Improving Vehicle Safety with Traction Control: A Senior Design Project

[tenacity2986]

Our group has come across a few iinteresting ideas. We would really like to do something with aviation and control, but it needs to be more on the EE side than the CSE side where there's a lot of programming that can be done... ANY IDEAS in general much appreciated...

FOR those of you who don't know SDP is a 2 semester project you do before graduating.

 

[dlgoff]

Hi tenacity2986,

You mentioned wanting to do something involving aviation. May I suggest looking into Avionics? I once worked as a test engineer for King Radio and really enjoyed writing test procedures for all the types of electronics they manufactured. Maybe you can get some ideas from this Wikipedia page on avionics. There are many links there that will point you to different categories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avionics"

 

[Kys91]

Hi tenacity2986,

You mentioned wanting to do something involving aviation. May I suggest looking into Avionics? I once worked as a test engineer for King Radio and really enjoyed writing test procedures for all the types of electronics they manufactured. Maybe you can get some ideas from this Wikipedia page on avionics. There are many links there that will point you to different categories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avionics"

Hey dlgoff, I am still in high school, but very interested in Avionics, specially radio COM and NAV. I love listening to ATC from my radio scanner and if I am near the airport I love hearing the VOR signal and imagine how cool it'd be to use the VOR with a Software Defined Radio as a cool experiment.

I'd love to hear the experience of someone who has worked directly in the field, if you could tell us a more detailed description of your job at King Radio, and I wonder, what are you doing today?

Thanks

 

[dlgoff]

Hi Kys91.

At King Radio Corp., I was responsible for testing avionics to insure quality. My duties required electronic and mechanical knowledge of the products (I would work with the designing engineer to learn the circuits and operation) in order to write specifications and procedures (which were used by the bench techs to align the radios etc). I also specified test equipment used in order to meet the engineering specs. Our products included Transponders, Nav. receivers, VOR/ILS indicators, Servos, and Communications equipment.

All of these products needed to be burned-in (powered in hot environment), put through vibration test, and altitude tested (we used vacuum chambers). If anything failed, the equipment would be repaired and put through all the test again. I've seen radios in the system for a year or so before they were given the okay. Quality was very important as one would expect; life depended on them working correctly.

Avionics is just one area of electronic applications. So if you can stay in school and get a good education in electronics, you will be set for that and lots of other interesting applications.

 

[Kys91]

Thanks, I like you used to work with the design engineer, but it was something of everyday, or when a new product came?

I am impressed how much time it took to approve them, definitely they were build to really high standards.

I also curious if you used to be in the factory, a special test center, or design center. I think the first 2 ones probably.

 

[dlgoff]

The plant I worked in had areas for assembly, soldering, rework, etc. Areas for bench work and testing. Offices and shipping... All in one structure.

 

[daxlnc]

For my senior design project, we created a traction control system for a car. We tried to counter/control any slipping/skidding of a tyre to ensure to car doest skid. This may give you some interesting ideas.

Here's a short demo clip of our project: