Electronics Project

There is a new technology being developed, based on the spin of an electron, rather than it's charge, called spintronics. One company developing it is NVE (www.nve.com) I think that would be a fun thing to explore.

Another would be a power saving project, such as replacing incandescants with LEDs. This is already commercial, but an important area, and the drive electronics are not trivial.

A third would be something along the lines of Dr. Moogs' new automobile suspension system, that uses linear motors to replace springs and shock absorbers - a very challenging motor control project. http://www.inmotiononline.com.au/inmotion/feature_article/item_062006a.asp

A fourth would be VHDL coding. Most FPGA manufacturers sell small demo boards that can interface to a PC, as a test bed for VHDL code - pick an application and develop an FPGA based design to address it.

A fifth would be a project to mitigate the effects of radiation in spaced based electronics - things such as error correction, triple redundancy, etc., this is a real problem with real solutions.

Thankfully acknowledge your very prompt response to my question.I shall again come back to this forum for further guidance. This only reconfirms CR4 as the best forum for engineers.

1. FPGA is truely a fun thing to use.. it offers more power and is faster compared to a normal MC.. if i'm not mistaken Xilinx offer block-sets for its FPGAs that are compatible with MATLAB. Doing something large like maybe face segmentation, tracking or recognition with VHDL is not a very easy task. But its always great to achieve something like this with VHDL. but one year time frame might be a little short since the student will have other units as well (in most cases).

2. PowerBus is a good project too for an EE final year project.

3. Making an "Oscilloscope" with an FPGA, or a MC (maybe PIC) and use a computer screen as the display could be fun as well. There will be electronics, firmware and software programing in such an application. USB can be used since RS232 does not offer that fast sampling, plus, it seems like its gonna be obsolete soon.

A colour scaner (for better machine vision), DC-AC sine wave converter, fuel cell projects are some other projects that come to my mind at the moment.

This seems like a simple task at first but if you go into it properly a battery charger can be quiet complex. A good one would be a universal battery charger that used a micro controller and hall effect devices to sense what sort of battery was connected and charge it appropriately. There are chips out there that can do this but to date every device that I that I have dealt with that uses rechargeable batteries has skimped on the charger.

Very true. I remember going through a lot to make a stable and a safe 3.3V DC power supply with just basic electronic parts (as in a step-down transformer, diodes, transistors, resistors and caps), which will probably be part of this project..

I like this idea of "a universal battery charger"... great idea.

I do not know how difficult the below suggested project for students to consider.

"Measuring 'Blood Pressure' in personal computers"

The input device could be a USB based transducer.

Commercial BP monitors have basically transducer (which deducts pulses and pressure), analyzer and display unit.

If we use a pc for this requirement, analyzer (a suitable program) and display unit are available (by and large).

A cost effective input device is the key and challenge.

Though not for a student, I hope this could be an interesting project for any one to consider, if one of this kind does not exist already.

hmmm u can make project on By-wire technology