S p e c i a l T h a n k s t o

O u r J u d g e s • O u r P a r ti c i p a ti n g V i t e r b i

S e n i o r s • C a p s t o n e F a c u l t y • V i t e r b i

A d m i s s i o n & S t u d e n t A ff a i r s

Project Name & Description Team Members Course

Intersection Management Policies for Autonomous Vehicles

I will build a simple discrete space-time simulation of two intersecting roads on which cars are driving autonomously with access to the intersection managed by a central controller. The goal of the simulations is to quantitatively study three different intersection management policies: 1. always let cars on one of the roads have priority 2. randomly choose between the roads 3. always let cars on the more crowded road have priority

Angela Zhang EE 459L

Lantern AGP

A Virtual Reality Puzzle game that evokes wonder and curiosity as players use fine motor skills to solve puzzle boxes.

Valerie Lin Eric Hsieh Anek (Nick) Baweja Tristan Bridge Naomi Granado Sara Chen Kenneth Chen Michael Duan Jason Hwang Noah Bukhari Sneha Patkar Zijing Liu Jesse Werner Katherine Moses Josh Lai Devin Li Qingzhou (Steven) Tang Cynthia Liang Yimin Zhang Rena Chen Aimee Zhang Joey Tan Thomas Kelleher Adam Barnett

CSCI 491b

11th Annual

KIUEL

Senior Design

Expo

Friday, April 27, 2018 2:30-4:30 p.m.

Epstein Family Engineering Plaza

Welcome to the USC Viterbi School’s 11th Annual KIUEL Senior Design Expo!

This program showcases the design projects that are completed in the senior capstone engineering courses. The projects are often presented within the class, but rarely to other students, staff, faculty and industry partners. The Senior Design Expo is an opportunity to

Project Name & Description Team Members Course

A-maize-ing Fuel Corp Biofuel

Our team researched and optimized a design for a biofuel production facility. The process utilizes corn stover as feedstock to produce butanol.

Courtney Mercado Sydney Parrish Lisa Luciano Jorge Ortiz Christine Shiau Ivy Yang

CHE 480

Corn Power!

The group project is a design of a biofuel plant in Joliet, Illinois, that processes corn to produce biobutanol via fermentation with Clostridium bacteria strains. The plant produces approximately 45 million gallons of butanol each year along with DDGS, acetone, and ethanol in an energy efficient manner.

Daniela Glaser Conor Lynch June Park James Steele Guanmeng Wang

CHE 480

Biofuels as a Renewable Energy Source

This project entails the front-end plant design and economic analysis of a process to produce a sustainable, alternative fuel for mass distribution and consumption of biobutanol. The process involves the fermentation of corn to turn its carbohydrates into useful and profitable products such as acetone, ethanol, butanol, and dried distiller grains.

Alvin Tran Kevin Hsu Hefzi-ba Camilo De Moya Xiaotong Ma Matthew Lee Jay Lee

CHE 480

Optimized Biobutanol Production Using ABE Fermentation with Clostridium

Similar to ethanol, butanol can be produced from corn, but it has a higher heating value than ethanol and thus could prove to be a superior fuel additive. We have designed and evaluated the economics of a plant that can produce 45 million gallons of biobutanol per year from corn through the fermentation of Clostridium. We seek to show if this design proves to be sustainable enough to potentially allow for biobutanol to provide a viable biofuel alternative from ethanol.

Trevin Kurtanich Alan Wang Reza Talieh Jeremy O’Sullivan Matthew Dods Patrick Placido

CHE 480

Project Name & Description Team Members Course

Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallet

We have created an integrated approach to POS cryptocurrency interactions. Through the use of WiFi and encrypted hardware storage, we have allowed people to interact with their cryptocurrency investments to actively buy and sale at their own convenience. We aim to democratize the use of cryptocurrencies as a decentralized currency to purchase and sell goods.

Stephen Zimmerman Haopeng Song Kody Ferguson

EE 459

Smart Home Alarm System

Our smart home alarm system will be used to alert homeowners of burglaries and intrusions by monitoring motion inside the home. If suspicious activity is detected, the system will sound the alarm, capture a photo, and send a push notification to the owner.

Joseph Powell Natalie Ramsy Philip Wong

EE 459

Smart Plant Watering System

Our device has a central module that allows you to check the status of each of your plants, adjust their watering patterns, ensure that the remote modules are connected, and check if there is enough water in the water container. Each plant will have a remote module included that sits in your plant’s pot to check the moisture level of the plant and ensure that enough moisture is provided. Our system will automatically water your plant when the moisture level falls below a desired amount. Say goodbye to dead plants!

Aashka Damani Wenhan Fan Erik Martin Joshua Troglia

EE 459

Smart Security: Design of a Smart Door Lock System

Designed primarily for residential use, this smart door lock system enhances both the convenience and security involved in locking and unlocking doors. The system features technologies such as fingerprint recognition, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and motion detection that contribute to an expansive set of functionalities.

Elizabeth Fohsta-Lynch Andrew Ng Sid Tai Han Xu

EE 459Lx

Automated Greenhouse

Our senior design project is a device that holds your plant and simulates the environment it needs to thrive! All you have to do is set the temperature, water needed, and sunlight exposure your plant needs and our device does the rest!

Zhaoqi Chen Travis Dang Miguel Gallegos Tvisha Gangwani

EE 459

Project Name & Description Team Members Course

Active Vibration Damping with Piezoelectric Actuators

Application of active vibration damping using piezoelectrics has been used to protect important sensors and mechanisms in spacecraft, aircraft, and rockets. This project applied the same technology on a much smaller scale, quadcopters, where vibration from powerful thrusters on the arms threatens the sensitive internal measurement unit within.

Chris Booker Ethan Geipel James Parra Alan Simonini

AME 441

Stress Neutralizing Education for Kids (SNEK)

Stress Neutralizing Education for Kids (SNEK) is an innovative biofeedback solution for children with anger management and emotional control issues. Sensors collecting skin temperature, heart rate, and skin conductance information provide scientifically verified monitoring of stress as children play the popular game Snake. By using Snake as an incentive to strengthen emotional control, SNEK makes children's therapy something they can look forward to.

Reese Dorrepaal John Schwartz III Virginia Lane Hope Miller

BME 405

Thermal homeostasis using microstructured phase-change materials

Spacecraft are subject to large external temperature variations, potentially from 150 K to 400 K. Under such variation, the performance and lifetime of general electronics is reduced, making thermal management schemes attractive. Here, we model micropatterned phase-change materials to design an efficient, solid-state thermal control systems, which requires no external input power.

Shao-Hua Wu Mingkun Chen Michael Barako Vladan Jankovic Philip Hon Luke Sweatlock Michelle Povinelli

EE 494

notGuitar

notGuitar is a real-time Digital Signal Processing (DSP) system that takes input from a guitar, and outputs audio containing the same melody played by the guitar, but with the timbre of a saxophone. While all commercial systems for real-time timbre alterations use some form of MIDI conversion and/or pre-recorded samples, notGuitar functions solely by manipulating the amplitude and frequency content of the input signal, thereby preserving more of the musician's expressiveness.

Jatin Chowdhury Joey Hall Paul Chyz

EE 434

Project Name & Description Team Members Course

DESIGN OF A CORN ETHANOL PLANT TO PRODUCE BIO-BUTANOL by Famous Fermenters

The current depletion of fossil fuel presents a favorable timing for entry into the biobutanol market. Our proposed design aims to produce 45 MM US gallons of biobutanol per year via continuous fermentation of corn using a genetically engineered strain of Clostridia. The production of bio-butanol could be used as a solvent, chemical intermediate, extract agent, and also as a promising fuel due to its high heat value, high viscosity, and low volatility.

Ravi Bhandia Rachel Cheung Daniel Linderman Lihao Dai Xinge Zhang

CHE 480

Fermentation of Corn to Produce Biobutanol through Liquid-Liquid Extraction

This project examined the complete design of a biofuel plant: from the fermentation of corn to produce ABE (acetone, butanol, ethanol), to complete chemical proess simulation, to a thorough economic analysis of the project. This presentation will focus on the use of Liquid Liquid Extraction (LLE) to separate the ABE products for sale.

Nina Desai Spencer Fox Spencer Gilbert Anna Reich Kevin Ye Nancy Zhou

CHE 480

Plant Design for the Production of Biobutanol through ABE Fermentation

Our project is a front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for a biodiesel production facility near Joliet, IL. This process uses ABE fermentation by Clostridium acetobutylicum to produce biobutanol from corn. Our work included detailed process design, economic analysis, and addressing environmental and safety concerns.

Andrew Friedman Melissa Keckley Matthew Luo Nicole Roos Jesse Yang

CHE 480

Production of Butanol as Biofuel via Extractive Fermentation

ABE fermentation is a process by which sugars and starches are broken down into a mixture of acetone, butanol, and ethanol (ABE) by the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum. Although displaced in recent decades by petrochemical processes, interest in the process has been renewed by concerns about sustainability and the possibility of using butanol as an alternative fuel. We have designed a plant to produce 40 million gallons per year of butanol using shelled corn.

Donald Mathews Maria Bacci Emily Palmer Sophie Pepin Peter Roberson Erynn Naccarelli

CHE 480

Project Name & Description Team Members Course

Strategic Production of Biobutanol from Corn

In this project, a complete front-end engineering and design study of a biobutanol from corn production facility is performed. Uniquely, this design achieves minimized energy consumption, reduced water usage, and increased purity and production rate of biobutanol product above the design specification. Strategic design decisions, driven by economic analysis, include implementing gas stripping as an In Situ Product Recovery (ISPR) technique, a five-column butanol separation strategy, and internal use of steam (from the evaporator), acetone, and ethanol to offset utility usage.

Joelle Burkhardt Lauren Champeau Natalie Helms Rachel Hindmarsh Jill Leva Rebecca Thoss

CHE 480

Butanol Plant Design Project

We are designing a chemical plant located within the city limits of Joliet, Illinois. This plant produces acetone, butanol, and ethanol utilizing the ABE process. All kinds of factors are taken into account.

Jonathan Fuentes Omar Garcia Chen Liang Sophie Lin Edna Ochoa Jaunty Okhovat

CHE 580

Incuscope

Tissue and cell culture require significant time investment in consistent qualitative observation. Maintaining sterility throughout daily breaches is also expensive. Our solution is Incuscope, a microscope rig that images cell cultures from within the incubator allowing a researcher to observe his cells from their lab bench or at home, such that incubation conditions are preserved, and time and resources are saved.

David Sutter Isis Wyche Pavan Shah Zach Laufer Eric Deng

BME 405

Project Shelldon

Project Shelldon uses data analytics to allow caregivers to evaluate a child’s mental development in order to contribute to the early detection of mental afflictions. To accomplish this goal, Shelldon, an interactive toy, converts a child's performance on executive functioning tasks into real-time developmental feedback and insights.

Nikita Dhesikan Jeffrey Doan

BME 405

Sprinter Cell

The Sprinter Cell observes the current running technique of the user by measuring data from various sensors, then provides an evaluation of running form as well as suggestions for changes and exercises to strengthen the muscles crucial for good form. The Sprinter Cell combines a heart rate monitor, accelerometer and Kinect Camera sensor to record data from the user and ultimately provide feedback through the user interface.

Zahia Tawil Naomi Takabayashi Lauren Chase Chandler Stormo

BME 405

Project Name & Description Team Members Course

Refrigerator Inventory System

Our project is designed to allow people to keep track of all of the items they have in their refrigerator with an interface that can be remotely accessed. The project utilizes RFID tags and readers to track when objects are put into the refrigerator, or when they are taken out which allows a real-time list of the things that are currently in a refrigerator. This project could have potential applications in any kind of refrigeration system, whether it's a home refrigerator, commercial refrigerator, or refrigerators used in medical supply inventories.

William Behenna Logan Silliman Tim Hu

EE 459Lx

Prosthetic Spinal Cord for Tetraplegic Patient

Designed and implemented an environment to help the development of a prosthetic spinal chord for tetraplegic patients. The environment utilizes Virtual Reality in accordance with an EEG in effort to allow a patient to control a cadaver's hand using their brain signals.

Sofia Hurtado Forrest Dunlap Nicholas Terrile Carl Eubanks Justin Ku Arfan Rehab

CSCI 401

Magnetorheological Universal Gripper

Compliant grippers attached to robotic systems are necessary for interacting with complex geometric objects because their universal utility allows repeated operation. Sensitive or fragile targets also require compliance to mitigate damage and therefore, a deformable surface to partially encompass the entity would be ideal for containment. For maintaining the hold, a magnetorheological fluid under a constant applied magnetic field provides the needed rigidity, hence the development of the Magnetorheological Universal Gripper.

Enrique Jacobo Justin Jenkins Megan Gray

AME 441

Biofeedback Device for the Correction of Postural Kyphosis

Posture Perfect is a unique, smart personal trainer that is intended to correct your postural kyphosis. It works by using an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and an electromyogram to help you achieve proper body alignment and healthier living.

Tilden Chima Alyssa Naritoku Daniel Donchev Madeline Combs Jeffrey Qian

BME 405L

Experimental Evaluation of a 2D Flutter Model

Experimentally evaluating a simplified 2D flutter model on a 2D and 3D experiment by comparing the critical speed and frequency of oscillations.

William Clontz Ivan Fuentes Katelyn Gerlach Derek Schinke

AME 441