Class of 2008
Major: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Center: Silicon Valley, California
Major Qualifying Project: An automated system to allow researchers in Silicon Valley, California to operate remotely an optical telescope located in Alaska.
Tom Niemczycki
January 6, 2008
Hi, my name is Tom Niemczycki. I am a senior at WPI, my major is Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE), and once more I am traveling off campus to complete one of my major projects. You may recall my blog from a year ago in which I chronicled my Interactive Qualifying Project in London. This time I am on my way to WPI’s project center in Silicon Valley, California to complete my Major Qualifying Project (MQP). As last year, I am excited about discovering a new part of the world, applying my knowledge to solve a real engineering problem, and having the opportunity to share the experience with you. Before I get too far though, let me give you a little background about what I’ll be doing in California.
The Major Qualifying Project is the third main degree requirement at WPI (after the Humanities Requirement and Interactive Qualifying Project). This project is typically completed in the senior year. Students usually work in teams with other students in the same major to solve a real-world problem by conducting original research or developing a new prototype for a device. Each team also writes a scholarly paper to document its work and performs one or more formal presentations to faculty or project sponsors. The MQP is the capstone to three-and-half years of work in the classroom and laboratory. By this point, WPI students are expected to have the technical expertise, critical thinking abilities, and work ethic to take on this challenge. Completing the MQP demonstrates that a student is ready to solve advanced problems, and it gives an impressive experience to recount during a job interview.
Rather than completing my MQP on campus over three terms, I opted to apply for the opportunity to complete the project off campus in one term. In addition to Silicon Valley, WPI also offers ECE MQP’s in Limerick, Ireland and MIT Lincoln Labs. Silicon Valley was my first choice because it presented such a unique opportunity to work in a place that people across the world recognize as the source for remarkable technological breakthroughs and innovation. The local businesses in the area include Google, Intel, and Apple Computers. The well-known story of Hewlett-Packard’s humble beginnings occurred right here, and William Shockley started a company to manufacture solid-state transistors right in Palo Alto just over half a century ago. The chance to live and work in this environment is simply thrilling.
There are several project teams from WPI that will work in Silicon Valley this term. I am a part of one of the two ECE teams. There are also two IMGD (Interactive Media and Game Development) teams and the rest are CS (Computer Science) teams. The IMGD teams are working for eBay, and the CS teams are completing projects for eBay and nVidia. The two ECE teams are working for a company called SRI International.
While you may never have heard of SRI, you’re using several of its innovations just to read this page. SRI was founded in 1946 by the trustees of Stanford University as the Stanford Research Institute. The company was created with the intention of developing new technologies and bringing them to market for the purpose of promoting peace, welfare, and economic prosperity. Among early notable achievements were alloys for jet engines, breakthrough cancer treatments, and optical storage. While the company became independent of the University in 1970, it continued its tradition of innovation. SRI was part of the first-ever computer network, known as the ARPANET, which later evolved into the Internet. They also pioneered human-computer interaction with the development of the first computer mouse and graphical user interface (GUI). Later, they would go on to conduct research to refine LCD displays and a host of other technologies that we take for granted every day. In fact, the HDTV standard was developed by Sarnoff Corporation, a spin-off of SRI. Currently, SRI is conducting important work on several fronts. Recently, it won a major contract to develop manufacturing processes for drugs and vaccines, and the company is conducting important atmospheric and climate research.
In completing my MQP, I’ll be working with a team of two other ECE seniors. We have spent the last term conducting background research so that we can hit the ground running once we arrive in California. The result of this work was a project proposal, which we sent to SRI, and a presentation for our project advisors. So, let’s get into it...
My team’s MQP involves work that will benefit the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HARRP). HAARP is funded by the military and the University of Alaska, and its mission is to study the properties of the ionosphere for the purpose of advancing communications and surveillance technology. The ionosphere is a layer in Earth’s upper atmosphere where the air is thin enough to allow solar radiation to tear electrons away from air molecules, creating ions. So why is this important? Well, the ionosphere has a very useful property in that radio signals can bounce off of it as if it were a huge mirror. This means that we can use it to transmit radio signals around the curve of the Earth.
The HAARP facility is located outside of Gakona, Alaska. The complex involves several very powerful radio transmitters and an array of other scientific instruments. Stated briefly, the research involves transmitting high-power and high-frequency radio signals into the atmosphere, thereby exciting the molecules in a specific region of the ionosphere, and observing the resulting phenomena. One of the instruments used to make these observations is an optical telescope.
Currently, in order to use the telescope, researchers must travel to Alaska and operate it manually. Unfortunately, only during the winter months is it dark enough in Alaska to make these observations. A preferred solution is to be able to control the whole system from the SRI facility in Menlo Park, California. The telescope mount and camera are already controlled by a computer, but there are some additional considerations we need to incorporate to develop a truly integrated system.
We will interface with the telescope over the Internet so as to be able to point it and take pictures. But, we must also control the dome that houses the telescope so as to align it properly and open and close it at the appropriate times. Snow happens to be one of the greatest threats to the telescope, and our system needs to close the dome in the event that snow begins to fall. It must be smart enough to do this even if the internet connection goes down – that is just one challenge of working with a remote system.
On the user end, we need to provide a clean and friendly interface that allows the user to control the telescope, take and download pictures, obtain weather data, and view weather conditions via a webcam. We have quite a bit of work ahead of us.
Regardless of the difficulty that my team is about to face, I am excited to go to California for the first time and have the opportunity to live and work in Silicon Valley. In the coming weeks I will illustrate my day-to-day experiences, progress on the project, and whatever adventures I happen to encounter on the side. It’s going to be a very exciting term.
Until next week,
-Tom
