The requirements for this project require students to be creative, explore, and enjoy the design process while maintaining professional and respectful relationships with each other. The primary objective is to conceptualize a mechanical and chemical that would be used to repurpose hemp/cannabis biomass into usable raw materials that can replace fossil fuel base materials.

Research and Development:
- Investigate existing sustainable and eco-friendly technologies for converting biomass into biobased raw materials.
- Endeavor to enhance, amalgamate, emulate, or innovate using existing concepts, or develop new ones.

Communication:
- For clarifications or proposing novel ideas, students are encouraged to email the sponsor. If further discussion is required, they may feel free to call the sponsor at 520-839-9845.
- Maintain open communication with peers, mentors, and the sponsor.

Collaboration Protocols:
- Engage in group brainstorming sessions, ensuring all ideas are given due consideration and respect.
- Each participant should establish an initial rapport with the sponsor to foster trust.
- The team leader is expected to connect with the sponsor weekly, ideally for a 10-15 minute update.
- Bi-weekly meetings involving the entire team should be planned and adhered to.
- Allow for individual autonomy.

Confidentiality and Intellectual Property:
- Maintain discretion concerning project details, limiting discussions to teammates, relevant faculty, and other University of Arizona stakeholders.
- Students will be asked to review and sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to safeguard any intellectual property emerging from this project.


Above all, open and clear communication with team members, mentors, and the sponsor is of paramount importance.

Problem Statement: Civil security reconnaissance is invaluable to the operations of the Border
Patrol, Law Enforcement, and first responders in every type of environment. Although there are
large-scale assets available for these ground forces, the immediacy aspect of reconnaissance is
tough to satisfy for the emergency real-time surveillance information.

Solution: A low-cost, light-weight networked, aerial reconnaissance solution implemented by
ground forces on demand, no waiting for assets, no call for crew served air support, could make a
difference. System could also serve as fixed surveillance camera to monitor a suspected traffic
route, a complex urban scene, for first responder’s hazard assessment.
Concept of Employment: The operator turns the STAR round on and establishes the video link
with their hand-held display unit (smart phone, tablet, etc.) Then the operator launches the round
at the high-loft angle by using a standard issue flare pistol or maximum 40 mm caliber launcher.
Once at altitude, The STAR will provide wide angle field of view to the operator while holding
the station without burden to the operator. Altitude and time on station are to be refined; for the
point of departure, they are greater than 100 meters above ground level (AGL) and 5 minutes,
respectively. Image quality (resolution, stability etc.) must be sufficient for the operator to assess
the situation in real-time (for example, distinguish a threat: is a person holding a pistol or a
cellphone?)

Project Scope: This Phase 2 is the continuation of the 2022 Phase 1 effort, when the design team
had conducted the design, procurement, fabrication, and limited design verification testing of the
most critical technology elements and subsystems. The Phase 2 team will conduct necessary
design changes, performance analysis, procurement, fabrication, integration, verification, and
tests to deliver an integrated, form-factored STAR system (including a smart phone/tablet App to
initialize and launch the round, and to display the projected picture). The system must be
inexpensive (single time use), light-weight (easy to carry and non-destructive when falls) and
environmentally friendly, must not expose the operator to any harm and must be constructed
with common obtainable materials to simplify the procurement (51% of the system must be
constructed in the U.S.) It is acceptable to demonstrate the capability with 40 mm caliber
pneumatic launcher. It is desired that the system has future network expansion capability (several
STAR systems generate integrated surveillance view)

NEED:
Security forces, first responders, vehicles, UAVs and autonomous
systems are increasingly reliant on GPS in order to maneuver,
navigate, and reach their destination, leading to an extreme
vulnerability if GPS is jammed, disrupted, or otherwise made
unavailable.
OBJECTIVE:
The Localized Temporarily Deployable Adaptive Navigation
Network (LTDANN) is a method to overcome this vulnerability
using a multi-transmitter nodal network to provide relative and
absolute locationing without relying on the Global Positioning
System satellites. Initial program would be development of proof of concept 4 node network
to demonstrate algorithms, positioning accuracy, and robustness

Develop Useful Simulation
Develop and Integrate key hardware devices
Build Hardware (4 nodes + receiver)
Demonstrate communication between nodes
Demonstrate determination of range between two nodes
Demonstrate position agreement between 3 nodes
Introduce nodes with no known position and demonstrate position solving
Demonstrate receiver position solving

Small commercial drones equipped with cameras and/or other potentially lethal payloads are a persistent challenge for our DOD and national security organizations. These drones are difficult to see or hear until they are already in the effective threat perimeter. There is a need for a standoff detection and tracking capability to spot these potential threats at an actionable distance before they represent a tactical threat to military or high value government personnel.
The “D2TAS” system would allow security forces to detect and track small UAS that pose a potential threat to military and government personnel.

This system will be portable, and will be able to detect various sizes of quad copter or octo-copters at a slant distance of 100m to 500m or beyond. The system should be able to provide an azimuth and elevation value as to where the drone threat is located and also track the movement of the one drone.

The Rescue 21 program provides dispatch consoles to the US Coast Guard to provide command and control activities for the radio communication system. The console has an audio interface device for headsets and desk microphones and also distributes audio streams to several speakers. The purpose of this project is to redesign the audio interface device that will feed these speakers and take in the microphone inputs to interface with the rest of the system. Students will also develop software to demonstrate the audio system operation and verify system requirements.

This project will require integrating hardware and software. Students will get the opportunity to work on multiple Engineering disciplines and work with the following:
• Audio processing – DAC and ADC
• Basic audio circuit design
• Perform trade study to select hardware to meet requirements
• Design system and build PCB prototypes
• Software development to test system
• Work with GDMS to integrate prototype with production equipment

Overview
Aerospace industry employs sensitive and expensive instrumentation and radars for sensing, navigation and tracking on all forms of aircraft. This equipment is protected by special Radomes of various polymers, composites, ceramics and alloys to protect sensitive instrumentation from impingement from precipitation, insects and airborne foul at a variety of speeds from low speed to Mach 1+.

Need Statement:
The development and customization of these radomes requires special testing to qualify the durability and survivability of the different materials and shape configurations. There needs to be a test method of creating a controlled impingement event that can be used to validate the radomes designs for their specific applications.

Solution:
Review test need specifications and develop a test method approach. Develop a modular, configurable, and programmable test apparatus that will enable the controlled impingement (kinematic characteristics) of a unique plastic bead (weight, strength), at a specific speed (low speed 200kts to medium speed 800kts) against representative radomes samples. This system will need to be able to measure the bead physical characteristics prior, measure the velocity of the beads just prior to impact, and provide a method of inspection or assessment for survivability scoring.

We seek to inspire the next generation of engineers by creating an open-source basketball shooting robot. This robot will serve to inspire curiosity and engage middle & high school students potentially interested in the STEM field.

Design a wind tunnel to evaluate airflow over different airfoil and nose cone designs. The wind tunnel will be designed to visually display and record the airflow, this data will be used determine the efficiency of different geometries and drive design improvements. The wind tunnel will allow for various speed inputs to evaluate the test object at different stages of flight. In addition, the test chamber will include mounting support to adjust the angle of the test object.

The purpose of this project to develop a satellite-based communication and control system for a swarm or fleet of autonomous water/ocean drones known as “Aquabots.” The chosen method for communication with a master vessel will be via satellite, this will be required to be reliable and cost effective, in particular with regard to data transfer.

Specifications – two-way satellite communications with lead vessel, command data transmission, acquired data transmission, error and diagnostic transmission, distress transmission. System to have low power consumption 1ah @ 12v. System to have recording and display capabilities.

Requirements: (1) Research into types of robotic inter-communication systems available. (2) Identify how these systems can be adopted or improved (3) Identify low-cost sensing/communication systems for collision avoidance (4) Demonstrate system operation through prototyping and testing of an existing Aquabot prototype

Background, Rationale and Project Scope:
The health of the ocean is critical for overall earth and human health. Of concern is the increasing stress being placed on the world’s oceans, and for that matter other bodies of water including lakes and rivers. Increasing pollution from runoff and population growth; the increased release/dumping of pollutants, petrochemicals and garbage; lack of recyclability of plastics with generation of dispersed microplastics; and the list goes on - all are collectively and exponentially affecting ocean/water health. The relentless increase of ocean waste is at risk for impacting the health not only of the oceans but also those organisms who rely directly or indirectly on the sea. Climate change, as well, is a further stressor leading to an increase in sea level, a decrease in salinity, regional oxygen depletion and alteration of sea life - from the microscopic on up.

AquaBot drones are being developed to monitor the state of the oceans, obtain regional samples (salinity, pH, Temp) and recover plastic and other contaminating materials from the oceans. To increase the efficiency of these devices it is intended that they will operate in a swarm or fleet mode. To work in this manner individual drones need to be able to communicate with each other and take directions from a central command control. The vessels (drones) should use an Automated Identification System protocol (AIS) to transmit their position and be able to monitor each other’s position. Key control parameters are collision avoidance, search pattern adherence, vessel integrity/health, sensor data communication, error reporting, diagnostics and maintenance reporting.

This project will develop a “Smart Room” for patient examination able to capture much of this lost information. The project will benefit from and build upon work done by a Sr. Design team in ‘22-‘23. A kit will be designed that is portable, able to be placed in any given space utilized for patient examination. The kit will consist of: 1. Cameras (2-4) for image and motion capture; 2. microphones (2-4) for sound capture; 3. a handheld microphone for close patient examination (e.g. convertible or integrated with a stethoscope); 4. a handheld camera for close examination; and 5. a handheld microscope for extreme close-up image capture. Central to the kit will be an interface able to input all of these sources, and a computer system with large graphic display able to portray all inputs. The sophistication of the system will be in developed algorithms - i.e. in the systems’ ability to measure specific parameters from the input captured signals and display the processed time-synched information. Parameters to be measured include: accurate dimensions of a body part, accurate movement analysis (the system will incorporate MOCA - a system recently developed allowing image and motion quantitation (see Applied Sciences, 12(12), 6173. https://doi.org/10.3390/app12126173; sounds – including speech, breathing, heart sounds, AV graft/fistula sounds – analyzing them as to frequency, amplitude, pitch, phase and other subtle metadata including HNR (harmonic to noise ratio), NHR (noise to harmonic ratio), energy entropy (EE), short time energy (STE), zero crossing rate (ZCR), spectral roll off (SR), spectral centroid (SC) and spectral flux (SF) to estimate stress related acoustic high level features such as jitter and shimmer. Patient vital signs and weight will also be measured and inputted. Processed data needs to be able to be displayed as well as be compressed and stored in a fashion that may be incorporated in the electronic health record for ready serial access and display of evolving trends

The long-term goal and hope here it that from additional patient quantitative data gathered by the wired room, that new “digital biomarkers” may emerge stemming from serial evaluation of parameters measured over time. These new biomarkers will ultimately enhance the precision of clinical care.

Project Background/Scope: The role of the health care encounter – whether it be at the medical office, clinic, hospital, home or field is critical in obtaining relevant information to guide and direct the delivery and accuracy of care. Studies have demonstrated that more than 70% of diagnoses and advancement of care emanates from the physician or health worker carefully questioning and observing the patient. Sadly, patient encounters today have become shorter as to time spent, with the physician often hampered in examination focus by requirements of electronic health record (HER) data entry and use of a computer. Studies have also shown that many correct diagnoses are made by the doctor using information, such as: what and in what way the patient speaks, how the patient looks and acts, how the patient behaves, how the patient sits, how the patient walks, how the patient smells, and other information gained by focused attentive one–on–one patient encounters and consultations. In routine doctor-patient interactions today much of this information is not recorded and is lost.