Safety

ECE 445 Safety Guidelines

  1. No one is allowed to work in the lab alone. At least 2 people must be in the lab at all times.
  2. Everyone must complete a mandatory online safety training in order to be allowed to work in the lab. Certificates of completion must submitted on Canvas.
  3. Any group planning on working with high voltages is required to complete additional safety training.
  4. Any group charging or utilizing certain battery chemistries must read, understand, and follow guidelines for safe battery usage.
  5. If you're working on any project involving electric current running through a human subject, you must read through and understand these guidelines for Safe Current Limits!

Requirements and Grading

The Laboratory Safety Training must be completed by all students enrolled in ECE 445. This module can be found on University's Division of Research Safety website.

Submission and Deadlines

Certificates of completion must submitted on Canvas. The due date listed on the Course Calendar. Students who have not completed this requirement will have lab access revoked.

Wireless IntraNetwork

Daniel Gardner, Jeeth Suresh

Wireless IntraNetwork

Featured Project

There is a drastic lack of networking infrastructure in unstable or remote areas, where businesses don’t think they can reliably recoup the large initial cost of construction. Our goal is to bring the internet to these areas. We will use a network of extremely affordable (<$20, made possible by IoT technology) solar-powered nodes that communicate via Wi-Fi with one another and personal devices, donated through organizations such as OLPC, creating an intranet. Each node covers an area approximately 600-800ft in every direction with 4MB/s access and 16GB of cached data, saving valuable bandwidth. Internal communication applications will be provided, minimizing expensive and slow global internet connections. Several solutions exist, but all have failed due to costs of over $200/node or the lack of networking capability.

To connect to the internet at large, a more powerful “server” may be added. This server hooks into the network like other nodes, but contains a cellular connection to connect to the global internet. Any device on the network will be able to access the web via the server’s connection, effectively spreading the cost of a single cellular data plan (which is too expensive for individuals in rural areas). The server also contains a continually-updated several-terabyte cache of educational data and programs, such as Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg. This data gives students and educators high-speed access to resources. Working in harmony, these two components foster economic growth and education, while significantly reducing the costs of adding future infrastructure.