Chris
Esterhuizen
BEng Electronic Engineering Graduate
Platform Engineer Intern at Polygon Research Inc.
Chris
Project 1:
Autonoumous Window Cleaning Robot
This project tackles the problem of finding a more efficient alternative to costly, labour intensive and risky manual glass window cleaning operations by developing an automatic window cleaning robot. The idea behind this project is to develop a system that solves the aforementioned problem by utilizing an adhesion and locomotion sub-system employing sensors to collect positional and orientation data that will be analysed in a control system in order for the robot window cleaner to traverse the entire vertical glass surface and know where it is on the window.
Project 2:
FPGA EXPONENTIAL DISTRIBUTION GENERATOR
The FPGA realization of a continuous random variate data generator yielding an exponential distribution is of growing interest, particularly in the field of pharmacological medicine as it can be employed in the modelling of the elimination half-life parameter of various administered drugs.
Project 3:
Realization of the
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)
The onus of this project focuses on the investigation and analyses of the realization of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) on a STM32F429 Discovery DSP board in order to visualize and obtain information on the frequency components of a sampled analog audio input signal. The systems will thus be utilized as a spectrum analyser for the 10Hz - 20kHz input audio signal.
Project 4:
Implementation of an FIR filter on the STM32F429
The onus of this practical is to design and realize digital filtering techniques on the STM32F429 Discovery DSP board. The focus of the investigation into the mentioned filtering techniques will be placed on the implementation of a low-pass FIR digital filter with a 1V peak-to-peak sinusoidal signal as input. The realization will employ the window method for filter coefficient determination.
Project 5:
Implementation of a digital AM demodulator on the STM32F429
This project's onus is the design, simulation and realization of a digital AM demodulator on the STM32F429 Discovery DSP board using standard libraries and first principle designs. The focus of the implementation of the demodulator will be placed on realizing a implementation that is able to display both the entire AM band spectrum as well as specific selected channels using a digital bandpass filter.
Project 6:
EMPIRICAL CONTROLLER TUNING
The onus of this projetc is to derive a plant model for a wind-tunnel system whose input and output measurements are recorded in data sets. The system’s data will be analysed through the reaction curve method using the software suite MATLAB. Using the derived plant model two suitable PID controllers will be designed. The two controllers tuning methods to be investigate and realized is the Cohen-Coon reaction curve method and SIMC reaction curve method. The performance of these controller’s and their setting will be analysed and compared for their respective set point and disturbance responses.