Electrical & Computer Engineering

MEMBERS: Raymond Donkemezuo, Nguyen Ton, Salman Khan, Santiango Diaz

ADVISOR: Abu Asaduzzaman

SPONSOR: MKEC's Engineering Service

MKEC Engineering Services is a full-service engineering and land planning organization that provides engineering feasibility and design services to both commercial and governmental sectors. They also create 3D models for farms and businesses interested in collecting manure for natural gas and use software such as ETAP and AutoCAD to build, import, export, and amend cable schedules. Our team's aim is to establish a centralized software platform for MKEC Engineering Services that will allow them to view, share, and edit their design specifications in real time.

MEMBERS: Declan Dsouza, Aaron Isaacs, Brayden Cary, Connor Howell, Abraham Oatman 

ADVISOR: Yanwu Ding

SPONSOR: Textron Aviation

The current aviation industry standard for CAN communication is the ARINC 429 standard. However, this standard has now become outdated and newer versions like ARINC 825 have emerged. ARINC 825 supports bi-directional data transfer, faster speeds and allows for more nodes to communicate on the CAN bus. We will be developing three circuit boards to read six discrete inputs and an analog input (representing an arbitrary real world metric like temperature or altitude). The Microcontroller on the board will then package and send the data out onto the CAN bus through a Holt ARINC 825 transceiver. Once all the boards on the bus have received the data, we will send the ARINC 429 version of the data to an output header on the main board since we do not have ARINC 825 analyzers at this time. The output data will be read using an ARINC 429 analyzer. We will compare the inputs and outputs to see if any data corruption occurred. Textron plans to use the data gathered from this project to understand how the new standard works and if it will be feasible to implement ARINC 825 in their airplanes. We will be utilizing a STM32 microcontroller along with Holt transceivers for the ARINC 825 and ARINC 429 standards.

MEMBERS: Koy Light, Joel Lewis, John Leigh, Odessa Olien

ADVISOR: Abu Asaduzzaman

SPONSORS: Braden Schoenthaler, Christopher Johnson, Connor Sites, Kenneth Cumming, Andrew Johnson (Wichita, KS)

Textron Aviation was in need of a solution for automating the testing of Garmin Touchscreen Controllers (GTC) in the cockpits of Citation Longitude airplanes. The Garmin Touchscreen controllers are the primary devices used to interact with the Garmin Avionics Flight Deck used on the Citation Longitude. The task of testing the Garmin Touchscreen Controllers when completed manually takes up a considerable amount of man hours. This is Textron's main motivation for seeking a better solution. Our deliverables for this project are expanded solutions for automating highly repetitive sections of Textron's regression testing procedure for the GTC device using python and a modified 3D-Printer Textron already had. We will also be delivering supporting documentation for these solutions including multiple block diagrams and a Operation & Maintenance manual to aid in ease of use with even inexperienced operators.

MEMBERS: Austin Mills, Conner Blase, DeMarcus Thomas, Reece Courson 

ADVISOR: Chengzong Pang

SPONSOR: McConnell Air Force Base (Wichita, KS)

McConnell Air Force Base is developing an autonomous vehicle to scan the base's perimeter for security breaches. Our group is creating its battery management system which will regulate battery temperature, monitor battery use, and efficiently charge the battery.

MEMBERS: Jeremy Anderson, Brendan Murphy

ADVISOR: Dr. John Watkins

SPONSOR: National Institute for Aviation Research - Environmental Test Laboratories (Reid Owens)

This project, sponsored by Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research - Environmental Test Laboratories (NIAR - ETL), aims to develop and implement a robust, secure, and reliable automated system to measure, record, process, and transmit environmental condition data such as temperature, relative humidity and pressure.

MEMBERS: Thane Unruh, Cameron Noggle, Hongsen Tian

ADVISOR: Dr. Visvakumar Aravinthan

SPONSOR: Textron Aviation (Wichita, KS)

The PCB is designed to monitor the output of a cooling fan and send an alarm if the fan is not functioning properly. There are many requirements for the PCB. 1) Generic components 2) Pass all DO-160 Environmental Tests 3) Must operate reliably with power ranging from 10-80V 4) Easily configurable hysteresis and frequency threshold 5) PCB size: 0.5 x 0.5 x 1.5 inches 6) Discrete output

MEMBERS: Jesus Nogues, Raasikh Ahmed, Steven Velazquez, Zahra Alsuntan

ADVISOR: Dr. Pang

SPONSOR: Evergy (Wichita, KS)

Development of a prototype that will be able to tell evergy’s linemens about the cause of the fault before they go to the field to fix it Normally faults can be Lightning, wildlife or vegetation. Our project’s goal is to identify the cause of the fault when it happens.

MEMBERS: Marshall Kelley, Alberto Pino, Bang Tra, Jason Nguyen, Trang Ngo

ADVISOR: Dr. Visvakumar Aravinthan

SPONSOR: United States Air Force (Wichita, KS)

The research, design, and implementation of a battery system, and charging system for the 'Little Pig' autonomous surveillance ATV built by the U.S Air Force. The expected deliverables are a range of 25 miles with charging available from multiple sources. In this case we are providing AC charging via wall outlet, DC-DC charging from Little Pig Solar project, and DC-DC charging using a boost converter to allow them to charge it off of a Humvee if necessary. 

MEMBERS: Drew Goins, Joshua Delia, Tony Gregorovic, Tony Hong

ADVISOR: Arun Manoharan

SPONSOR: United States Air Force

The senior design team is expected to investigate, design, and build a remote solar power station. The power station should be developed to charge multiple systems, one being the Little Pig. Consideration needs to be made for manufacturing and production costs as the product may be developed for a commercial market.

MEMBERS: Zachary Towle, Taylor Nguyen, Munashe Chipezeze

ADVISOR: Arun Manoharan

SPONSOR: McConnell Air Force Base (Wichita, KS)

This Spring 2023 semester saw the beginning of the first half of the Senior Design Project as prescribed to all Electrical and Computer Engineering students at Wichita State University. The “Portable Solar Power Station” project came to realization as a partnership with McConnell Air Force Base (AFB) in Wichita, KS. The goal of the project, as described by officials at McConnell AFB, is to design and build a power station using solar panels to be used in remote locations. This solar power station can be used in a variety of applications to charge multiple kinds of systems. One of these systems being the Little Pig, a rover to be used by the military in remote locations. The Little Pig has been in the works in McConnell AFB’s Innovation lab since the start of the Fall 2022 semester by a prior group of students currently in Senior Design II. There are several aspects to the Little Pig and its necessitated charging system that our group has been involved in. As the project came to fruition, special considerations needed to be taken in as to the manufacturing costs of the rover, and how these costs are reflected onto the commercial market. The power station needed to meet technical specifications as prescribed by McConnell AFB. Some of these specifications included the need for a 120 VAC charging base, a operational temperature range, and a 48 V battery base.

MEMBERS: Hugo Joaquin Marin De Giacomi, Levi Brummer, Kolade Oke, Shaik Mohammed Khader 

ADVISOR: Dr. John Watkins

SPONSOR: CNH Industrial (Wichita, KS)

The team is working with CNHi on a project to develop a fully functional skid steer driving simulator. The simulator will model skid steer dynamics. The simulation will receive inputs from an external joystick that is provided by the CNHi and provide desired output on a visualization software. The visualization software will provide the driver with a visual representation of the Skid Steer. Up till now, Testing skid steer dynamics required physically utilizing skid steer in order to examine their efficiency. Our project will allow for portability of the testing facilities and is a safer alternative for teaching drivers than utilizing skid steers and causing wear and tear on Skid Steers.

MEMBERS: Andrew Johnson, Eyerusalem Hadush, Brian Deines, Michael Sonexarth

ADVISOR: Dr. Visvakumar Aravinthan

Instead of focusing on the entire power system in Western Kansas, we were instead told that we would be focusing on a singular small town in Kansas instead of an entire half of the state. We will be given a schematic of the town’s power system and our group will use software, such as PowerWorld to perform circuit analysis on the system to see how the solar powered system should be implemented and what to do with the energy created. Our group was also given a budget from Sunflower Electric to work with, and with this budget we will do research into solar panel models, batteries, and buses to connect the system to see how a solar powered system would impact a town in Western Kansas.

MEMBERS: Ivan Macias, Rakan Ghaith, Newton Grady, Tyrell Burns

ADVISOR: Dr. Ali Eslami

SPONSOR: Honeywell (Kansas City, MO)

The SurfaceComb Team is developing a system of tools which will scan polished metallic surfaces in hopes to detect and classify defects. The defects we are hoping to classify will fall in the micrometer resolution scope. Our project hopes to utilize an affordable sensor which will use AI gradient search specified to HoneyWell’s definitions. The difficulties of our project are rooted in the defect definitions of depth less than 150 micrometers. The current industry’s best sensors have just begun to reach these shallow depths, those solutions do tend to cost tens of thousands of dollars of dollars. While there are a few alternatives that use physical applications to measure the surfaces, limitations involved are maintenance and reusability granted they cost of entry is less than or around one thousand dollars. Our team has proposed to use open-source research of laser triangulation or IR sensors to gain the desired scope of resolution. We hope to comb the surface efficiently and with high accuracy, our goal is to mitigate the potential errors that come with human intervention.

MEMBERS: Jordan Mugmon, Eduardo Santillan, Devin Williams, Olatunbosun Fagbemi, Uriel Gloire Mbengu Batukandikila

ADVISOR: Andy Stallard

Our team was paired with Wichita State to make a device that improves existing rain sensors and adds new features and design elements. Design considerations include an elevated level of accuracy and easy cleaning without the use of harsh chemicals. It will also need to withstand extreme weather and work in remote areas. Our goal is to meet our clients needs to the best of our abilities using our robust and diverse engineering skills.