Group 6 [Spring 2023, Term Code: 222]

Continuous Monitoring of Pipeline Wall Thinning Using Ultrasonic NDT

Group 4 [Spring 2021, Term Code: 202]

Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring System II

Group 2 [Spring 2020, Term Code: 192]

Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring System I

6. Continuous Monitoring of Pipeline Wall Thinning Using Ultrasonic Non-Destructive Testing. The lack of cost-effective solutions for continuous monitoring of pipelines that enables on-stream-inspection is a challenge for many industries. Hence, there is a pressing need for the advancement of non-destructive testing. That is, to take the testing from manual to remote and continuous by means of integrating a communication system and power management unit. The advantages of this shift include the ability to keep up with the inspection schedule, achieve real-time monitoring, and reduced logistics, and data collection, which later enables the prediction of pipe failure. In this project, we attempted to study the industrial ultrasonic sensor provided by Aramco Inspection Technology Unit (ITU), in terms of its functionality, and how to operate it, and also tried to access the electrical excitation characteristics emitted by the device’s electronics to the transducer, so that we can re-produce the excitation signal using our own electronics design. Then, we reviewed the literature for the excitation characteristics of ultrasonic and we concluded that a negative high voltage spike is needed for our model that was provided by Aramco. Based on that, we designed a pulse generator using logic gates whose output is taken to two power transistor configurations for switching, where the second power transistor is a p-type that is biased by a negative high-voltage module. Nevertheless, due to the short time left, we could not manage to configure the circuit to read the reflected signal successfully. With a recommendation to continue the excitation phase as future work, we replaced the industrial ultrasonic sensor by the HC-SR04 ultrasonic range sensing module to demonstrate the next two phases of the project, which are wireless data communication, and power management. The communication system and the power management unit are successfully developed.

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5. Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring System III. This is the final report of our senior design project, which is about designing a noninvasive glucose monitoring system, implement it, and test it experimentally with multiple scenarios to accomplish proper findings of the relationship between the patients’ glucose level and the output voltage from the designed circuit. The designed circuit contains at the input a LNA that amplify the reflected signal, which is weaker than the transmitted signal. The amplified signal, then, get filtered by a BPF to eliminate the surrounding noises. After that, the signal is converted to DC voltage using the RF to transfer it to the microcontroller, which is the Arduino Nano 33 BLE, since it accepts DC voltage only. The microcontroller processes the voltage and converts it to glucose level then transmits it via its BLE module to the mobile phone of the patient. We managed to find a clear relation between the transmitted signal and the glucose concentration which they are negatively proportional to each other in almost linear manner. Almost every 0.04mV corresponds 60 mg/dL glucose concentration in distilled water. However, averaging an approximation have been made due to the very small scale of interest. 

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4. Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring System II. This report is the final report of the senior project design, which summaries our work and discusses designing a continuous non-invasive glucose monitoring device. The system sends a generated signal of 5.8GHz using an oscillator to transmit it to the human body through an antenna. The antenna then receives a reflected signal containing information about the permittivity of the body. The signal will go into a processing circuit in which a low noise amplifier will amplify the signal to ensure that we do not have a weak signal. Then, a bandpass filter eliminates the noise since the surrounding devices might act as a noise source. The signal is finally rectified before being passed to a microcontroller through an RF detector because the microcontroller accepts only DC voltage. The microcontroller used is a BLE Arduino Nano that will process the received signal and then sent it to a mobile app. The mobile app allows both the patient and the doctor to access the data and send an alarm in case of emergency. A simulation was conducted on LTspice to prove the design and derive a relationship between the reflected signal and the Glucose level. 

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3. Temperature Sensing for Shallow Geothermal Applications. In this project, we have designed a temperature sensing system to be used for shallow geothermal applications. The system consists of two main parts: the processing unit and the sensing unit. The latter is designed using U shape 2-layer PCB (60×80 mm2) that contains multiple digital temperature sensors (ADT7420) which work in the range of -40 to 150 ºC, these sensors measure underground temperature for shallow geothermal applications (heating and cooling buildings). The temperature measurements help assisting the system performance. The sensing unit sends information to the processing unit using I2C communication protocol. A hardware experiment has been implemented to simulate different scenarios to the system. The accuracy and the power consumption per sensor have been calculated for the various scenarios. 

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2. Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring System I. This project discusses the design of a glucose monitoring system. First, it gives a clear introduction to the project consisting of background information, project definition and objectives and project management. Then, it shows the background information ranging from existing products to market research and some related technical data. Next, it shows the design and development of the project and the final design. Finally, it shows the conclusion of this project. 

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1. Energy Harvesting. In this project, we have designed two energy harvesting systems, single- and multi-source. The single-source system can harvest from both a solar cell and a thermoelectric generator (TEG). Its design was done in two different approaches, DC-DC Boost Convertor and LTC3108 IC. The single-source provided two regulated outputs 2.2V and 3.3V with a short circuit current of 198 𝜇A and 246 𝜇A for a solar input, while 212 𝜇A and 228 𝜇A for an input from the TEG. The multi-source system is able to harvest from three ambient sources: solar, thermoelectric generator, and piezoelectric. The system provides 5 regulated output ports, three of which are 3.3V and two are 2.2V. The current readings from the solar input as well as from the TEG are the same as in the single-source. The single-source system was tested, and it showed good performance in operating an MSP430 microcontroller, TMP36 temperature sensor, and a typical LED.