Senior Design Projects Spring 2017

Fault Location Identification on a Transmission Line Using Traveling Wave Theory and Protective Relaying

Team Members
Garrett Jensen, Shawn Kaschner, Maxwell Madden, Brian Shane, and Casey Strom, Electrical Engineering

Advisor
John Lukowski, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsors
American Transmission Company

Project Overview
Our team continues the work of last year’s ATC Senior Design Project, Traveling Wave Fault Detection. The primary goal of our project is to use traveling wave theory to improve the traveling wave fault algorithm using fault data from the Blaney Park to Munising Transmission Line. This would allow ATC to verify that the SEL-411L relay and traveling wave theory can be used to identify where a fault occurs on a line, so it can be used for the rest of ATC’s transmission lines.


Jump Starter Cart

Team Members
Thomas Whitaker and Sam Smit, Electrical Engineering; Matthew Linenfelser, Computer Engineering; Wesley Sialek and Nick Dubiel, Mechanical Engineering; Jenna Crouch, Electrical Engineering Technology

Advisor
Duane Bucheger, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsor
Advanced Power Systems Laboratories (APS LABS), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Overview
The jump starter cart is an all-in-one jump-starting system for large and small vehicles. It is capable of charging and jump starting 12-volt and 24-volt automotive systems. It also features polarity protection with automatic shut off to protect the user of the cart. In addition to charging, it has a 2-kilowatt power inverter to supply power to tools and work lights when needed. The cart is easily contained with the whole system attached to a garden cart with pneumatic wheels to cross varied terrains


Wide Bandwidth, High-Voltage Data Acquisition System

Team Members
Patrick Leaske, Tyler Grifka, Adam Flaim, and Daniel Olson, Electrical Engineering; Kavan Ferguson and Frederick Perrett, Computer Engineering

Advisor
Duane Bucheger, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsors
Advanced Power Systems Laboratories (APS LABS), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Overview
The modern field of engine design is increasingly dependent on small upticks in efficiency and precision. This requires increased reliance on data analysis. The spark-plug (a crucial component of SI engines) has remained generally untouched while a multitude of sensors have become standard elsewhere in the engine block. Our mission was to develop a compact, standalone sensor/data acquisition system that would allow the user to analyze the high voltage signal across the sparkplug gap. The system required extreme precision— allowing an initial voltage curve peaking up to 40kV at frequencies in the MHz range to be read without distortion by a standard DAQ at a voltage range 10,000 times less


Paper Machine Simulation for
Training Purposes

Team Members
Christopher Coppernoll, Zackary Posz, Zachary Couture, Dylan Brosseau, and Florian VanKampenWright, Computer Engineering

Advisor
Trever Hassell, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsor
Boise Paper (a division of Packaging Corporation of America)

Project Overview
In an effort to improve training and create a safer working environment, our team was tasked with creating a new training simulation for Packaging Corporation of America. Although a training program currently exists, it doesn’t contain all of the information that is pertinent to training on a paper machine. Our goal is to create a new simulation that improves upon the previous one in the areas of familiarity, appearance, usability, and realism. The training simulation will provide a comprehensive understanding of the paper machine, resulting in more capable and comfortable operators.


Surgical High-Speed Drill Rotor Position via CAN Bus

Team Members
Elliott Meese, Danny Bragg, and Julio Saint-Felix, Electrical Engineering; Hailey Trossen and Yuguang Wang, Computer Engineering

Advisor
Trever Hassell, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsors
Stryker Instruments

Project Overview
It is common to drive high-speed brushless DC electric motors with a back electromagnetic force (EMF) signal at high speeds. But at low RPMs, back EMF becomes unreliable and other methods have to be used. With this project, Stryker Instruments hopes to learn whether it is possible to use a Control Area Network (CAN) to get consistent sensor readings. CAN is robust and reliable, but it is not the fastest form of communication. The goal of this project is to learn whether the latency and delay are small enough to transmit motor sensor feedback.


dSPACE Hardware in the Loop Development and Testing—Year 3

Team Members
Kevin Cashen II, Yuzhou Tang, Brenton Johnson, and Nathan Schapka, Electrical Engineering; Marlaina Wunderlich, Computer Engineering

Advisor
Tony Pinar, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsors
Nexteer Automotive

Project Overview
The project goal is to develop an Electric Power Steering dSPACE Hardware-in-the-Loop testbench to accurately test vehicle EPS systems early in development, making any problems easier and much cheaper to troubleshoot. With the HiL testbench, these tests can be performed in conjunction with vehicle development and save the company time and resources. The project’s purpose is to use the HiL testbench provided by Nexteer to learn the system and all peripherals, perform software testing, and develop methods for collecting and analyzing data for a set list of handwheel tests.


HMI Annunciator Replacement

Team Members
Connor Bruns, Tristan Gault, Joshua Prewett, and Timothy Radtke, Computer Engineering; Justin Jacobs and Michael Rader, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Advisor
Tony Pinar, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsors
ITC Holdings

Project Overview
The Annunciator human machine interface (HMI) is the primary interface between technicians and their substations. Using the Annunciator, operators can monitor the states of devices from one central location. Running Windows XP and bulky enterprise software on legacy hardware with stringent disk and processing constraints, ITC requested a software upgrade on a new operating system, allowing for continued use of the hardware and long-term support. Running on TinyCore, a space-saving Linux distribution, the new software operates in three layers: a communications layer to talk between the master station and outstations, an alarm state layer that saves the status of monitored devices, and a touchscreen user interface for simple human interaction


SCADA LTLS Coding and Control Monitoring Upgrade Qualification

Team Members
Kate Nowosad, Katherine Myers, Yilin Wang, Zach Smale, and Britton Borlace, Electrical Engineering; Avery Bailey, Computer Engineering

Advisors
Chee-Wooi Ten, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsors
DTE Energy

Project Overview
Substation automation has become ubiquitous in today’s technologies with Ethernet-based communication features for remote control and monitoring. The functionalities of deployed instrumentation units can vary from vendor to vendor and are often justified based on the costs and interoperability of a device manufacturer. This design project investigates and assesses a new model’s capabilities and equivalents with two existing units. We will conduct intensive testing for this implementation stage in order to determine the feasibility of the equivalents. This study could provide an engineering justification, in terms of performance and costs associated with engineering hours, as a future reference of substation deployment.


Design of a 2 GHz Transimpedance Amplifier

Team Members
Jeffrey Beck, David Schultz, and Novia Berriel, Electrical Engineering

Advisor
Christopher Middlebrook, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sponsor
Electro-Optics Technology

Project Overview
We are designing a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) as a drop-in replacement for a similar device that is no longer being manufactured. It must be able to amplify signals by 26 dB over a frequency range from approximately 5 kHz to 2 GHz, and must do so with less than 3.8 dB of noise. This device will serve as a low-noise amplifier that amplifies the signal from a photodiode for a photodetector to process. Similar devices currently on the market are unable to replace this device because of the difference in number of pins and difference in sizes.