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NASA Wireless Smart Plug: A Successful ESET Capstone Design Project

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Conference

2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Indianapolis, Indiana

Publication Date

June 15, 2014

Start Date

June 15, 2014

End Date

June 18, 2014

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Capstone & Senior Design Projects

Tagged Division

Engineering Technology

Page Count

15

Page Numbers

24.927.1 - 24.927.15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--22860

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/22860

Download Count

470

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Paper Authors

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Joseph A. Morgan Texas A&M University

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Joseph A. Morgan has over 20 years of military and industry experience in electronics and telecommunications systems engineering. He joined the Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution Department in 1989 and has served as the Program Director of the Electronics and Telecommunications Programs and as the Associate Department Head for Operations. He received his BS degree in electrical engineering (1975) from California State University, Sacramento, and his MS (1980) and DE (1983) degrees in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University. His education and research interests include project management, innovation and entrepreneurship, and embedded product/system development.

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Jay R. Porter Texas A&M University

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Jay R. Porter joined the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University in 1998 and is currently the Program Director for the Electronics Program. He received the BS degree in electrical engineering (1987), the MS degree in physics (1989), and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering (1993) from Texas A&M University. His areas of interest in research and education include product development, analog/RF electronics, instrumentation, and entrepreneurship.

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Kristina Rojdev NASA

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Kristina Rojdev received a Ph.D. in Astronautical Engineering from Universtiy of Southern California (USC) in 2012, M.S. in Astronautical Engineering from USC in 2008, and B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from University of Michigan in 2006. She started with NASA-JSC in 2004 as a co-op student, and has been full-time with NASA-JSC since 2008. She has served as the Instrumentation lead on the Deep Space Habitat project for four years and has focused on systems engineering, wireless instrumentation, and technology development for habitat instrumentation systems.

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Daniel Carrejo NASA

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Danny Carrejo is an Electrical Engineer at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) in the Systems Architecture and Integration Office, Space Systems Design and Development Branch. Danny moved to Houston from El Paso, TX, where he attended the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Upon joining NASA in 2004, Danny worked on the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) developing a test control system for the ARED Vibration Isolation System (ARED VIS) and leading the flight certification for the ARED instrumentation. The ARED is now flying onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Danny is currently in charge of the Habitat Testbed, where he develops and integrates habitation technology for future deep space travel.

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Anthony J. Colozza

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Anthony Colozza, is a research engineer working for Vantage Partners at the NASA Glenn Research Center. This work has primarily centered on the design and analysis of propulsion, power and thermal systems for spacecraft and planetary vehicles. He has over 23 years of experience and has published over 90 documents including NASA reports, conference and journal papers and book chapters. He has been part of NASA Glenn’s Deep Space Habitat power system design team for the past 4 years helping design the power system and having it installed in the demonstration unit and testbed. Additional areas of interest include high altitude aircraft and airship design and planetary atmospheric flight vehicle design

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Abstract

NASA Wireless Smart Plug: A Successful ESET Capstone Design ProjectThe Electronic Systems Engineering Technology (ESET) Program curriculum includes a two-semesterexperiential learning Capstone project that all senior-level students must successfully complete. Studentscreate teams that operate as pseudo startup companies that transition a sponsor’s problem statement/needto a fully functional prototype ready for validation testing. Over the past two years, NASA has increasedits sponsorship of Capstone projects based on the exceptional results that Capstone teams have delivered.Recently, a new approach to NASA sponsorship has been attempted. The eXploration Habitat (X-Hab)Academic Innovation Challenge was used to pursue NASA’s interest in technology development for deepspace exploration. ESET faculty members responded to the solicitation, was awarded a contract, andused a portion of the funding to underwrite a Capstone project.NASA’s Deep Space Habitat (DSH) project was in need of sensors that could monitor the powerconsumption of various devices in the habitat with added capability to control the power to these devicesfor load shedding in emergency situations. Furthermore, these sensors needed to be able to detect andfunction with 28 V and/or 120 V DC power, the most common types of power available in spacecraft.Additionally, the sensors needed to be wireless and fit within the current mesh network provided by theDSH testbed to satisfy requirements that the sensors can easily be moved if needed and to reduce mass byeliminating wires._________ University’s ESET Program in conjunction with their Mobile Integrated Solutions Laboratory(MISL) accepted this challenge, and over the course of 2013, four undergraduate students in a Capstonedesign course developed five wireless DC Smart Plugs for NASA. The solution, designed by the studentsin the newly established ESET Product Innovation Cellar (PIC), encompassed all of the sponsor’srequirements using a low-power microcontroller, current sensing technology and solid state relays. TheNASA hardware was controlled wireless using the ISA 100.11 protocol. The LabView-based GUIallowed the user to: 1) monitor the current of a smart plug in near real-time, 2) set a current threshold foreach device, 3) notify the user when a device has exceeded the current threshold, and 4) provide controlcapability to disconnect a device from power when in an over-current situation.As part of the challenge, _________ completed a System Definition Review, a Preliminary DesignReview, a Critical Design Review, two Progress Checkpoints, acceptance testing, and final review anddemonstration to NASA management. The delivered Smart Plugs successfully passed all functionalrequirements to the prerequisite specification in the validation testing at NASA-JSC Deep Space Habitat.The wireless DC Smart Plugs developed by __________ in conjunction with NASA’s Deep SpaceHabitat team is a first step in developing wireless instrumentation for future flight hardware. This paperwill discuss the X-Hab challenge, the Capstone design and implementation of the Wireless Smart Plug,the integration and validation testing conducted as part of the technology transfer to NASA engineers,challenges faced by the team, lessons learned, and potential future work.

Morgan, J. A., & Porter, J. R., & Rojdev, K., & Carrejo, D., & Colozza, A. J. (2014, June), NASA Wireless Smart Plug: A Successful ESET Capstone Design Project Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--22860

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