This thesis presents the development of two balance control systems, which utilize actively controlled steering and a control moment gyroscope to stabilize the bicycle at high and low speeds. These systems may also be used to introduce disturbances, which can be useful for studying human reactions. The effectiveness of the steering balance control system is verified through testing with a PID controller in an outdoor environment. Also presented is the development of a force sensitive bicycle seat which provides feedback used to estimate the pose of the rider on the bicycle. The relationship between seat force distribution is demonstrated with a motion capture experiment. A corresponding software system is developed for balance control and sensor integration, with inputs from the rider, the internal balance and steering controller, and a remote operator.
With the recent focus of attention towards remote work and mobile computing, the possibility of taking a powerful workstation wherever needed is enticing. However, even emerging laptops today struggle to compete with desktops in terms of cost, maintenance, and future upgrades. The price point of a powerful laptop is considerably higher compared to an equally powerful desktop computer, and most laptops are manufactured in a way that makes upgrading parts of the machine difficult or impossible, forcing a complete purchase in the event of failure or a component needing an upgrade. In the case where someone already owns a desktop computer and must be mobile, instead of needing to purchase a second device at full price, it may be possible to develop a low-cost computer that has just enough power to connect to the existing desktop and run all processing there, using the mobile device only as a user interface. This thesis will explore the development of a custom PCB that utilizes a Raspberry Pi Computer Module 4, as well as the development of a fork of the Open Source project Moonlight to stream a host machine's screen to a remote client. This implementation will be compared against other existing remote desktop solutions to analyze it's performance and quality.
Speedsolving, the art of solving twisty puzzles like the Rubik's Cube as fast as possible, has recently benefitted from the arrival of smartcubes which have special hardware for tracking the cube's face turns and transmitting them via Bluetooth. However, due to their embedded electronics, existing smartcubes cannot be used in competition, reducing their utility in personal speedcubing practice. This thesis proposes a sound-based design for tracking the face turns of a standard, non-smart speedcube consisting of an audio processing receiver in software and a small physical speaker configured as a transmitter. Special attention has been given to ensuring that installing the transmitter requires only a reversible centercap replacement on the original cube. This allows the cube to benefit from smartcube features during practice, while still maintaining compliance with competition regulations. Within a controlled test environment, the software receiver perfectly detected a variety of transmitted move sequences. Furthermore, all components required for the physical transmitter were demonstrated to fit within the centercap of a Gans 356 speedcube.
This paper will demonstrate that the Agile development process helps to ensure incremental work on an Unreal Engine game project is achieved by presenting a product produced in Unreal Engine along with my experience in utilizing Scrum to facilitate the game’s development. Section 2 discusses project goals and motivations for using Agile, using Unreal Engine, and for the choice of genre in the final product. Section 3 contextualizes these goals by presenting the history of Unreal Engine, the novel applications of Unreal Engine, and the use of Unreal Engine in the development of Heady Stuff. Section 4 presents findings from the project’s development by describing my use of Agile and by presenting the steps taken in learning Unreal Engine. Section 4 continues by highlighting important development considerations in the use of Blueprints, C++, and HLSL in Unreal Engine. The section ends with the presentation of project feedback, its incorporation in the final product, and the resources used to assist development. Section 5 compares the workflow, help resources, and applications of Unreal Engine with those of Unity, another highly popular game engine. Lastly, Section 6 performs a post-mortem on the overall development process by considering how well Agile development processes were upheld along with how much of the original plans in the Design Document was present in the final product. Additionally, the section presents the major challenges encountered during project development. These challenges will help in proposing possible best practices for game development in Unreal Engine.
Exploring AI in Healthcare: How the Acceleration of Data Processing Can Impact Life Saving Diagnoses
Artificial intelligence is one of the biggest topics being discussed in the realm of Computer Science and it has made incredible breakthroughs possible in so many different industries. One of the largest issues with utilizing computational resources in the health industry historically is centered around the quantity of data, the specificity of conditions for accurate results, and the general risks associated with being incorrect in an analysis. Although these all have been major issues in the past, the application of artificial intelligence has opened up an entirely different realm of possibilities because accessing massive amounts of patient data, is essential for generating an extremely accurate model in machine learning. The goal of this project is to analyze tools and algorithm design techniques used in recent times to accelerate data processing in the realm of healthcare, but one of the most important discoveries is that the standardization of conditioned data being fed into the models is almost more important than the algorithms or tools being used combined.