Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering George Mason University Volgenau School of Engineering

Senior Design Projects

If you are interested in any of the Senior Design Projects I propose below, please contact me. Project suggestions by other faculty can be found on the ECE 492 web page.

New Senior Design Projects

I'm interested in advising senior design projects on the following topics.
  • FPGA enhanced Wireless Sensor Nodes based on MSP 430
    A wireless sensor network is a system of individual sensor nodes, each equipped with a processor, wireless transceiver and sensor. Each node collects information about its environment through sensors and passes it on to the base station. The goal of this project is to develop an FPGA enhanced wireless sensor node similar to the one developed by a group from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain but based on the MSP 430 microcontroller. MSP 430 based open source motes are the Telos Mote and the newer EPIC Mote. The group has to study the schematics of the open source motes, prototype one and develop an FPGA interface (e.g. SPI, I2C or better). After successful prototyping a PCB has to be made for the new sensor node.
    Prerequisite: At least one team-member must have successfully completed ECE 447 and one ECE 448.
  • Smart Living Room LED Light
    Most torchiere floor lamps use 150W 3-way light bulbs (50/100/150 Watts) or their equivalent compact fluorescent (CFL) counter parts which still use 14/20/32 Watts. An LED light of the same strength would only use 13 Watts maximum and contains no mercury. LEDs are also available in different colors and can be dimmed when driven appropriately. In fact, the new Boing 787 Dreamliner uses only LEDs for its interior lights. They use colors and dimming to create a pleasant atmosphere and reduce jet-lag (Forbes). The goal of this project is to develop a 150W equivalent LED based light that can change colors without affecting brightness and brightness without affecting color. The range of colors should be limited to imitate sunlight at different times of the day from dusk till dawn. All this should be controlled by a microcontroller and fit elegantly into a torchiere floor lamp. In the end, average and maximum power consumption must be measured (including driver circuitry) and compared with standard 3-way CFL and incandescent light bulbs.
    Prerequisite: At least one team-member must have successfully completed ECE 447.

Currently in Progress

  • none

Previous Senior Design Projects

  • E. Andia, F. Ta, and M. McGivern, Benchmarking hash functions on the MSP430, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA, May, 2011, Senior Design Project Report [pdf] [Bibtex]
  • P. Adams and L. Walton, Differential power analysis testbed, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA, May, 2011, Senior Design Project Report [pdf] [Bibtex]
  • K. Sato and G. Paudel, EducáTable: An interactive multitouch table for young children, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA, May, 2010, Senior Design Project Report [pdf] [Bibtex] (Outstanding ECE Senior Design Project Award)
  • M. A. Huynh, J. Lapato, D. Burtner, and A. Morsy, Design of a FPGA-Based Hardware Platform to Support Software-Defined Radio, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA, May, 2010, Senior Design Project Report (advised with Dr. Brian Mark)
  • A. V. Nguyen, S. Flood, D. Pham, and C. Nguyen, FPGA Integrated Sensor Node, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA, May, 2010, Senior Design Project Report
  • A. Behnaz, B. Loop, E. Foroudi, and S. Dhawan, Behavioral algorithm sensor suite, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, Dec, 2009, Senior Design Project Report [pdf] [Bibtex]
  • K. Rizvi, J. Pham, M. McDermott, and R. Brown, Energy and power comparison of cryptographic algorithms on sensor nodes, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, May, 2009, Senior Design Project Report [pdf] [Bibtex]
  • B. Thomson, J. McCall, and S. Kaur, Cryptographic coprocessor for wireless sensors, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, December, 2008, Senior Design Project Report [pdf] [Bibtex]
  • J. Higgins, P. Patel, and P. Anderson, PDIS – Print data insertion system, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, April, 2008, Senior Design Project Report [pdf] [Bibtex] (Outstanding ECE Senior Design Project Award)