Senior Design Projects
Welcome to the Senior Design Program in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering! The Senior Design Program serves as a capstone experience for students, bridging the gap between academic learning and real-world engineering practice. This two-semester program provides students with the opportunity to apply their knowledge, skills, and creativity to tackle complex, open-ended engineering problems while working in a team-based environment. Senior Design not only prepares students for their professional careers but also enables them to contribute meaningful solutions to current technological challenges.
Program Structure
The Senior Design Program spans two regular semesters, excluding summer, and consists of two courses: ECE 492 and ECE 493. In the first semester, students enroll in ECE 492, where they focus on project selection, problem definition, literature review, requirements analysis, and initial design work. This course emphasizes project planning, research, and foundational development, ensuring a strong start to the design process. In the second semester, students continue in ECE 493, concentrating on the implementation, testing, and refinement of their designs. By the end of this course, students will present their completed projects through technical reports, presentations, and demonstrations.
Project Selection Process
Students choose a Senior Design project by contacting the sponsoring professor associated with the project of interest. Professors serve as mentors and provide guidance throughout the design and development phases. Each project offers unique opportunities for students to delve into cutting-edge topics, collaborate with peers, and address real-world challenges. Whether focusing on hardware, software, or a combination of both, students will gain invaluable hands-on experience.
Current Senior Design Projects
Below is a list of the current Senior Design projects available to students. Each project is led by a sponsoring professor who is dedicated to supporting student success. Explore these projects to find one that aligns with your interests and career aspirations.
We encourage students to actively engage with professors and peers, making the most of this transformative learning experience. The Senior Design Program is an exciting journey, and we look forward to seeing the innovative solutions our students create!
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Bradley Jackson, brad.jackson@csun.edu
Project Description:
Smart antennas combine antenna arrays with digital signal processing to enable the ability to sense the environment and dynamically adjust radiation characteristics. In this senior design project, wide bandwidth smart antenna arrays are being designed for application on small satellites. The project includes the design, simulation, and measurement of broadband circularly polarized antenna arrays and microwave circuits, as well as the development of digital signal processing algorithms, and automated testbeds for characterizing the performance of prototypes in CSUN’s anechoic chamber.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Bradley Jackson, brad.jackson@csun.edu
Project Description:
Design and test a complete X-band (8 GHz - 12 GHz) radar system
that is capable of detecting and tracking an unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV, or drone).
Software design: Digital signal processing, programming software defined radios
Hardware design: RF/microwave circuit design and testing, antenna design and testing
Faculty Advisor: Rasoul Narimani, rasoul.narimani@csun.edu
Project Description:
This project focuses on the development of an energy management device designed to leverage electricity price arbitrage, ultimately reducing electricity bills for end-users. The key functionalities include:
- Electricity Price Arbitrage: We aim to optimize cost savings by charging a battery during periods of low electricity prices and discharging it during high-price periods.
- Load Shifting: To avoid demand charge fees, we implement a load-shifting strategy, moving energy consumption from peak to non-peak hours.
This project provides students with a hands-on experience in designing and implementing solutions that address real-world challenges in energy management.
Faculty Advisor: Ashley Geng, xjgeng@csun.edu
Project Description:
This project focus on developing a robust navigation system tailored for Mars Science Helicopters. Dual processors and coprocessors running Linux will be implemented to execute state estimation algorithms. System components include main processors, coprocessors, flight controller, fault management unit, IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), LRF (Laser Range Finder), and stereo cameras.
Faculty Advisor: Ashley Geng, xjgeng@csun.edu
Project Description:
The focus of the project is to develop drones that capable of autonomous flight for search and rescue operations, without the need for human intervention. Key components of the system include an autopilot flight controller, a Raspberry Pi, speed controllers, motors, and various sensors.
Faculty Advisor: Michael Cho, michael.cho@csun.edu
Project Description:
Design and construct an autonomous ground vehicle equipped with LiDAR, ultrasonic, and camera sensors. The vehicle will travel to a predetermined point in space, capture a video recording of the expedition, and construct a three-dimensional model of the path taken.
Faculty Advisor: Sahabul Alam, md-sahabul.alam@csun.edu
Project Description:
The senior design students on this project are developing an optical communication system using lasers that will be able to establish and maintain links on orbit with a capacity of 1 Gb/s at separations of 200km between satellites. Students are need for transmitter and receiver designs and to develop aiming and tracking algorithms.
Faculty Advisor: Sahabul Alam, md-sahabul.alam@csun.edu
Project Description:
Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where traditional hardware components (like filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators) are replaced by software. SDR enables the testing of digital communication protocols and modulation schemes which can improve data transfer efficiency. SDRs are used in cellular networks, military communications, emergency services, satellite communications, and more. For instance, in cellular networks, base stations can utilize SDR to support multiple standards, such as 3G, 4G, and 5G. In this project, the N210 will be used to design and implement simplified 5G communication protocols.
Faculty Advisor: Sahabul Alam, md-sahabul.alam@csun.edu
Project Description:
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have been extensively deployed in recent years in a variety of applications. The concept of providing cellular connectivity to UAV nodes is relatively a new idea. Cellular networks for terrestrial communications, for example, ubiquitous cell towers called base stations (aka access points) to provide connectivity for cell phones, are encountered in everyday life and have been studied extensively. Engineers have a firm grasp on the requirements and common issues encountered when designing such a system. However, when it comes to UAVs, engineers still appear to be coming across new challenges. In this senior design project, 5G transceivers will be designed to provide cellular connectivity for UAV nodes where the UAV nodes will act as a user equipment (UE). For this, any communication node (access point or UE) can be composed of a software defined radio (SDR) and a laptop/desktop/Raspberry Pi based on the complexity where the digital processing in the laptop/Raspberry Pi can be accomplished in GNU radio.
Faculty Advisor: Somnath Chattopadhyay, somnath.chattopadhyay@csun.edu
Project Description:
Senior design students are designing and building an ultrasonic transponder system to be used with robotic vehicles in navigation and location. Students are needed for analog transmitter and receiver designs, signal processing and programming.
Faculty Advisor: Somnath Chattopadhyay, somnath.chattopadhyay@csun.edu
Project Description:
Design a charger using GaN (gallium nitride) technology with low power loss and fast charging features.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ruting Jia, ruting.jia@csun.edu
Project Description:
Open to students in ECE or ME. The goal of this project is to design a fuzzy logic controller / fuzzy inference system with simulation or hardware implementation to achieve various control objectives for a variety of applications, including but not limited to Face recognition, Handwriting Recognition, Robot Arm Control, Gas Turbine’s speed control, Cruise Control, Solar Panel MPPT System, Drone flight control, EV Breaking System and Traffic Light Control, etc.
Specific Tasks of this Project Include:
- Programming in MATLAB, C/C++ to design the Fuzzy Inference System/ Fuzzy Logic Controller,
- design and implementing algorithms,
- if hardware included, process the sensor data and working with microprocessors,
- integrating software and hardware designs are also required.
- Robotic Assembly in Space (Prof. Schaal) - christoph.schaal@csun.edu
- CSUN Aeronautics (Prof. Mahjoob) - shadi.mahjoob@csun.edu
Reach out to these professors for more information if you are interested.
Note: If you work on a project from a different department, you still need to complete all requirements of ECE 492/493 (these will likely be different that the requirements in other departments). This includes the individual and group reports and presentations following the instructions/deadlines provided on Canvas for ECE 492/493.