Project provides a capstone experience for undergraduate students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Students work in teams of 3-4 students in this year long course sequence to design and prototype a system of their choice.

Past projects have included a variety of topics ranging from home automation systems to ultra wide band wireless links, assistive robots, and wireless drumsticks. Each team is advised by a faculty member in the department and projects undergo several formal reviews. The learning goals for the senior design project include technical design, team work, presentation skills, an understanding of realistic constraints, economics, and ethics.

Visit the Senior Design Project 2023 (SDP23) website to see this year's teams

View previous year's, with links to team project pages, here:

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Senior Projects Overview

At the pinnacle of engineering art and science stands design. All the effort of engineering students in studying mathematics, physics, and engineering fundamentals leads to design. Design uses all our knowledge of math and science to create things that do our bidding, amuse, serve, diagnose, and even heal.

Engineering design is always fresh and exciting because we can forever think of creative ways to recombine our knowledge of the physical and abstract worlds into something new and exciting. Something that will turn the world upside down once again.

At USU Electrical and Computer Engineering, our seniors demonstrate their ability in design by completing a two-semester senior or capstone design and communications sequence. The starting courses are ECE 4820 (Engineering Design I) and ECE 4830 (Engineering Communications I). Students take ECE 4840 (Engineering Design II) and ECE 4850 (Engineering Communications II) in the second semester. Both sets of courses are available Fall and Spring semesters.

The senior design courses are designed to mimic an industrial design process. There is a mix of instruction in practical technical subjects and in documentation typical of industrial design. The documentation process is designed and taught by a professional technical writer who provides excellent templates for the required documents and extensive personal help on producing these documents.

At USU Electrical and Computer Engineering students can choose their own projects for senior design. We encourage our students to serve the less fortunate in their senior designs, pursue passions, and see and solve problems in daily life. Students can choose to work in a favorite subject area and arrange mentoring with a favorite professor in this subject.

Alternately, ECE students can work on projects with teams from other engineering departments (primarily Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering-MAE) . Projects in the MAE Department are fixed by the department and their need for ECE students is dependent on the individual project. Typically, departments seeking our students will announce these needs early in each semester. Projects with other departments are considered on a case by case basis.

ECE students already employed in a technical position can work with their employers to develop a project that is useful to the employer and meets the requirements of the ECE department. Such projects remain the complete property of the sponsoring company even though the student has access to USU facilities and equipment during the design.

The senior design semesters at USU are exciting and intense. You will work hard and produce something that you may not thought you could do at the beginning of the sequence. The process concludes with a Senior Design Night where you showcase your projects to family, friends, potential employers, and the public. Students who participate in this night invariably call it fun.

Florida State University

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Electrical & Computer Engineering Senior Design Projects

Team renegade.

Team Renegade is a team of six senior engineering students at Florida State University Panama City competing in the NASA University Student Launch Initiative as a part of their Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Design project. They must construct a rocket that will carry a real-time target detection payload and be able to reach a goal altitude of 5,280 feet. The team must undergo periodic design reviews and presentations with NASA as a part of the engineering design process. Another aspect of the competition is Educational Outreach which requires that the team engage with students in the community in hands-on projects that encourages their interests in STEM fields. This competition challenges the students to collaborate with other types of engineering fields and it gives them the full experience of the engineering process implementing a real life project. This includes a project proposal, budget, project plan, project timeline, design documents and deliverables, prototyping, and testing. The team will launch their final design on April 7, 2018 in Hunstville, AL. Follow Team Renegade's progress on Facebook ( http://www.Facebook.com/FSUPCUSLI2018 ) and Instagram ( http://www.Instagram.com/TeamRenegadeUSLI ).

LED Air Warning System (LAWS) Senior Design Project Fall 2017

Fall 2016-Spring 2017

Solar power electrical energy design (speed).

Mariano Alan Villanueva Cruz, Brandon Harmon, Kendal Schroeder, Nathaniel Walsh, Justice Wobser

This is an interactive exhibit designed to utilize data collected from a solar panel installed in the outer yard of the Science and Discovery Center, showing how much power is being generated at any given moment. The exhibit emphasizes how important solar power technology is becoming to the world and teaches children how this works and allows them to see real examples with commonplace items. SPEED is designed so that the museum patrons are able to see real-time data from the roof-mounted panel and leave the exhibit with an increased knowledge of solar power and its potential impact on the world in the near future.

Mentored by NW FL Science and Discovery Center and NSWC-PCD

Circuit Card Assembly Tester

Curtis Gilbert, Jared Klemm, Evan Sarantos, Devin Tate

NSWC-PCD has a need for an automated Circuit Card Assembly (CCA) tester that is fast, thorough, and accurate. The overall objective of the CCA tester project is to design, develop, and demonstrate a completed Circuit Card Assembly (CCA) that will verify the CCA logic functionality, redundant power functionality, power safety mechanisms, and LED indication outputs. The tester uses LabVIEW2012 with an Engility Data Acquisition Module (DAQ).

Mentored by NSWC-PCD and Engility, Panama City FL.

Spring-Summer 2016

Mosquito catcher (moca).

Seungjin Lee, Joe Stanford, Nathaniel Walsh

The team is advancing a formerly successful capstone project completed in 2013 by redesigning for better portability and programmability. As the previous design the trap will release an attractant (CO2) and draw in and maintain unharmed mosquitos for at least 14 hours. The captured mosquitos will be inventoried to help local mosquito control experts understand infestation details.

Mentored by Dr. Smith, entomologists at FSU-PC, Seth Bergman, Humminbird (and former lead engineer on first-generation mosquito-trap project) and Bill Porter NSWC-PCD

Beehive Information Gathering System (BIGS)

Joseph Gibson, Christopher Pennington, Jason Taliaferro, Danny White, Hank Williams

The BIGS is a prototype design with the intentions of building a field server to store hive sensor readings. The server will be placed in a cluster of hives located in remote locations with no cellular connectivity. To allow communication between the server and sensors the server will be set up as a wireless access point. When a sensor connects to the server it will send data readings to be stored in the server’s database. Each time the sensor data is stored it has the current time appended to the readings. To recover the data stored on server a mobile device will connect to the server wirelessly. Upon connection to a mobile device the server will upload all the stored sensor readings from the server to the user’s device. As data is exported to the device the server will clear the database, freeing up memory. A previous capstone project demonstrated electronically gathering vital health information from a bee hive, such as temperature, humidity, weight distribution, and dead-bee count, without the keeper manually disturbing the hive.

Mentored by NSWC-PCD, Hive Technologies, and the Bay County Bee-Keeping Association

Fall 2014 - Spring 2015

Is fmcw for the birds.

Shoa Russell and Jerry Walker

A tin-can RADAR (design and used at MIT) using continuous-wave frequency modulation (FMCW) has been considered for bird and insect detection and classification. End-user applications include bird-strike avoidance with aircraft as well as deterring incoming fowl from landing in a location hazardous to a particular species. This RADAR design is relatively inexpensive, and thus a collection of these could be posted in such an area.

Mentored by DeTect, Inc., Panama City

Dashing Illuminated Creatures Exhibit (DICE)

Jonah Cleveland, Kinsey Naud, Gavin Taylor

A new exhibit is proposed for the SDC that will challenge children to outrun a stream of LEDs designed to emulate the speed of a selected animal. The DICE will have push buttons and general facts concerning the selected animal, and an 18-ft track for racing. The DICE will inform the participant if it succeeded in outrunning the selected animal.

Mentored by NSWC-PCD and the Science and Discovery Center (SDC) of Northwest FL, Panama City, FL

Spring-Summer 2015

Bubble-bits.

Richard Alva, Justin Chambers, Justin Harvard, Alex Lopez, Sarah Warren, Michael Wojcik

In Spring 2014 an FSU-PC ECE design team delivered the Interactive Bubble Exhibit (IBEX) to the Science and Discovery Center (SDC). This project seeks to advance the exhibit to include self-calibration of the display bubbles, hardware trouble-shooting capabilities, and enhanced cosmetic appeal.

DIgital Subwoofer Correction (DISCO)

Jeremy Cheatham, Chad DeFranco, May-Ling Lyles, Nathan Williams

Quality sound projection for live entertainment requires subwoofer cabinets for low frequencies. These cabinets cause sound phase distortion to which the human ear is sensitive, causing undesirable “muddiness”. Modern signal processing filters can compensate for most of the distortion, but this comes at a cost of signal delay which can be unacceptable for live performance applications. This project applies recently-published techniques for compensating for phase distortion while minimizing signal delay.

Mentored by DeFranco Productions, Panama City FL, and Bill Porter, NSWC-PCD

Summer-Fall 2016

Janna Blankenship, Hannah Pippin, Scott Nelson, Caleb Robison

A water-driven turbine connected to a generator will be placed in line with the irrigation manifold, generating power when the irrigation system is running and water is flowing through the system. The power generated will then be sent to a battery bank where it will be stored. This stored power will be regulated by a control module consisting of a clock and photo sensor. Once the control module is triggered the stored energy will be utilized as a power source for accent lighting.

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Senior Design Projects

Each May, Columbia Engineering’s annual Senior Design Expo showcases the ingenuity and innovation of our graduating class. The day-long event is open to the entire Columbia community and to guests from industry and local schools. Seniors across all of Columbia’s engineering departments demonstrate dozens of projects ranging from patent-pending consumer products to cutting-edge research to proposals for practical improvements to New York City infrastructure. Here are some highlights from past expos, and stay tuned for details of the next one in May:  

The 2019 Senior Design Expo

29 Electrical Engineering students participated in Columbia Engineering’s 6th Annual Senior Design Expo. With topics ranging from sports to music, from animals to physical therapy, these finished projects culminated a yearlong process of teamwork, science and dedication. The 2019 Senior Design Expo, took place at Columbia University’s Roone Arledge Auditorium in May 2019, and attracted hundreds of visitors, including faculty, deans, staff, students, and industry leaders.

Students worked closely with their faculty advisors throughout the development of their projects, from design to implementation which provided students with opportunities to be creative and solution-oriented, propelling them to be successful in their professional lives as they graduate from the Electrical Engineering Department.

Learn more about the Electrical Engineering projects:

Baseball Strike Zone Delineator

Joon Mo Park built a baseball strike zone delineator. Contrary to the popularly held notion that the baseball strike zone is rectangular and is fixed, the strike zone is actually constantly changing as the batter is making movements to hit the baseball and has a shape of a pentagonal prism. The proposed delineator calculates for the position of the strike zone using input images obtained from the two set-up cameras and using digital image processing techniques. The delineator aims to aid the umpires in the process of determining whether a pitch is a strike or a ball by providing them an environment where they can compare their calls with those calculated from the algorithm.

Education Logic Blocks

Leah Feuerman, Jacqueline Napolitano, Sayaan Nawaz, and Jackson Welles worked with Columbia Secondary School to develop an educational game to teach students the fundamentals of computer hardware and logic. This project allows students to build their own logic statements using their hands, and see the results with both a computer interface and the structures they build.

Using physical electronic logic blocks, students discover the principles of Boolean algebra as performed on binary signals. Each interconnecting block contains a simple circuit to define their functionality. Individual blocks will include AND, OR, and INVERT gates, INPUT and OUTPUT variable blocks, TIMER and binary COUNTER circuits, as well as a POWER supply block. A GUI presents the students with logic prompts and allows them to define the INPUT blocks based on the riddle they are solving.

Class D-Amplifier

Chase Stine and Jay Mok built a built-from-scratch amplifier with a custom-built power supply unit. Uses class-D amplification topology, a single positive power supply, has volume control, pre-amplification, feedback, over-current protection and multiple speaker drive capabilities. Can be connected via Bluetooth, phone audio jack, computer audio jack, or other audio output devices such as MIDI keyboards or electric instruments.

Broken Electronics: An IoT Fracture Boot, Walker and Screen

Ryan Davies, Shamirah Tillman, and Mohammad Khojah built an IoT fracture boot. After breaking a bone, the process of recovery is often delayed by putting too much weight on the affected area. Our project seeks to solve this common problem by providing real-time feedback to the patient and useful metrics to their physician. This was accomplished through the use of specialized sensors which read how much weight was placed in critical areas in order to display this information using LEDs and sent it to a database using Wi-Fi. Additional features included fall detection through use of an accelerometer that sent a message to the relevant caregivers. These improvements allow for recovery to be both safer and more effective.

Real-Time Frequency Stabilization and Control Systerm

William Mauro built a real-time frequency stabilization and control sysyem. Discrete analog oscillators are a common sound source in both modern and historic music sound synthesizers, however they have an unfortunate tendency to drift out of tune. In part, this frequency drift can be attributed to the varying characteristics of discrete solid-state components which intrinsically depend on the ambient temperature of the circuit. Additionally, over time, aging circuit elements may deviate from their listed specifications, and a once-calibrated oscillator may no longer behave predictably. In order to combat these difficulties, he developed a novel feedback control system whereby the frequency of an oscillator is continuously measured and adjusted in real-time by digital means in order to maintain precision tuning for any analog oscillator, no matter how unstable.

Benjamin Brigman,Asher Goldfinger, Anthony Gutierrez, and Moises Pena Jr. built an automated food and water dispenser. The idea for Pet-Minder is to create a system of modules that can identify a pet in a multiple pet environment, attributing a particular diet, monitor movements, and relay information about each one to a phone application. This is achieved by the construction of automated food and water dispenser and a “doggy-door” module alongside RFID tag communication with multiple microcontrollers.

The 2018 Senior Design Expo

Columbia Engineering’s 5th Annual Senior Design Expo showcased 60 projects, including 10 projects that involved 41 students from the Electrical Engineering Department. With topics ranging from climate change to music technology, from cybersecurity to robotic systems, and more, these finished projects culminated a yearlong process of learning, testing, discovery, and team building. Some projects included collaborations with the Computer Science, Earth and Environmental Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering Departments.

The Senior Design Expo 2018, held at Columbia University’s Roone Arledge Auditorium in May 2018, attracted hundreds of visitors, including faculty, deans, staff, students, friends, and industry leaders. The students’ enthusiasm about their projects was contagious. Students demonstrated through their work that engineering is at the center of cutting-edge technology!

A world of possibilities opened up to students as they applied what they learned in the classroom to everyday life problems. Students worked closely with their faculty advisors throughout the development of their projects, from design to implementation. This process provided students with opportunities to be creative and solution-oriented, thus propelling them to be successful in their professional lives as they graduate from the Department of Electrical Engineering.

A special thanks to students and their faculty advisors, as well as everyone who attended the Expo!

The Butterfly Effect (1st Prize, Electrical Engineering) Advisor:  Professor David Vallancourt

Louisa Sainz de la Maza and Saarthak Sarup addressed the ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) and related security challenges by building upon new concepts on chaotic circuits for encryption. Their project uses a Lorenz Attractor circuit and RF transceiver to create a low power and low cost solution amenable to the constraints of IoT. The Lorenz Attractor acts as the transmitter’s random number generator. A slave circuit in the receiver then decodes the message by synchronizing with the master Lorenz circuit. This PCB implementation points to IC realization for a practical system.

Real-Time Music Harmonizer (2nd Prize, Electrical Engineering) Advisor:  Professor David Vallancourt

D’Arcy Anderson, Rebecca Murray, Anita Rao, Cincy Xiao, and Jimmy Ye built a real-time harmonizer that allows one person to produce multiple notes at once. The harmonizer takes in a voice signal, and outputs the original and pitch shifted voice signals in real time. The device produces a selection of harmonies the user can choose from, including thirds and fifths above or below the original note. Digital logic is then used to generate the notes to harmonize with the input signal. The user has the option to add a reverb and/or phaser effect to the output.

Discrete Alcohol Sensor (3rd Prize, Electrical Engineering) Advisor:  Professor David Vallancourt

Avery Feit, Miguel Gutierrez, Garrett Kaighn, Bernard Nguyen, and Sarah Thompson built a portable, hand-held, capacitive alcoholmeter that measures the alcohol content of a variety of mixed drinks. The device measures the alcoholic content of beverages based on the difference in relative permittivity between water and ethanol. A dedicated circuit connected to a probe submerged in alcoholic beverages outputs a DC voltage corresponding to the detected probe capacitance. Then, after converting this output to a digital signal and referencing it to a lookup table, a microcontroller reports the ABV value for the beverage on a small OLED display.

Electric Drivetrain Advisor:  Professor Matthias Preindl

Albert Gao, Ibrahima Niang, Dawei Ren, and Xuexin Wei created a concept design of a high-performance drivetrain for electric vehicles (EVs) following the specifications and requirements of the FSAE Electric Vehicles Competition. An electric motor, instead of a gasoline engine, powers the environmentally friendly EV. The motor receives its energy from a lithium battery, which is regulated by a motor controller based on input from a human driver. RockEm SockEm Robots Advisor:  Professor Fred Stolfi

Joseph Campo, John Cervone, Elon Gordon, James Harrison, and Nikiander Pelari built a boxing game with two colorful robots connected to sensor packs that create a real-life and dynamic experience for the game users. Two players face off in the ring, where both players control their own robots by placing sensor packs on their wrists and heads. For instance, when one player throws a punch, that player’s robot mimics her movement. Players can also control their robots’ defensive moves by dodging left, right, forward, and back. The losing bot’s head pops up when a player scores enough points against his or her opponent.

Autonomous Fruit Fly Robots Advisor:  Professor Aurel A. Lazar

Amol Kapoor and Seungmin Lee designed an autonomous robotic system to understand how the fruit fly brain operates. The autonomous robotic system consists of a cloud server called NeuroCloud, and remote ground-based robotic modules called FlyRemotes. The NeuroCloud provides computational power for executing computationally demanding tasks such as progressively training a brain circuit model based on information gathered by FlyRemotes. Through multiple experiments, they examined the information processing capabilities of fruit flies’ neural circuitry, and used their findings to determine which fruit fly model has the optimal learning efficacy for a given task. Automatic Beer Pong Table Advisor:  Professor David Vallancourt

Ryan Davies, Benjamin Fechter, and Jun Hyek Jang built a beer pong table with LCD screens and ultrasound sensors, which automate several key elements of the game. For example, on startup the cups automatically rise to the surface of the table. Once a ball is fairly scored into a cup, the cup automatically lowers beneath the table. The LCD screens monitor progress for each player.

Swarmbots Advisors:  Professors Mike Massimino, Fred Stolfi, and David Vallancourt

Alexander Colton, Julia Di, Bailey Fryer, Chuck Poklikuha, and Connie Zhang built four small mobile robots capable of dynamically coordinated movement within a controlled arena. Using computer vision through a camera mounted above the arena, a computer controls the robots wirelessly. The robots work together to locate themselves and move in formation, which is useful for navigating obstacles while exploring new terrains. Lost Item Finder Advisor:  Professor David Vallancourt

Tianen Chen, Willian Chiu, Tyler Hiller, and Lucas Lalima built a compact GPS tracker that helps people locate stolen or lost large personal valuables, such as backpacks, purses, or musical instruments. The Lost Item Finder device broadcasts its location via public Wi-Fi on a web-based map interface or via Bluetooth by emitting a sound if in close proximity.

Microgrid Design for Hospital Resiliency Advisors:  Professors Robert Farrauto and David Vallancourt, and Jon Nickerson from National Grid

Lucy Banter, Charles Harper, Rebecca Miller, Varshimi Parthasarathy, Kenneth Spranzo, and Kathy Welter designed a microgrid central controller to help hospitals save lives during power outages. They used pre-existing data to generate load profiles for hospitals of varying sizes. Using a modeling software, the load profiles generated an appropriate resource mix for each scenario. The microgrid central controller has the ability to switch the hospital into islanding mode, minimize non-critical load, and dispatch the most efficient energy resource based on feedback from connected devices.

The 2017 Senior Design Expo

Watch students show off their projects at this year's Senior Design Expo. Video by Jane Nisselson.

Among the many groups tackling human needs were biomedical engineers working on diagnosing and treating maladies quickly and at low cost. Amnitect (Olivya Caballero, Rosa Kim, Namji Park, and visiting junior Shaw Yang) is an insertable device that can help women tell if they have elevated levels of amniotic fluid during pregnancy, helping to detect premature ruptures of the amniotic membrane, while Lumenda (Lizzette Delgadillo, Bryan Louie, Priya Medberry, and Sid Perkins) is a point-of-care device for diagnosing neonatal bacterial meningitis in low-resource settings. Perkins will travel to Uganda in June to pass on the intellectual property to another organization, he explained, as his teammates will be busy with research and/or medical school and he will be working in Paris as a  Fulbright Fellow .

Women’s health in Uganda inspired AdneXXa (Tess Cernonsky, Erika McManus, Nina Moiseiwitsch, and Lara Warner), a low-cost female condom that can be boiled for reuse, while Haiku Prosthetics (Amanda Jimenéz, Roberta Lock, Chiang Lu, Georgiana Yang, and William Yu) is waiting on a patent for the adaptable, universal prosthetic socket they designed to help children growing up with artificial limbs. Smartphones enable LUNA (Shujian Deng, Kristopher Harris, Nicholas Primiano, Payal Rana, and Zane Zemborain), a laser ultrasound-guided biopsy needle aid that uses a smartphone app for better insertion, and Sirena (Josh Hughes, Rachit Mohan, Derek Netto, Alexandra Nuzhdin, and Zaheen Sarker), a trimodal assistive system to help EMTs document treatments while keeping their hands free for patient care.

Electrical engineers John Kotey, Chris Kunkel, and Julian Vigil combined a sensing device, machine learning, and an app to create TearsTalk, which analyzes babies’ cries and is expandable to interpret other sounds. The project made the semifinals of this year’s  Columbia Venture Competition .

“A baby’s cry contains tons of information, from hunger or discomfort to larger health concerns,” Kotey said. “Our device accounts for ambient noise and is expandable so long as we have an audio signal.”

Others created artistic robots, like the RoBach (Will Cao, Eli Epperson, Cynthia Kallif, Amritha Musipatla, Nick Scarfo, and Johanan Sowah), which combines a Mozart-trained artificial intelligence with an analog synthesizer to compose and improvise music, and Toulouse (Amelia Dunn, Evan Hertafeld, Yadir Lakehal, and Aramael Pena-Alcantara), which paints portraits. Mobile robots ranged from the spherical Robot that Rolls (Grace Liu, Trevonna Meikle, Peter Luning Prak, and Yuchuan Zhang) to Honu, a turtle-like autonomous beach cleaning robot (Bradley Beeksma, Daniel Gonzalez, Jamie Hall, and Alyssa Nicole Posecion).

Also presenting were civil engineers including Kevin Chiu, Colton Doering, Stephen Ho, Rashed Al Qudah, Anel Redzematovic, and Hua Zheng, who designed a proposed extension of New York City’s AirTrain to Astoria, Queens for faster trips to the city’s airports. Chemical engineers John Bender, Sophie Jo, and Zoe Zegers designed a potential plant for producing methanol fuels, while earth and environmental engineers Chris Ahn, Fred Enea, Anna Libey, Xiaocong Susan Liu, Colette McCullagh, and Maria Torres worked with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) on ideas for cooling the city’s scorching subway platforms during the summer.

Mechanical engineers Jake Abitbol, Kevin Baquero, Lane Baze, and Benjamin Machtinger designed and made the windproof ONEbrella, which uses a unique double structure to function while still allowing wind through.

“We thought we were done after today,” said Abitbol. “But after all the questions and interest we’ve gotten, we might have to reconsider.”

The 2016 Senior Design Expo

Showcasing their ingenuity and a broad array of research interests, Columbia Engineering’s Class of 2016 made the third annual Senior Design Expo the most colorful and wide-ranging yet. From CatheCARE, a catheter disinfectant device utilizing UV light to keep bacteria from the bloodstream, to a machine that mechanically reproduces hand movements for knitting, students demonstrated their innovative projects and prototypes to a packed house at Lerner Hall May 5.

“Senior design projects encompass the entire engineering design cycle, from making something work to making a good presentation,” said Shih-Fu Chang, senior executive vice dean and Richard Dicker Professor of Electrical Engineering, kicking off the event. “Today is a highlight and signature for the School and the University.”

Projects from the School’s various departments included a new general purpose programming language called Dice developed by computer scientist David Watkins and a deep analysis of overnight and intraday returns of exchange-transfer funds in emerging markets from Xiao Xu, an industrial engineering and operations research major. Several groups of civil engineering students gave detailed proposals for a variety of bridges to accommodate needs and budgets of communities across New York, while teams of earth and environmental engineering majors addressed issues including optimizing treatment of pharmaceutical waste and assessing the potential benefits of organic fertilizers.

Biomedical engineering seniors tackled a range of health issues. The prototypes they developed included the cerVIA system, which combines a speculum-fitted camera with a screening algorithm to better detect and diagnose telltale lesions that indicate cervical cancer, and HelioCure, a hybrid phototherapy device designed for treating neonatal jaundice in low-resource settings with a combination of filtered sunlight and LEDs.  Resistaderm uses a flexible and impermeable bioplastic seal to prevent transmission of skin infections in contact sports, and SafeStep, a sensor-enhanced walker, alerts patients when their gait and posture suggest that they may soon fall.

Many electrical and mechanical engineering students developed solutions for consumer needs, from the Auto-Powered Water Meter wirelessly tracking water usage to ClearChat, an advanced new directional hearing aid, and the Braille Box, a cost-effective portable unit for teaching the tactile language. Others engineered music, such as an instrument that enables mind-controlled musical composition and performance, and devised robots, with capabilities including walking, hopping, putting golf balls, fetching tennis balls, playing pool, and wriggling forward with snake-like peristaltic movement. KeyHand, a glove equipped with a variety of sensors, promised to enhance dexterity in virtual environments.

“Senior projects give you the freedom to be creative and apply all you’ve learned towards ends that interest you,” said Adam Jaffe ’16SEAS, who used what he learned in applied physics and mathematics to design a water-impervious layered membrane based on graphene oxide. “You have the chance to pursue something you’re passionate about.”

The 2015 Senior Design Expo

Columbia Engineering seniors had the opportunity to showcase their capstone projects at the School’s Senior Design Expo, held May 7 in Lerner Auditorium. Attendees learned about the mechanics, design, and engineering behind a wide range of projects and prototypes from all nine departments, including a mechanical device that mimics the movement of a human hand, a robotic air hockey player, a device that enhances hearing protection for soldiers, and a model for a soccer stadium that can withstand gale force winds and earthquakes.

Students filled Lerner in typical science fair fashion. In her welcome remarks, Dean Mary C. Boyce commended the students’ creativity and collaborative work and the benefits of the senior capstone projects.

“These projects provide the students with the opportunity to go through the entire design cycle. Students learn to work with one another in a team environment, they learn the constraints of time management, the realities of actually trying to build something and make it work and often have an iterative process in doing so and also being responsible for budgeting, designing, fabricating, and testing,” said Boyce. “Whether the project is whimsical or serious, all represent the fundamentals of an engineering approach to problem solving and all represent a solution.”

The expo this year was sponsored by Turner Construction, and in a pre-reception CEO Peter Davoren said the students coming out of Columbia are well rounded and interpersonally skilled—critical qualities needed in qualified engineers. “You can’t just be a scientist,” said Davoren. “The quality of the education here is terrific. We’re going to continue to recruit, and in order to recruit we have to give back too so we want to participate in as many programs as we can in SEAS. It’s a win-win.”

Inspired by Murphy beds and pop-up books, Rambunctious Solutions, a team from mechanical engineering, developed a collapsible table built with a novel material the team synthesized and tested over the past year.

“We started thinking about bringing pop-ups to the human scale for microapartment furniture, and then we went crazy,” said Zachery Wills. “We did our due scientific diligence and worked out the mathematical theory and physics of every component.”

Normcore developed a robotic bass guitar with silicon fingers to pluck strings in carefully calibrated natural fashion, while Saximus created a robotic saxophone player to mimic human performance and Nepollo created an intricate glass harp. A delta robot from Delta Force achieved impressive precision and speed in a series of tasks.

Teams from civil engineering designed resilient and cost-effective structures including novel stadiums, a bridge, and a multipurpose artistic space for dense urban environments.

“Bringing art and innovation to the urban landscape was about a lot more than a building looking pretty,” said Kathilee Kenlock of KNAAK, who designed a three-story building encompassing workspaces for music and visual arts as well as a museum facility. “It took some major calculations.”

Biomedical engineering projects addressed a range of challenges from improving ostomy bags to protecting soldiers’ hearing with noise-dampening headphones to integrating therapy for cerebral palsy into child-friendly video games.

Several chemical engineering teams tackled a challenge to reinvent some of Johnson & Johnson’s popular skin care treatments to address health concerns while preserving viability in the marketplace.

“Our mission was to maintain product efficacy with better marketability and cost effectiveness,” said Andrew Wagner, who worked on an all-natural approach to the Aveeno skin care line.

Other senior projects at the expo included standardizing semiconductor nanoparticles (electrical engineering), exploring the optical properties of graphene for photonic applications (applied physics and applied mathematics), optimizing the delivery schedule of agricultural seed and fertilizer in rural Africa (industrial engineering and operations research), and assessing how best to restore part of the Bronx River for recreational opportunities (earth and environmental engineering).

“My team wanted to create something whimsical that people could play with,” said electrical engineering major Shanny Li, who developed a remotely controlled LED module for turning buildings into interactive art displays. “Engineering is fun, and we want to share that with the rest of campus.”

The 2014 Senior Design Expo

The School has just launched its year long 150th birthday party with a full week of activities that are engaging students, alumni, faculty, and staff.

On Sunday, February 16, the Engineering Student Council (ESC) and Engineering Graduate Student Council held a dinner for more than 400 in a packed Roone Arledge Auditorium. ESC President Siddhant Bhatt ’14 welcomed everyone and introduced Dean Mary C. Boyce, who gave a presentation on the exciting research that’s come out of the School over the past 150 years and screened a video to mark the sesquicentennial. Columbia Engineering Young Alumni President Whitney Green BS’10, noted that “if you take a good look at our past and current research achievements in the global issues of mechanical developments, computing, robotics, agriculture, health, smart cities, energy, the environment, data science, and more, you’ll see just how far we students, faculty, and alumni can reach and the amazing impact we’ve had on the world. Now, imagine what we will do for society in the next 150 years!”

After the dinner, students went out to view the beautiful 150th light display illuminating Low Library for the rest of the week.

"This was a great night,” says Bhatt. “We should all take a moment this week to look at the decorated Low Library and see Columbia Engineering under the spotlight, and remember what we are all a part of. We are important members of this community and let’s celebrate that!”

Several other events are scheduled this week—which is National Engineers Week (an annual event now known as  DiscoverE Week )—including the Archimedes Society Dinner and a talk by Robert McCaughey, professor of history at Barnard College and author of the forthcoming book,  A Lever Long Enough: A History of Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science Since 1864 ; and a SEAS networking event on Wednesday, February 19, for students and alumni, co-hosted by the Center for Career Education and Society of Women Engineers. (To see photos from Columbia's DiscoverE Week events, visit the  Engineering Student Council's Facebook page .)

On Monday, February 24, the School is hosting  Engineering Icons: A Conversation with Mike Massimino  BS’84, an evening open to the Columbia community that features a screening of the documentary,  Hubble 3D , at Lincoln Square IMAX and a conversation with Dean Boyce and Massimino. Massimino, currently a visiting professor in the mechanical engineering department, was the NASA astronaut charged with fixing the Hubble space telescope and is featured in the film. To attend the screening,  please register here .

Throughout the year, the School will host more than 30 events for faculty, students, and alumni, all with a sesquicentennial theme. These include the Columbia Engineering Young Alumni Blue and White Gala on March 29; Reunion Weekend, from May 29 through May 31; the International Parents Dinner in August, Homecoming in October, and many more.

On May 8, the School will hold a special Senior Design Day Expo to showcase innovative design projects by seniors. This event, which will take place in Roone Arledge Auditorium, will provide an opportunity for the larger Columbia community to celebrate the creative and innovative work of the School’s students.

Two major highlights of the anniversary year are planned for November. The first is “SEAS 150 Symposium,” which will be held on the afternoon of Friday, November 14. The symposium will feature presentations in a mini-TEDx format given by faculty and graduate students that directly link the research that took place early in the School’s history to research now being performed by current faculty.

To cap the anniversary year, the School will host a Founders Day Gala on the evening of Saturday, November 15, in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The Gala will include a cocktail reception and dinner, with remarks by Dean Boyce and additional speakers, as well as a video of the School’s history and milestones. This date marks the exact day in 1864 when the School first opened its doors, with 20 students and 3 teachers. In the ensuing 150 years, Columbia Engineering has grown to accommodate more than 4,300 undergraduate and graduate students and 175 faculty members.