Project Demos

These are some examples of the projects in the senior design project class. Demos include pictures and movies.

Piezoelectric Bimorph for Wireless Microsystem: Involved student Zahid Sagiroglu under supervision of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Senol Mutlu. The purpose of the project is to develop a wireless and batteryless microsystem which harvest solar energy through a solar cell. A piezoelectric bimorph is formed using two strips of piezoelectric polymers. The bimorph bends up and down upon applying AC voltages with a magnitude of 30-50 volts. An electronic circuit is implemented that converts low DC voltage of the solar cell to a higher AC voltages. In the realized system, the bimorph starts to vibrate once the solar cell is illuminated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Measuring Rotation Rate and Acceleration of an Object: This is a one-semester project involving faculty member, Senol Mutlu, and senior student, Cagsun Acemoglu. Cagsun has made a PCB that measures the accelereation and rotation rate of that PCB using a microcontroller and a MEMS accelerometer and a gyroscope with digital outputs. His PCB communicates with a PC via a USB port. As he rotates the PCB on his hands, a virtual object on the computer screen rotates similar to the real PCB. Also the rotation rate history is reported on the screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Head Tracking System: This is a two-semester project involving faculty member, Senol Mutlu, and senior student, Enes Furkan Kahya. Enes has made a PCB that gives information to a PC about its orientation. This PCB uses a microcontroller and a MEMS accelerometer and a gyroscope with analog outputs. He uses an RS-232 port for communication. As he rotates the PCB on his hands, a virtual object on the computer screen changes its orientation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inductively Coupled Wirelessly Powered Sensory System: This is a two-semester project involving faculty member, Senol Mutlu, and senior students, Pelin Ayerden and Alp Cibilli. No battery, no cables. How come the LEDs on the right picture are on? The answer is that this circuit is powered by an inductive link between a wireless transponder and a reader. The color and the light intensity of the LEDs show the magnitude of the induced voltage on the LC tank of the transponder, which is configured for a resonans frequency of 3.5 MHz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Designing Complete Electrical System of a Soccer Playing Robot Team: This is a two-semester project involving faculty member, Mehmet Akar, and senior students, Burak Yoldemir and Soner Isiksal. The aim is to design the electronic circuit board for an autonomously soccer playing robot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design And Implementation of GSM Blocking Circuit: This is a one-semester project involving faculty member, Avni Morgul, and senior student, Serhat Aydogdu. The implemented circuit disables the celluar phones within a ten meter radius when turned on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iCare Room Project: This is a two-semester project involving four faculty members; Levent Arslan, Isil Bozma, Aysin Baytan Ertuzun and Murat Saraclar and five students; Secil Gonenc Tarakcioglu, Isil Burcu Barla, Selen Ozgur, Sercan Tuz and Serkan Uygungelen. Please click the movie link on the right for the demo of the students. In the movie, students give Turkish commands to turn on and off a light bulb and a fan from a patient bed. Also commands to control the movements of a virtual robot are given. The computer recognizes the commands, converts the speech to text and transfers the commands to the related driving circuit boards. Then, the light is turned on and off via a circuit board connected to the internet in the remote site.

The Striker Robot in the Penalty Box: Involved student Serdar Kocaman under supervision of Prof. Dr. Kemal Ciliz. The purpose of the project is to develop a robot which can automatically find the location of the ball and kick it through the goal. This robot is analyzed in terms of the autonomy of the device, detection system, moving algorithm, shooting mechanism and the motor type. It had been fabricated in the lab according to the analysis results. A webcam has been located on the top of the field and computer takes pictures occasionally depending on the ball, robot locations. Data coming from the webcam has been processed by MATLAB using the user defined new functions. Image processing result has been transmitted to the robot via a wireless communication interface. A microcontroller on the robot receives this data and drives the motors according to the data.

 

 

Improved Design of Chaotic Circuits: Involved student: Erdogan Topçu. Involved faculty: Oguzhan Çiçekoglu. The purpose of this project was to investigate the operation of various chaos-generating circuits in the literature. Improvement and simplification possibility of these circuits were considered. Also, some circuit parameters were modifided in an analog manner. Alternative circuits were proposed and designed. The chaos theory was studied.
Development of a Prototype for RFID Based Warehouse Management Systems & Anti-Collision Algorithms for RFID : Involved students: Alper Yesilyurt and Mustafa Orhan Dirik under supervision of Asst. Prof. Kivanc Mihcak. This project is related to the design of an architecture and software for an RFID system running on the computers of the system’s architecture. A warehouse RFID system has been successfully demonstrated by the students using commercially available RFID tags and antennas (see pictures below). The architecture of the system and its software are compatible with any RFID reader hardware and software product and efficient for a typical RFID warehouse management system. It implements tasks of a classical barcode system, hence is able to be used for classical barcode systems too. However, main considerations of the project is concentrated on the differences and important properties of the RFID technology.
Tag collision problem in radio frequency identification systems arise when a single reader tries to identify a tag population. Since the tags considered here are passive tags (those unable to communicate with each other) the messages sent by multiple tags collide at the reader end and give rise to loss of information, which makes it impossible to identify any tags unless extra precautionary measures are taken into account. Some of the methods suggested in the literature are not compatible with the standards due to their publication dates that are earlier than the standardization process has completed. Here, an anti-collision algorithm has been designed which is compatible with the standards and simulation results showing that the accuracy of identifying the tags is 100%.

Digital Oscilloscope Adapter Unit for a PC:

Involved students: Ahmet Tutus, Murat Kebeli, Dursun Baran, Omer Faruk Ozdemir. Involved faculty: Avni Morgul, Omer Cerid. The purpose of this project is to produce a digital storage oscilloscope to operate as an adapter to any PC via USB port. Students have successfully made a demonstration of their design working (see pictures below).

The project consists of three tasks:
i. Design and construct a 9-bits or 10 bits Analog-to-Digital converter block with high input impedance and high speed.

ii. Design and construct a USB interface between the A/D converter hardware and PC and writing the necessary software modul for the interface.

iii. Writing the high level software on the PC to display the waveforms and do the necessary measurements and calculations (Frequency, amplitude, RMS, FFT etc.)
EM Field Measurement in Primary Schools which are Close to Transmitters and GSM Base Stations: Involved student: Akif Emre Cetinkaya, Involved faculty: Avni Morgul. In this project theoretical and experimental assessment of radio frequency exposure due to cellular base station antennas and transmitters is treated. The Field Strength E and Power Density are measured using a portable R&S spectrum analyzer. Then the data are simulated in MATLAB. Measurements in the primary schools have been done by the student (see pictures below)
Wireless Sensor Networks in Robotics Localization: Involved student: Nargiz Kalantarova. Involved faculty: H. Isil Bozma. Wireless sensor network (WSN) is one of the most important technologies of our century. Localization is one of the most interesting and challenging problem for WSNs. In this project ultrasonic sensors are used to measure distances precisely. This allows to know and report locations in WSNs.