2001/2002 PROJECTS
DAY
Schedule
CLINIC DESCRIPTIONS
Computer
Science | Computer Science/Engineering
Engineering
| Mathematics | Physics
COMPUTER
SCIENCE CLINIC
|
THE
AEROSPACE CORPORATION |
AUDITUDE.COM Performance Independent Melody Recognition Liaison: Nicholas
Seet ’99 Advisor: Robert Keller Students: Jason Yelinek (TL), Matt Brubeck, Joshdan Griffin, Eric Huang The team has developed software that identifies songs based
on monophonic audio performances of the song, and has reported on research
toward the more difficult problem of recognizing songs from polyphonic
performances. This software is intended to complement Auditude’s existing
technology that recognizes commercially recorded performances in real
time. |
|
THE
BOEING COMPANY/ATM Design and Prototype of Low-Cost Weather
Information System for General Aviation Liaison: James Hanson
’64 Advisor: Geoffrey
Kuenning Students: Cora Hussey (TL), Christopher Lee, Jonathan Morley, Morgan Wagner,
Neilsen Yu Foul weather contributes to aviation
accidents and delays. To enhance aviation safety, The Boeing Company
wishes to develop a low cost method to display real-time weather data
in the cockpit of general aviation aircraft.
The Clinic team has designed and developed a system that gathers
weather data, obtains GPS coordinates, and graphically displays that
data on the screen of a Compaq iPaq PDA, in a form that is familiar
to and usable by pilots. |
ENVIRONMENTAL
SYSTEMS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC. Algorithms and Data Structures for
Time-Dependent Networks Liaison: Dale Honeycutt Advisor: Ran Libeskind-Hadas Students: Kylie Evans ’03(TL), Nathaniel Dirksen, Melissa Chase ’03, Jacob
Creed ESRI provides tools for capturing, storing and analyzing networks
of virtually any type, from highways to electrical wiring. This project
augments ESRI's system with the ability to represent networks where
the cost of traversing an edge changes with time, and to solve shortest-path
queries on these new time-dependent networks. This will allow ESRI's
customers to model bus schedules, rush-hour traffic, and similar phenomena,
allowing greater accuracy in determining shortest paths. |
|
I/O
SOFTWARE, INC. Biometrically Enabling Web Liaison: Edward
Evers Advisor: Joshua Hodas Students: Jocelyn Chew (TL), Michael Cramblett, Donald Lawton, Daniel Phiffer I/O Software is a leading developer
of security software using biometrics to restrict access to data and
applications on computers. They have asked the team to extend their
software's capabilities to securing access to web pages. This product,
in the form of server-side and client-side plug-ins, performs a biometrically-enabled
user verification sequence between the local user's browser and a remote
database to control access to online assets. |
MARINE
BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY Multilevel Parallelization of the
Smith-Waterman Algorithm Liaison: Michael
Cummings Advisor: Elizabeth
Sweedyk Students: Ben Zeckel (TL Spring), Kurt Dresner (TL Fall), Drew Levin, Andrew
Magis, Eric Ong A common task in molecular biology
is the search for similarity between a given strand of DNA or protein
and the sequences in a database such as GenBank. The most accurate search
programs aimed at this problem are based on the Smith-Waterman algorithm.
Typical open-source implementations are slow while fast commercial implementations
are quite expensive. We have implemented a parallelized version intended
to be freely distributed while being performance competitive with commercial
packages. |
|
OPTIVUS
TECHNOLOGY, INC. Proton Beam Treatment
System Vacuum Monitoring and Control System Liaisons: Sasha Beloussov,
Rich Jackson Advisor: Geoffrey
Kuenning Students: Patrick Vinograd (TL), Saba Ahmad (CMC), Geoffrey Romer ’03, Aaron
Clark The team has developed a distributed
software system that allows centralized monitoring and automated control
of a large number of vacuum devices. It will be used in proton beam-based
cancer treatment facilities where an extensive vacuum system is needed
to treat patients. Optivus, providing technical oversight and support
for Loma Linda University Medical Center's Proton Beam Therapy Center,
will use the system with the goal of preventing vacuum loss and thus
improving patient treatment. |
QUALCOMM
INCORPORATED Software Development Tools for ARM-Based
Wireless Devices Liaison: Eric Lekven
’79 Advisor: Christopher
Stone Students: Roy Shea (TL), Samuel Ahn, Andrew Schoonmaker, Erin Sperry QUALCOMM, Inc. has developed BREW, a software API for ARM-based
handheld devices. BREW enables developers to write applications that
can be run on a variety of such devices, including wireless phones.
The team has been asked to reduce the cost of developing BREW applications
by finding a way to use GNU GCC within the Windows NT/2000 environment
to compile BREW applications for the ARM target, eliminating the need
for the expensive ARM compiler suite. |
|
TERADYNE,
INC. Automatic Generation of Distributed
Service Adapters Liaison: Robert
Varney Advisor: Zachary
Dodds Students: Michael Allen (TL), Aaron
Boyer (Pitzer), Edward Miller ’03, Jason Wither Teradyne asked the team to develop a software tool which,
given a Java interface, generates adapters that would allow programmers
to use Java components in a distributed computing environment in a transparent
fashion. The adapters are themselves
software components that perform translation between two software interfaces.
Additionally, the clinic is to investigate the challenges inherent in
maintaining the usual semantics of a non-distributed programming system
while providing distributed capabilities. |
TERADYNE,
INC. VisiFault Liaison: Robert
Varney Advisor: Robert Keller Students: Hang Tang ’03 (TL), Michael Szal, Don Wang, Stephen Friedman ’03 Teradyne makes automatic test equipment (ATE) for semiconductor
devices. As devices grow more complex, test vectors becomes much larger,
and the time required to analyze the failures grows too long. The team
developed a system, VisiFault, which graphically displays scan failure
results from the ATE and physical fault results from a diagnosis program
so one can quickly pinpoint causes of failures. VisiFault also provides
functions such as aggregation and comparison to help in analyzing the
data.
This project was completed during a ten week full-time effort
during the summer of 2001. |
|
UNITED DEVICES Reimplementation of Scientific Applications
in a Massively Distributed Framework Liaison: Jeffrey
Lawson ’99 Advisor: Melissa
O’Neill Students: Steve DiVerdi (TL), Elmer Kim ’03, Aaron Namba, Megan Thorsen United Devices (UD) provides distributed computing solutions
to clients with a wide range of projects, with a focus on aiding bioinformatics
research. UD has created the UD MetaProcessor platform, a robust, scalable,
and extensible client and server solution for massively distributed
computing. The Clinic team has been tasked with porting two existing
single-machine bioinformatics applications to the MetaProcessor Platform. |
COMPUTER
SCIENCE/ENGINEERING CLINIC
|
CENTER
FOR INTEGRATION OF MEDICINE AND INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY A Distributed Medical Monitoring System
for Real-Time Patient Diagnosis Liaisons: Bill Wiesmann,
Alex Advisor: Ruye Wang Students: Grant Baxter (TL), Adam Fischer, Daniel Lee, Steven Yan Current patient monitoring procedures in hospital intensive
care units generate large volumes of raw patient data. Doctors lack resources to properly process
this data and a significant portion goes unused. Tools capable of detecting long-term trends and correlations within
this data will allow doctors to more accurately diagnose patients. The Clinic team has designed and implemented
a distributed hardware/software architecture for developing condition-specific
software models which provide high-level analysis of raw patient data. |
|
THE
AEROSPACE CORPORATION Design and Implementation of a High
Speed Bit Error Rate Tester Liaison: Samuel
Osofsky ’85 Advisor: David Harris Students: Shamik Maitra (TL), William Durley, Jason Imada, Michael Linderman,
Aaron Stratton The Aerospace Corporation seeks to perform Bit Error Rate
Testing (BERT) at 10 Gigabits/second
over a fiber optic channel. Conventional BERT systems can cost up to
$250,000. The current BERT setup at Aerospace has architectural limitations
which render the system difficult to use. The Aeropsace Clinic team
has redesigned this architecture and developed prototype hardware which
eliminates these limitations and allows the current setup to function
as a more viable, low-cost BERT solution. |
AXT
LED TECHNOLOGIES LED Test Automation Liaisons: Bill Yuan,
William So Advisor: Joseph King Students: Charles Boehm (TL), Antonio Medrano, Jason Norman, Marion Lebec,
Mika Sudo The team has designed, built and tested an automated LED test
station. The system automatically tests 40 OEDs for critical electrical
and optical performance and stores the results for future evaluation.
A demonstration of the test system will be provided. |
|
THE
BOEING COMPANY/ATM Development and Validation of a Loran-C
Model Liaison: Robert
Snow Advisor: John Molinder Students: Colin Boyd (TL), Karen Ahle, Gautam Thatte, Yung-Hsiang Hsu As part of a larger project to develop a GPS - Loran-C integrated
navigation system, Boeing ATM is studying the viability and characteristics
of Loran-C radio navigation as an air traffic navigation and positioning
system. The purpose of this
project is to develop and test a model of Loran-C, including error modeling,
to determine its positioning accuracy capability.
The team makes recommendations regarding potential improvements
and enhancements to determine whether Loran-C is viable for air traffic
management. |
THE
BOEING COMPANY/PHANTOM WORKS Laser-Photovoltaic Wireless Power
Transmission Liaisons: Seth Potter,
Mark Henley, Robert Rice Advisor: James Rosenberg NASA is currently working on an exploration of craters at
the moon’s poles. In order for
rovers to explore these craters, a means of wireless power transmission
to the rovers is needed. The
Clinic team will design, implement, and test an optical module that
will transmit the needed power efficiently.
This module will be a part of the larger system to be designed
by Boeing.
|
|
EASTON SPORTS, INC. Modeling a Bat-Ball Collision Liaison: Jonathan
Hebreo ’01 Advisor: Philip Cha Students: Vipul Lugade (TL), Jason De Camp, Christopher Holcomb, Ben Utela In this project our team uses finite element modeling and
other analytical techniques to model and predict the coefficient of
restitution for a bat and ball collision.
From this model we are able to determine the forcing function
that describes the impact, and verify all of our results through experimentation.
|
FEDERAL
AVIATION ADMINISTRATION High Power LED Application to Airport
Approach Lighting System Liaison: Calvin
Miles ’87 Advisor: Joseph King Students: Ralph McNall (TL), Jennifer Sherman, Lili Akin, Tom Galvani Current airport approach runway lighting systems use standard
incandescent lightbulbs. Maintenance
of these systems is both expensive and time consuming. This project investigates the feasibility of
replacing the current system with one based on white LED technology. With recent advances in LED technology this
will significantly reduce the operation and maintenance costs and extend
the lifetime of the system. Using
today's technology, a prototype light source has been designed, built
and tested. A demonstration of the prototype light source will be provided. |
|
GENERAL
ELECTRIC/NUCLEAR ENERGY Iron Oxalate Injection System for
a Boiling Water Reactor Liaison: Terry McIntyre Advisor: Anthony
Bright Students: Lilian Wu (TL), Stephanie Chan, Naomi Tomimatsu, Karen Studarus An optimal concentration of iron in the feedstream of a Boiling
Water Reactor is important to GE Nuclear Energy in order to reduce radiation
exposure to GE's employees. Iron
is currently being pumped in the form of an iron oxalate solution, but
GE desires an alternative to the pump system. The Clinic team has been asked to design this alternate solution
that provides manual control of the injection rate to maintain the iron
concentration between 0.5 and 1.5 ppb mass and also provides process
indicators. |
GENERAL
MOTORS Manual Transmission Friction Damper Liaison: Jeff Rayce Advisor: Ziyad Duron Students: Ricky Lim (TL), Brian Yoxall, Daniel Chin, Hans Meyer, Shannon Kelley The Clinic team has analyzed a phenomenon dubbed "driveline
clunk" which exists in the transmission of some of GM's full sized
trucks. While this noise issue does not affect the transmission's life
or operation, it is quite detrimental to the consumer's perception of
vehicle quality. The team has performed work that characterized this
phenomenon and has constructed a prototype to eliminate it. |
|
IRVINE
RANCH WATER DISTRICT Evaluation of Artificial Mixing Systems
in IRWD’s Reservoirs Liaisons: Arseny Kalinsky,
Carl Spangenberg Advisor: Donald Remer Students: Micaela Ellison (TL), Deborah Chun, Angela Hsueh, David Levitt,
Markus Ong Due to low water demand, IRWD's Coastal Zone reservoirs
have long residence times that cause disinfectant degradation, leading
to low chlorine residuals and increased microbial growth. IRWD installed
submersible mixers to improve circulation and promote thorough mixing
in the tanks; however, uneven mixing continued to be detected. The Clinic
team evaluated mixing in the reservoirs using two approaches: a tracer study using fluoride, and
modeling using Fluent Computational Fluid Dynamics Software. |
GARY
JENSEN, INC. Venous Valve Development Liaison: Dr. Gary
L. Jensen Advisor: Jennifer
Stroud-Rossmann Students: Jon Gunther (TL), Megan Thomas, Liz Eaton, Jeremy Watson Human venous valvular insufficiency has serious medical consequences
including pain, disfiguration, and potentially deadly clotting. This
Clinic project is concerned with designing a catheter-deployable solution
(to be presented in prototype form with recommendations for manufacture)
to the problem of venous valvular insufficiency.
Aspects of this project include research of relevant physiology,
materials, and valve designs, experimental determination of biomechanical
properties, design revision, prototype creation, and synthesis of an
appropriate prototype testing environment. |
|
LOMA
LINDA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER Image Based Target Localization System
for Proton Radiosurgery Liaison: Reinhard
W. Schulte Advisor: Ruye Wang Students: James Riehl (TL), Amanda
Malone, Bardia Tamadon (Pitzer),Genevieve Breed, Raymond Fong LLUMC is currently developing a new proton radiosurgical procedure
that will be used to treat certain pathological symptoms such as tremors
in Parkinson's patients . The procedure involves using MRI studies to
identify a small target in the patient's brain. The role of the Clinic
team is to design a complete image-based target localization system
that accounts for spatial distortion in MRI and outputs corrected 3D
coordinates for accurate application of the proton beam. |
MEDTRONIC
MINIMED Design of a Removable, Programmable
and Disposable Key for Use in the Medipad Infusion Pump Liaison: John Livingston Advisor: James Rosenberg Students: Mika Waller (TL), Joshua Chu, Cheng-Chung Lee, Justin Schauer, Peter
Chung Type II diabetes is a serious metabolic disorder that afflicts
over 16 million Americans. Medtronic MiniMed’s Affinity disposable insulin
infusion pump offers Type II diabetics an economical and therapeutically
superior alternative to conventional treatments. To increase the versatility
of the Affinity, the Clinic team has developed a programmable key that
costs about five dollars and enables the Affinity to supply insulin
at one of six predetermined rates using a single FDA-approved insulin
concentration. |
|
METROPOLITAN
WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Experimental Study to Reduce Coagulant
Residuals in Drinking Water Liaison: Sun Liang Advisor: Donald Remer Students: Marcy LaViollette (TL), Carman Ng, Alicia Albo (Scripps), Jorge
Escobar, Kristen Van Horn Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWDSC)
provides drinking water to a majority of Southern California residents. MWDSC is currently considering the addition
of a reverse osmosis system (RO) to their conventional filtration treatment
facilities. Previous research
has indicated that residuals from the coagulant they currently use cause
degradation in the RO membranes. We
have performed work to experimentally determine the optimal conditions
to prevent degradation while still properly cleaning the drinking water. |
NASA
AMES Video Monitoring System for Observation
of C. Elegans Worms in a Centrifuge Liaison: Catharine
Conley Advisor: Lori Bassman Students: Jeffrey Miller (TL), Sergio Rodrigues, Charles Hastings, Heather
O’Brien Dr. Catharine Conley, a biologist at NASA's Ames Research
Center, researches the effects of high gravity on C. elegans worms.
She is studying how acceleration in a centrifuge affects the worms'
activity levels. The Clinic team has designed and built a video observation
system that rides on the centrifuge with the worms and wirelessly transmits
live video of the worms inside. |
|
OPTO
22 Redesign B1 and B2 Brainboards Liaisons: Matthew
Chang ’95, Jim Frederick Advisor: John Molinder Students: Renee Montgomery (TL), Raymond Yu Chris Newkirk, Neal Okumura, Gigi Au The Clinic team had redesigned the existing Opto 22 B1 and
B2 brainboards. These are used
as a communication controller between the user at a standard computer
and a device, such as lighting in an office. The original brainboards
communicate to the user via a serial port (RS422/485).
The redesign incorporates an Ethernet connection (twisted pair),
which is faster and a standard in the industry. |
OREGON
MEDICAL LASER CENTER Tissue Engineering Command and Control
Module Liaison: Kenton
Gregory Advisor: Elizabeth
Orwin Students: Ryan Jackson (TL), Christine Paulson, Cyndia Sweet, Ivan Samuels,
Thomas Both Researchers at Oregon Medical Laser Center are currently developing
techniques to create tissue engineered arteries using autologous cells.
The Clinic team has designed, constructed and tested a command and control
system to aid in optimizing a tissue engineering environment. The system
controls parameters of an artificial blood vessel environment, monitors the physical conditions experienced
by the growing tissue and communicates information about the viability
of the tissue to researchers. The
use of this system is intended to increase the effectiveness and efficiency
of the tissue engineering process. |
|
PVP
ADVANCED EO SYSTEMS, INC. Video and Situational Data Integration
and Transmission Liaison: Geoffrey
Miller Advisor: Carl Baumgaertner Students: Sean Kao (TL), Matthew Burden, Mark Unemori, Forrest Tuttle, Elizabeth
Reynolds Recent events in Afghanistan have cast a spotlight on US Special
Operations forces. The US Special Operations Command is developing the
next generation “Soldier System” to improve battlefield intelligence.
PVP Advanced Electro Optical Systems has tasked our Clinic team to design
a system which overlays data from an onboard GPS unit, laser range finder
and digital compass onto a video signal from a shared aperture electro-optic,
infrared camera. The system outputs real-time video to a helmet-mounted
display and incorporate wireless image transmission between soldiers.
The prototype design meets critical size and power constraints. |
RAIN
BIRD Correlation of Sprinkler Nozzle Performance
to Computational Fluid Dynamics Liaison: Greg Kang Advisor: Mary Cardenas Students: Casey May (TL), Amy Bentow, Robin Chambers, Erin Koos, Lut Au-Yeung Although Rain Bird has the best sprinkler nozzles in the industry,
the spray pattern is not perfect. As part of an effort for continuous
product improvement, Rain Bird has asked the Clinic team to create a
Computational Fluid Dynamic model of the water flow produced by one
of their current nozzles. The
model is used as a tool to predict watering patterns and improve nozzle
designs, making the design process more efficient. |
|
ROCKWELL
COLLINS/PASSENGER SYSTEMS Low-Cost Multi-Channel MPEG Encoder Liaison: Bob Troxel Adivisor: Carl Baumgaertner Students: Roy Park (TL), Adam Bush, Alfred Chuang, Knut Strom-Jensen, Trever Gile Rockwell Collins is interested in a system that will enhance
the capability of current in-flight entertainment systems. These systems provide digital video-on-demand,
internet access, and video games. Our team will design a state-of-the-art digital encoding system
that will convert multiple analog NTSC signals into a digitized, multiplexed
transport stream. The team will
demonstrate the feasibility of this system using a PC-based architecture. |
SPACE
SYSTEMS/LORAL Mass Reduction and Vibration Damping
of Satellite Brackets Liaisons: Brian Childs,
Michael Freestone,Eric Roulo Advisor: Clive Dym,
Joseph King Students: Annie Tran (TL), Eric Clement, Amy Gishifu, Ryan Ellis Space Systems/Loral currently uses a graphite bracket design
to support electronic instruments on their satellites. In order to increase cost effectiveness of
launch, it is necessary to reduce the mass of the brackets. This will result in lowering of the natural
frequency into the excitation range, and so additionally, SS/Loral asked
us to incorporate a damping technique into the system. The team has
used a four-phase project approach: research, FEA modeling and simulation,
physical testing of a prototype, and comparative analysis to develop
a new bracket design. |
|
TEXAS
INSTRUMENTS Development of a GPS Terminal Liaisons: Edwin Park,
Mark Wang ’00 Advisor: David Harris Students: David Hopkins (TL), Alicia Lloro, Thomas Francon, Keith Buerger,
Dmitriy Kogan TI is currently investigating the addition of GPS functionality
to its next generation cellular technology. To provide TI with a competitive
advantage, the team is exploiting the similarities between GPS and cellular
technologies, allowing GPS functionality to be implemented with a minimum
of additional hardware. The team is developing a complete GPS receiver,
designed around a critical component that was created by a Clinic team
last year. |
MATHEMATICS
CLINIC
|
FAIR,
ISAAC AND COMPANY, INC. Optimizing Dynamic Online Surveys Liaisons: Stacy Sanders
’99, Gary Sullivan Advisors: Lesley Ward
(Fall) Jerzy
Filar (Spring), Hank Krieger Students: Jennifer M. Lindsay (TL), Emily Kajita, Shane Markstrum, Justin
Okano Fair, Isaac and Co. is interested in developing a method for constructing dynamic online surveys. Our team's
goal is to construct an algorithm which will choose the next survey
question based on previous responses, in order to maximize the amount
of information about the respondent in the fewest number of questions.
When predictions are made based on the respondent's information, the
algorithm will adjust its parameters for both correct and incorrect
predictions to be more accurate for future survey-takers. |
NORTHROP
GRUMMAN Multiple Sensor Analysis for Predicting
Infrared Detector Noise from Spacecraft Temperature Liaison: Charlie
McCarthy Adivisor: Henry Krieger Students: Nordia Thomas (TL), Eric Distad (Fall), Jean Kuo, Katie Ray, Jessica
Xian The performance of infrared detectors onboard geosynchronous satellites changes as a function of temperature. As ambient temperatures increase, system noise increases. This noise-temperature relationship was statistically modeled utilizing existing data from on-orbit systems. Documented software was prepared to implement the statistical model dynamically. |
|
SPACE
SYSTEMS/LORAL Fuel-Optimal Low-Thrust Orbit Raising Liaison: Glenn Santiago Advisor: Anette Hosoi Students: Tina Meftah (TL), Robert Adams , Bradley Boban, Lance Curry , Andrew
Yamashita Space Systems/Loral is a leading manufacturer of communications
and weather satellites, and as such is interested in the raising of
satellites to their intended orbits in the most efficient and cost effective
manner. This year the SS/L Clinic team will investigate a mathematical
model for low-thrust orbit raising using nonlinear
programming and direct collocation. The ultimate goal will be
to develop a prototype code that will give SS/L a firing sequence for
their thrusters that minimizes fuel consumption while raising the satellite
to its required orbit within a specified amount of time. |
VIASAT,
INC. Using Elliptic Curve Cryptography for Secure Communication
Liaison: Hunter
Marshall Advisor: Weiqing
Gu Students: Simon Tse (TL), Colin Little, Cameron McLeman, Braden Pellett The ViaSat clinic team will present methods for
performing
secure cryptography over an insecure network by 1) Introducing the use of
algebraic objects known as elliptic curves to accomplish this task 2)
Presenting Diffe-Hellman key exchange protocol using elliptic curve
cryptogtaphy (ECC) 3) Discussing potential attacks on this cryptosystem
and 4) Demonstrating their implementation of this algorithm allowing
two>network users to agree upon a secret key over an insecure connection.
|
PHYSICS
CLINIC
|
JET
PROPULSION LABORATORY The Challenge of Pointing Stability
and Accuracy in the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) Liaisons: Daniel McDonald,
Bijan Nemati Advisor: Richard
Haskell Students: Kyle Lampe (TL), Eric Deyo, Robert Seat, Karl Hedstrom (PO), Daniel
Gionatti, Kristi Hultman The HMC Physics Clinic team is working on the Space Inteferometry
Mission. SIM is an orbiting
inteferometer telescope capable of relative star measurements 100 times
more accurate than ever before. Specifically, the team is devising a
technique for measuring the spacing between telescopes, measuring changes
in distance to an accuracy of 100 picometers, or 1 angstrom, roughly
the size of a hydrogen atom. |