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St. Cloud State University

St. Cloud State University

Senior Design Project Summaries: 1990-1991

EE 461, 462, 463 Senior Design Project
Fall, Winter and Spring Quarters, 1990-1991

  • Project #1: 3-D GRAPHICS CONTROLLER CARD
  • Project #2: CT124, 8-CHANNEL TEMPERATURE MONITOR
  • Project #3: DATA ACQUISITION, DATA PROCESSING, AND CONTROL UNIT
  • Project #4: DIGITAL ANGLE-OF-ARRIVAL PROCESSOR FOR THE TCAS II**
  • Project#5: ETHERNET CONTROLLER BOARD WITH PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF LOGIC LINK CONTROL HARDWARE
  • Project #6: HIGH SPEED DATA COPROCESSOR FOR AN IBM PC USING A TMS320C30
  • Project #7: HOT BOARD INSERTION (HBI)
  • Project #8: MICROPROCESSOR-CONTROLLED SECURITY SYSTEM**
  • Project #9: MULITPLE PORT PRINTER INTERFACE
  • Project #10: PCARINC 429**
  • Project #11: PROGRAMMABLE POWER MONITOR**
  • Project #12: SPECIALIZED IRRIGATION CONTROL 8051-BASED IRRIGATION CONTROLLER**
  • Project #13: X WINDOW INTERFACE FOR AN IBM SCARA ROBOT

Project #1: 3-D GRAPHICS CONTROLLER CARD

By: Pete Jung, Scott Davidson, and Scott Farkas
Advisor: Dr. B.W. Ellis
Description: This project is to design a graphics controller for the IBM PC/AT bus or compatible. The project was completed in conjunction with Control Systems Inc., who sponsored the project, including the manufacturing of a printed circuit board. The specifications of the graphics controller board consists of the following: 1024x768 or 640x480 pixels, software selectable, fixed 8 bits per pixel, Texas Instrument TMS34020 Graphics Processor, Texas Instruments TMS 340082 Floating Point Processor, Analog Devices A DV7418 CEG-DSP, Video DAC, 1Mbyte on-board, up to 2 Mbyte expandable Video RAM, 0 Mbytes on-board, up to 16 Mbyte expandable Dynamic RAM, and High Resolution Display multiplex VGA mode.

Project #2: CT124, 8-CHANNEL TEMPERATURE MONITOR

By: Walter Morales and Mark Andryski
Advisor: Dr. Y. Zheng
Description: The CT124 8-Channel Temperature Monitor offers protection and control of temperature critical equipment and processes. It can monitor from 1 to 8 resistance temperature detectors (RTDs) and control four relays. The sensors are said to be monitoring 8 zones. The relays are controlled by one or more zones and are connected to the power lines of the devices being monitored. The unit has a built-in alarm, which may be audible or silent. The primary goal of the project is to redesign the current processor board on the CT124. The new design replaces an 8-bit microprocessor (Intel's 80C39) with a 16-bit microprocessor (Intel's 80186). The need to upgrade the microprocessor board arose because the memory capacity of the 80C39 is too small. Since the memory capacity will be expanded it will be easier to incorporate more product options such as thermocouples, etc. The secondary goal of this project is to add to the CT124 an RS-232 serial interface port. This port will allow communication from the CT124 to a remote terminal.

Project #3: DATA ACQUISITION, DATA PROCESSING, AND CONTROL UNIT

By: John Hartwig, Mark T. Loftus, and Gregory L. Sorvari
Advisor: Dr. J. Rankin
Description: The purpose of this project was to assist the Manufacturing Engineering department in acquiring data and controlling an oven to perform strain tests. The Manufacturing Engineering department has purchased a machine to apply stress to different types of materials. This stress machine is contained within a furnace that functions at an operator-chosen temperature range. To determine the strength of a given material, it is placed within a specimen container of the machine and a stress is applied. While these material tests are functioning, the oven temperature is controlled and data acquisition tasks (measuring time, temperature, and material strength) are performed.

Project #4: DIGITAL ANGLE-OF-ARRIVAL PROCESSOR FOR THE TCAS II**

By: Angela Thorson, David Yost, and Scott Kruse
Advisor: Dr. J. Rankin
Description: The TCAS II is an airplane-to-airplane Traffic alert/Collision Avoidance System. This radar system is used to alert the pilot of aircraft in his airspace. The TCAS unit transmits an interrogation signal. Then, any aircraft with the TCAS unit within fourteen nautical miles will respond with a digital signal 20 microseconds in length containing up to 13-450 nanosecond pulses. This digital signal is called CRX data. The digital signal tells the interrogating aircraft the altitude and distance of the approaching aircraft. If emergency maneuvers are required to avoid a collision, the computer, in a child's voice, gives the pilot directions. In order for the TCAS unit to provide both horizontal and vertical emergency maneuvers, the angle of arrival must be accurate to a plus-or-minus 2 degrees. The project consists of three major parts: tester unit, processor unit inserted in a personal computer, and software. The tester unit simulates the radar signal of an approaching aircraft. This signal is transmitted to the digital-processing unit where it is immediately sampled and stored in memory. The TMS320C25 Digital Signal Processor processes the data and sends it to the PC to be displayed.

Project#5: ETHERNET CONTROLLER BOARD WITH PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF LOGIC LINK CONTROL HARDWARE

By: James Michaud, Eric Peterson, and Fred Lindstrom
Advisor: Dr. R. A. Higgins
Description: The purpose of this project was to implement the Logical Link Control (LLC) protocol in hardware. It was a project that was initiated by NCR. NCR valued the idea of having LLC implemented in hardware since it would provide faster communications. There are many advantages to having LLC in hardware. The first is that it will not tie up the system's processor. This means that LLC can be run faster. This will allow use with applications that require faster communications, such as SONET (Synchronous Optical Network). Another advantage to having LLC in hardware is that it does not tie up system processor memory. Furthermore, since Wide Area Networks (WANS), Local Area Networks (LANs), and others use LLC, it would be applicable in many areas.

Project #6: HIGH SPEED DATA COPROCESSOR FOR AN IBM PC USING A TMS320C30

By: Angel Matson, Shawn Nelson, Mark Vornwald, and Nick Zilmer
Advisor: Dr. Y. Zheng
Description: A fast fourier transform (FFT) provides useful information about a signal. This information is important in digital signal processing (DSP). One of the problems when performing algorithms used in DSP applications is the amount of time a personal computer (PC) requires to perform an FFT. The desire for FFTs has led to the development of a number of DSP chips. The architectures of these DSP chips are designed to execute FFT algorithms as efficiently as possible. The object of this project was to implement one of these DSP chips, specifically Texas Instruments' TMS320C30, into an expansion card for a personal computer. This expansion card will greatly reduce the time required by a PC to perform an FFT. The results of the FFT will be used by an image processing system.

Project #7: HOT BOARD INSERTION (HBI)

By: Eugene Schmidt, Ron Massmann, and Todd Hurrle
Advisor: Dr. R. A. Higgins
Description: The project was to design circuitry to allow Hot Board Insertion into a Microchannel bus system. This project was conducted for NCR Network Products Division to allow removal and reinsertion of computer cards into a Microchannel bus system while the system remains operational. Hot Board Insertion is accomplished by using transmission gates on computer buses and by controlling the power buses to the replacement card. The objective of this project was to minimize down time of large network computers by eliminating the lengthy reinitialization process after board replacement.

Project #8: MICROPROCESSOR-CONTROLLED SECURITY SYSTEM**

By: Scott M. Jardine, Gary Lanoue, and Jeff Dietrich
Advisor: Dr. S. Lekhakul
Description: The purpose of this project was to design a user-friendly microprocessor- based security system for residential or commercial application. The system is completely self-contained and can be customized by the user. It will be capable of monitoring eight zones with each zone containing eight sensors for a total of 64 sensors with up to 16 outputs. Each output can be activated by any particular sensor, although groups of sensors will typically activate groups of outputs. Additional sensor and output modules may be added by including slightly more hardware and modifying the software. The user can define his/her own protection mode by arming sets of sensors and outputs, or he/she may choose a default setting provided by the system. A scale model house is used to test sensors and output devices.

Note: Student paper by Scott M. Jardine received second prize in the IEEE Student Paper Contest at Twin Cities, May 1991.

Project #9: MULITPLE PORT PRINTER INTERFACE

By: Charles E. Crymble, Kristen Maanum Hegg, and Rudley R. Rau
Advisor: Dr. R. A. Higgins
Description: The purpose of this project was to allow eight terminals to utilize one printer. A printer spooler that stores files to send to the printer in the order received accomplishes this. The interface used the Intel 8097BH microcontroller with supporting hardware and software, accessing 128K x 8-bits of RAM by a paging method. Inputs were multiplexed by a polling method that activates one terminal's serial port at a time. Three sets of variables keep track of the files in the interface queue. The interface utilized either serial or parallel printers.

Project #10: PCARINC 429**

By: Christine Fair, Dave Gale, and Tom Kasel
Advisor: Dr. S. Lekhakul
Description: PCARINC is an IBM PC, or compatible, 8-bit expansion card and software package, which allows a user to transmit and receive ARINC 429 data. The PCARINC hardware features include four receive channels of ARINC 429 data, two transmit channels or ARINC 429 data, on-board ARINC 429 data label filtering, interrupts to PC based on transmit and receive status of expansion card, and Honeywell proprietary VLSI ASIC transceiver. The software package, which accompanies the expansion card, has been developed to best explain to the user the initialization procedures needed to run PCARINC. Various screen menus have been implemented into the user's software.

Project #11: PROGRAMMABLE POWER MONITOR**

By: Joel Vos, Scott Rausch, and Dan Peterson
Advisor: Dr. J. M. Heneghan, Dr. Higgins, and Dr. S. Lekhakul
Description: Modular sections have both hardware and software components which will be discussed separately. The project's goal is to design a system to measure upper body strength.

Project #12: SPECIALIZED IRRIGATION CONTROL 8051-BASED IRRIGATION CONTROLLER**

By: Harold Desautel, Kurt Hasselfeldt, and Steve Johnson
Advisor: Dr. J.M. Heneghan
Description: This paper was the final report on our completed senior design project for the school year 1990-1991. The paper contains descriptions of hardware and software designs, block diagrams of designs, flowcharts of the software, schematics, printouts of EPLD information, and a copy of the program. The purpose of this project was to design and build an irrigation system controller using an Intel 80C51FA microcontroller.

Project #13: X WINDOW INTERFACE FOR AN IBM SCARA ROBOT

By: Tricia Butler, Bruce Domino, and Mike Larson
Advisor: Dr. B. W. Ellis
Description: The purpose of the project is to create an X Window Interface for an IBM 7545 Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) Robot. This user interface provides two major functions: control panel simulation and teach mode. Control panel simulation enables the user to manipulate the robot arm using a graphical representation of the control panel and the mouse. Teach mode allows the user to step the robot through a series of motions, store the movements in a file, and then execute a control program.

Note: Student paper by Tricia Butler received first prize in the Student Robotics/Automation Contest from Robotic International of the Society of Manufacturing Engineering, May 1991. Tricia Butler also received an Honorable Mention at the Twin Cities IEEE Student Paper Contest, May 1991.