The Texas Instruments OPA2836-Q1 is a is high-speed, ultralow-power operational amplifier. It was integrated into an electric scooter and fault testing was conducted to show the capabilities of the device. A customized circuit board and circuit board housing were created to run the scooter using InstaSpin software and to feature the operational amplifier. A customized graphical user interface was created to display the current in real time. Testing was conducted on the scooter system for two faults that can be caused by the user: an over-current electrical fault in which the current exceeds the motor’s limit, and a mechanical fault in which a brake is applied to the wheel with the motor still running, which also causes an over-current on the motor. The high-speed operational amplifier detected and shut down the current within 1 microsecond of the overcurrent occurring, demonstrating the operational amplifier’s ability.

iButtons are flat metal disks with identifying information burned onto them. They are placed on sealed manufactured products for traceability and anticounterfeit purposes. iButtons are first placed onto sticky pads, which are then peeled and placed on products. This process is currently manual and requires roughly 2,000 hours of labor per year. A device was designed that automatically adheres iButtons to sticky pads for eventual placement onto a sealed product. This was accomplished with mostly 3D custom-printed parts in combination with motors and a Raspberry Pi. The device has a capacity of 3,000 iButtons and one roll of 3,000 sticky pads. It produces strips of iButtons adhered to sticky pads cut into a user-defined length. The number of moving parts was minimized to eliminate as many failure points, and thus device shutdowns, as possible. The machine designed uses a camera module with OpenCV to detect the outline of a sticky pad. Once the outline is detected, the coordinates of its center are used to determine how far the sticky pad needs to travel before it is at the correct location for iButton placement. A signal light attached to the top of the device indicates if the machine needs refilling or if there is an error in the system. A graphical user interface on an LCD screen displays refill alerts and allows users to start and stop the machine and define output length. The system was verified and tested under conditions similar to the operating environment and a user’s manual was provided for reference.

Ankle arthrodesis, commonly known as ankle fusion surgery, involves removing cartilage and bone of the tibiotalar joint so that bone can grow onto itself, fusing the ankle and relieving pain. This procedure can fail due to inadequate bone mating. Most surgeons hand chisel the cartilage and bone to create a mating surface, which is a lengthy, inaccurate method that risks fusion failure. A surgical tool kit was designed that includes a reamer, curved guide, and flex mesh device. The tools allow surgeons to work with a patient’s unique anatomy and the sterile operating room. The tools attach to existing surgical power tools for surgeons’ ease of use and to reduce costs. Each tool is contoured, shaped and sized for use within the narrow surgical site without damaging soft tissue around the joint. Tooling was modeled using computer-aided design and prototyped via custom 3D prints.This biocompatible tool set greatly improves upon the current preparation system by having the power and precision to quickly and accurately remove both cartilage and bone, which reduces surgery time and risk to patients, and increases the chances of a successful fusion.

The system is designed to help prevent collisions between cyclists and vehicles. It is optimized to work on a midsummer day in Tucson, Arizona. The deep neural network runs on energy-efficient hardware and can perform inference on images captured in real time. The network learned by training on a data set of pre-labeled example images. Using what it learned, the network is able to draw bounding boxes around objects it believes are cars and can report a confidence level for each prediction made. The physical system is composed of a weatherproof enclosure housing the inference hardware the neural network runs on, a battery, and a cooling fan. The camera is mounted on top of the enclosure under a clear dome, positioned to detect vehicles to the rear-left of the cyclist. The enclosure is placed on a bike rack on the back of a bicycle. Images are processed at a rate of at least eight frames per second and the entire system can operate for at least six hours.

Large mining trucks require a skilled operator who can use various systems simultaneously to operate the truck in a safe and efficient manner. Side mirrors are important for operator vision, particularly while driving in reverse to dump a load or to maneuver beneath loading equipment. Slow or inaccurate maneuvering of the truck results in lost time and money. The team implemented a mirror system that improves the operator’s field of view, tested mirror coatings to reduce cleaning frequency, and designed an adjustable system that reduces the time needed to optimize mirror position. Structural and field-of-view analyses were performed to evaluate the stability and functionality of the system.The new mirror design optimizes time operating the truck and increases driver awareness of the truck’s surroundings.

Microsoft is testing the implementation of fuel cell technology in order to lessen its dependence on traditional power supplies. Through the conversion of natural gas to power, solid-oxide fuel cells give off high-quality heat, highly pure water and gaseous carbon dioxide. The design created to use the fuel cell byproducts is a closed-loop hydroponic greenhouse system in conjunction with a heat-driven water-treatment system. The system sequesters excess carbon dioxide and provides a water source derived from the data centers. Full-scale implementation of this project will involve building greenhouses directly on top of the fuel cell-powered data centers. This will allow water to be purified at the site of the data centers and fed directly into the greenhouse system, creating a food-source for the surrounding community. The waste biomass from the greenhouse will be composted to create methane that will be fed back into the fuel cells.

The Polarization Laboratory in the UA College of Optical Sciences recently received an RGB950 AxoStep polarimeter. The instrument consists of extremely bright light-emitting diodes, a polarizer, two rotating retarders, a second polarizer, and a camera. It operates at four wavelengths and has a particularly large field of view, so there is some angular variation in the performance, which this project seeks to understand. The RGB950 polarimeter was used to obtain Mueller matrices based on air measurements at various angles in order to characterize the instrument’s angular dependence. Additionally, software models for different optical elements tested by the polarimeter were developed and the Mueller matrix results were compared to Mueller matrix data. This includes models for a nonpolarizing cube beam splitter and a solid corner cube. Each model was built using Polaris-M, a library of polarization ray tracing functions developed by Airy Optics for use in Mathematica. The resulting software characterizing the polarimeter gives the lab a tool for predicting polarimetric measurements and verifying instrument performance.

The sponsor owns and operates autonomous trucks whose behavior is determined by a combination of software and hardware, and which use a single graphical processing unit, or GPU, for all eight on-board cameras. This design requires 1600 watts to process an image set and represents a single point of failure.The new design uses multiple redundant GPUs designed to handle up to three cameras. The GPUs provide the server on the vehicle with data about distances to objects and types of objects, as well as images that have been enhanced with respect to their brightness, gamma, contrast, boundaries, and denoising variables. The alleviation of computational power from a central unit allows for faster image processing before the image sets and data are sent to the on-board server responsible for vehicle control. This means the server can focus on vehicle control rather than image processing. If a failure occurs in one of these GPUs, the vehicle can continue moving safely. The system requires only 60 watts to complete the analysis of an image set and total power usage does not exceed 300 watts.

Pre-made space-qualified cameras are typically very expensive, and not viable for nanosatellite missions. Limited deep space communication is also a problem for such missions. CatSat will be used in a proof of concept for a high-bandwidth deep space communication system able to achieve high-definition video transmission from low-Earth orbit through a novel inflatable antenna. CatSat will also pave the way for the use of affordable commercial off the-shelf cameras on future missions.The CatCam camera system will image the deployment of the inflatable antenna and capture video of Earth. The data that CatCam captures will be sent through the inflatable antenna as a demonstration of high-bandwidth communication. CatCam has been designed, built and tested to withstand the harsh environment of space, and has been programmed with camera control software for easy integration into the rest of the CubeSat.

The window of an armored vehicle is the weakest point on the vehicle’s exterior. Eliminating the window would improve occupant safety, while allowing other vital information to be overlaid on top of the video feed. The vehicle biocular digital display viewing system receives a single video source input and displays the information to both eyes of the operator. The visual information sent to the operator is meant to mimic what they would see when looking out the front window of a vehicle. The design incorporates a custom optical design that uses achromatic doublet lenses, flat mirrors, and high-definition displays. The system is mounted in a custom housing consisting of a microcontroller, an adjustable interpupillary distance compensator, custom flexures, and custom lens mounts. The design uses custom software to correct for the inherent distortion of the optical system in real time. The viewing system effectively improves vehicle safety while providing the operator visual data on the environment around the vehicle with relevant vehicle metrics overlaid on the video.