Senior Design Projects

General Information

The capstone design course (ECEN403/404; Electrical Design Laboratory I and II) introduces senior year students to the design process and project engineering experience as practiced in the industry. The design process starts from proposal preparation to assembling a prototype, while incorporating appropriate engineering standards and multiple realistic technical and non-technical constraints. Engineering related constraints include safety, reliability, and efficiency, while non-technical related issues include economic, environmental, and social constraints. Students then experience the implementation and testing phase, while being involved in regular progress presentations to improve their professional communication skills, and provide proper project documentation, through a healthy teamwork environment.

The main goals of this design course may be summarized as follows:

1. Provide the students with an industry standard design project, within the controlled academic environment.

2. Solidify and extend the theories and concepts presented in upper level coursework through application.

3. Create an environment that fosters professional interactions between students, colleagues and instructors.

The following measures are implemented in order to facilitate these goals:

Teamwork

Students are grouped into teams, with no more than four students per team. It is encouraged to form groups with multidisciplinary skills. Following the team assignment, students assign themselves specific roles according to their areas of specialization. Typical roles include team leader, lead hardware specialist, lead software specialist, technical documentation specialist, lead mechanical designer, communication specialist and hardware specialist. Work is accomplished as a team with evaluations of effort distributed equally across the team for deliverables. Leadership and autonomy is emphasized as teams are encouraged to overcome minor challenges within their own means while they are challenged to discern the appropriate time to seek outside assistance.

Design, Build and Test

To receive credit for the course, teams must successfully complete the design, build and test cycle during one semester. Teams submit project ideas to be evaluated for technical merit. Once a suitable project is defined, the team initiates the design phase. Throughout the semester, teams engage in various deliverables required to evaluate the adequacy of the design solution and the progress of the team.

Professional Reporting and Communication

Teams are required to submit written and oral reports throughout the semester. Each team is responsible for submitting a progress report and a final project report. Teams also engage in a preliminary design review of their projects through monthly oral presentations. Following the build phase and preceding the project report, teams present the implemented projects during a Demo Day in the presence of colleagues, instructors and industry representatives.

Industrial Sponsoring

Some specific projects are formed with the guidance and support of industrial collaboration. Industrial sponsorship is accompanied by financial assistance and thus provides significant resources to purchase hardware in support of the projects. Such interaction provides an elevated perspective and assistance in addressing issues of manufacturability, scalability, and social and safety concerns.

Project Management

Student teams perform detailed management of their respective projects through the use of common project management tools including task breakdown, Gantt charts, weekly progress meetings, and process planning.

Student Projects

This course offers students a “hands on” learning experience, exposes them to a team work based environment, and proves them the importance of planning. At the end of the second semester, students showcase their projects throughout a demo day, where their work is evaluated by the faculty, industrial sponsors, and professional industrial invitees.

Some of these projects are listed below:

2019/2020 projects

S-Grid: Smart Sustainable Secure

Carbon Footprint Dashboard in TAMUQ

Anomaly Detection in BACNet Protocol Systems

Facial Generation and Anomaly Detection Software

Vision: An Indoor Navigation System for Visually Impaired

QATra Irrigation System

Mitotic Cell Detection Tool

Dyno Swarm: Dynamically Moving Swarm of Drones

GlycoTrem: Monitoring Fatigue and Hypoglycemia

Design and Optimization of a Hybrid Microgrid as a Backup Power Source for FIFA WORLD CUP 2022