Sponsor

NMSU/Industrial Engineering

In today’s airport environment, especially at the busier airports, any change in “normal” operations affects that particular airport and also may ripple across the NAS and affect many other airports and passengers. To meet this challenge, the FAA, airport operators, and airport users must work together to develop action plans that provide the best solutions for local and regional areas, as well as the nation. An integrated approach is preferred which includes improving technology, air traffic control procedures, and expanding airport and airfield infrastructure.

The main aim of this project would be to establish collaboration with a regional airport management authority interested to evaluate and analyze their existing public parking area. Based on the input from the client airport and our expertise, we would recognize set of important performance measures that would help to evaluate the system. Next an extensive data collection strategy plan would be developed for better demand forecast predication and develop a discrete event simulation model for the facility. The simulation model would be used to evaluate alternative system configuration that would aid for better decision making.

Sponsor

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Design an 8' inner diameter blast tube that can deliver high pressures to a test body at the tube exit. The cycle duty of the blast tube components should be 10 shots with a goal of 20. The pressure source can be a stretch goal, right now we use explosives (190# of C-4) but other creative mechanisms can be explored. This work will require the structural analysis of the pressure time history effects on the design members (tubes, couplings, materials) and fatigue loading to account for the 10 shots of use.

Sponsor

NMSU/EE,ME,AE

Small low-cost jet powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can potentially accomplish missions that are outside the realm of bigger more expensive aircraft. The low thrust-specific fuel consumption of small jet engines when compared to full-size engines provides the motivation for carrying such UAVs under the wing of bigger aircraft and releasing them only in close vicinity of the intended location. When envisioning that the originating carrier flight may be of longer duration and at higher Mach number, windmilling of the small turbojet engine can lead to significant wear and tear before the UAV mission is flown. This proposal is concerned with the development of a locking device that prevents windmilling of the engine during flight. The device is to be combined with a thrust vectoring capability.

Sponsor

Los Alamos National Laboratory

In the DOE weapons complex, electrostatic discharge (ESD) poses a hazardous situation when coupled to sensitive high explosive materials. The proposed research and project aims to potentially develop a method for the reduction and mitigation of ESD hazards. Students will be encouraged to use their knowledge, research, and creative abilities throughout the project development to generate, characterize, and mitigate the ESD hazard.

Sponsor

Honeywell FM&T

High Frequency communication for mobile platforms has many aspects and when fielded must be reliable. This project will cover analysis and design ranging from HF waveforms to covert antenna design to vulnerability of HF.

Sponsor

NMSU/ECE,ME

This project is to investigate whether a ground robot with hybrid spacial sensing capabilities can be developed. Given an advanced off-the-shelf ground robot, the overarching goal of this project is to implement a novel acoustic sensing technique and integrate it with the existing visual sensing system. The project objectives include (1) activate the RGB and depth cameras on the robot, (2) implement the sound-source localization techniques developed by the PI's research group, (3) command and control to robot to orient itself toward the sensed sound in real-time, and (4) develop a virtual cockpit for human operator that integrates the images (obtained by the cameras) and sound coordinates (obtained by the sound-source localization technique).

Sponsor

NMSU/EE,ME

Research, evaluate, and design an efficient and environmentally sustainable, means for improving energy yield of PV modules by reducing the operating temperature of the modules. The primary area of research in solar cell technology involves increasing the efficiency of the cells and the Photovoltaic (PV) modules. Since most PVs lose efficiency as temperature increases, one of the most effective ways to increase a PV’s energy output is by reducing the operating temperature of the cell. Efforts to decrease the temperature of solar cells have the added benefit of prolonging the life of a solar module, since higher temperatures activate degradation mechanisms within a module.

Houston, Texas This site houses most of the original Apollo Program documents as well as a partial list of artifacts left at the Apollo 11 site.

Sponsor

NMSU/EE,ME

Create a mechanism capable of folding a paper bag to be used as a luminaria bag. The top edge of bag should be folder along the outer edge by 2 inches. Fold should be to the outside. The bad is inserted into the mechanism. The mechanism should then create the 2-inch fold and then flatten the bag for easy stacking. Mechanism does not have to stack the bag.

Sponsor

Method to Characterize Sensor Performance

With the global introduction of the “Internet of Things” (IoT), sensors with a variety of capabilities are being utilized. There are multiple classes of sensors (acoustic, pressure flow, light, etc.) and many more manufacturers within a sensor class. In order to validate that the performance is consistent within a sensor class given the variety of suppliers, output is collected from running the same test scenarios (injecting the same input, and comparing the results for consistency); the vendor-specific log files are collected and the results compared. As a secondary goal, the project will incorporate sensors or transceivers into a demonstrable electro mechanical system.

Sponsor

NASA

Design a weather monitoring station to support optical communications with satellites. The main component of this project is to build an all-sky cloud camera. The NASA Optical Communication Project’s main goal is to create a cost effective system that will collect information to be used by NASA to determine the quality of optical communication between a ground base and a satellite.

Sponsor

Northrop Grumman

Design and optical alignment system for satellites. The students will be developing a complete design for the satellite alignment system. The project will demonstrate the operability of positioning algorithms. The program consists on 2 CubeSats, a U1 and a U3 CubeSat model. The U1 CubeSat is referred as the target and the U3 is referred as the imager. The target will have 4 LEDs attached, one LED for each corner of the CubeSat. And the imager holds a high-quality camera that will take pictures of the target in order to find the position of it with respect to the imager, and that way both CubeSats can be align with respect each other.

Sponsor

Sandia National Laboratories

The purpose of the New Mexico Capstone Challenge is to introduce engineering students in New Mexico to Sandia as a potential employer, through an engaging experience centered around a challenging project that exercises critical skills needed for work at Sandia or other DOE/NNSA or national security employers.

Today we live in a technology-driven world, where real-time sensing is desirable and feasible for a range of applications and environments. The data collected is invaluable, it can be used to improve future designs, enhance security, increase efficiency, assess health, and track performance, to name a few of the potential advantages of embedded sensing hardware. Sandia has many systems that require real-time monitoring at the system and component level.

Systems and components designed at Sandia are designed to function in an array of environments during their lifetime. Lifetimes range from a few days to tens of years. Sensors are needed to detect a broad range of the environment space. Ideally, such sensors are small, lightweight, robust, have low power requirements, and operate both passively and actively. In the passive state, devices have minimal influence on the environment. In the active state, the devices respond to the environment, such as cooling the device if it gets too hot or warming the device if it gets too cold.

Sponsor

Northrop Grumman

Design two satellites that will perform docking maneuver in space. The students will be developing a complete design for the satellite alignment system. The project will demonstrate the operability of positioning algorithms. The program consists on 2 CubeSats, a U1 and a U3 CubeSat model. The U1 CubeSat is referred as the target and the U3 is referred as the imager. The target will have 4 LEDs attached, one LED for each corner of the CubeSat. And the imager holds a high-quality camera that will take pictures of the target in order to find the position of it with respect to the imager, and that way both CubeSats can be align with respect each other.

Sponsor

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Design a system to provide simultaneous torque and thrust to a large mass and allow the mass to spin down on a low friction bearing. For this project, students designed a test simulator that provides a simultaneous torque and thrust on a test subject. While the test subject is free from all external forces and running on a frictionless plane for optimal performance, data will be obtained and analyzed to see how the test specimen responded.

Sponsor

General Dynamics Mission Systems

As the integration of home and technology become increasingly more commonplace, paired with inventions such as 'strip LEDs' and smart connected technologies, grand lighting schemes are neatly tucked away into floor crevasses and ceiling junctions, creating grand and awe-inspiring displays of illumination. New illumination methods and smart communication technologies can be married to produce custom, one of a kind smart home lighting array. Students will design a controlled space equipped with a sensor(s) and lighting lining the walls at specific intervals. The system to track the users location, illuminating, and de-illuminate as the user walks through the controlled space.

Students will design a controlled space equipped with a sensor(s) and lighting lining the walls at specific intervals. The system to track the users location, illuminating, and de-illuminate as the user walks through the controlled space.

Sponsor

NMSU/EE,ME

This project investigates the feasibility of designing a bed that can automatically turn a person in the correct position. It includes the sensors that can obtain the 3D reconstruction of the person and the automatic folding functions that can turn the person.

Sponsor

NMSU/EE,ME

The Solar District Cup challenges multidisciplinary student teams to design and model optimized distributed solar energy systems for a campus or urban district. These systems integrate solar, storage, and other distributed energy capabilities across mixed-use districts, or groups of buildings served by a common electrical distribution feeder. The competition engages students across the engineering, urban planning, and finance disciplines to reimagine how energy is generated, managed, and used in a district. Teams compete in one of multiple divisions, each structured around a distinct district use case. A winner is selected for each division, based on the quality of their solar energy system design. The strongest designs provide the highest offset of annual energy and greatest financial savings. This is determined by a techno-economic analysis conducted by students and evaluated by judges. The goal is to design, model, and present the most reliable, resilient, and cost-effective system possible.

Sponsor

Honeywell FM&T

The objective of this project is to perform research, design, and develop tractor trailer panel repair tooling. The challenge is to replace large, damaged, interlaced panels on tractor trailers. Research will include a review of available COTS equipment and industry approaches to trailer panel and skin repair. Tooling may include: pneumatic hammer assist, heat source for softening adhesives, or rigid manual leveraging. All possible tooling solutions must include reduced manual force and improved ergonomics compared to the current method. Results should include prototype demonstration(s) on mock panels, as well as conclusions and a path forward.