I am currently looking for one or two undergraduates to work on some research projects in the Nimbus Lab. Most likely this will take the form of a UCARE project (deadline Feb. 10), although there are other options as well (e.g. senior thesis or paid summer research). The ideal candidate is either a sophomore or junior in CS, CE, ME, EE, or Physics (others are welcome to apply as well). Candidates should be: self motivated, interested in working on hands-on projects, strong academically, a team player, and willing to learn. If you are interested, please send me a CV/Resume and a statement of why you would do well in this research. Below are some short potential project descriptions, although if some other project catches your eye we can discuss that as well.
Wireless Power Transfer
We have developed a system that enables unmanned areal vehicles (UAVs) to provide power to, and recharge the batteries of wireless sensors using resonant wireless power transfer. For this project, we are looking for a person to develop and perform experiments to characterize different coil geometries to optimize the power transfer both on a bench-top setup and on the UAVs. Candidates should have a basic understanding of electricity and magnetism (e.g. from an introductory physics course) and an interest or background in collecting experimental data.
Underwater Sensor Node Development
We have developed an underwater sensor network with depth adjustment capabilities. The depth adjustment enables the underwater sensors to optimize their depths for sensing, communication, and energy usage. We are building an additional set of underwater sensors and are looking for a student to lead this effort. Responsibilities will include verifying the mechanical design of the sensors, putting together a bill of materials and placing orders, assembling the underwater sensors, and testing the sensors in the field to verify functionality. Candidates should have experience with CAD design software such as Solid Works, be diligent and organized, and have an interest in mechanical assembly of precision devices.
Embedded Vision Processing
We are performing computer vision processing on small embedded systems with limited computation and memory resources. We use these cameras and processing systems on our flying and ground robots to react dynamic obstacles in the real-world. We are looking for a student to implement some of our existing vision algorithms on a DSP co-processor (specifically, the one found on a gumstix processor). Candidates for this work should have experience working with GNU/Linux (kernel hacking is a plus, otherwise you can learn), experience programming in C, and an interest in vision processing.
Miscellaneous
There are also a variety of other projects including: implementing a Matlab to ROS interface, refining a ROS control package for our UAVs, implementing an inverted pendulum controller, and developing a mechanism to enable sensor deployment from our UAVs. If any of these sound interesting, please contact me for more details.