Academic supervisor:

Mikel Gomez

Division CEIT:

Materials and Manufacturing. Advanced Manufacturing in Powder Metallurgy and Laser Group.

Description and objectives:

Laser process to include riblets in hydro turbines and industrial fans to improve their efficiency by reducing friction.

Surface functionalization is present in a wide range of industries, improving the performance of multiple components and systems in many applications, but the difficulty of reaching all surfaces of complex 3D parts is significant, especially those of considerable size and weight. In addition, the creation of functional surfaces has traditionally relied on processes such as chemical reactions and/or complete coating of native surfaces (e.g. airfoils). By their very nature, these processes generate unwanted by-products, thus leaving a significant environmental footprint, which goes against the "no significant harm" principle of the European Green Pact. To avoid these setbacks, a European consortium led by CEIT is to develop a new process for functionalizing complex 3D parts in which the environmental footprint is reduced and new guidelines are generated to complement manufacturing standards in the sectors goal.

The role of this PFG will be to participate in the laser processes developed at CEIT (assist in the processes, perform measurements, analyze data). These processes will seek to reproduce "riblets" on the surface of the samples. These elements allow to reduce friction, and their efficiency has been amply demonstrated in different applications. A good example is racing boats, where their use has been banned in the recent La Concha flag. To perform their tasks, it will be ensured that the student acquires the necessary knowledge of the equipment with which it has to perform its work.

Academic supervisor:

Yago Olaizola

Division CEIT:

Materials and Manufacturing. Advanced Manufacturing in Powder Metallurgy and Laser Group.

Description and objectives:

Transparent materials are currently used in a multitude of applications in which their optical properties are particularly relevant: lenses, devices for optical communications, smart glasses or optical sensors, among others. In this context, the characterization of the optical properties is a point core topic in the development of the devices.

The goal of this project will be to design and implement an optical microscopy system, starting from different optical and mechanical elements, for the analysis of certain properties of transparent materials. After the validation of the equipment, we will proceed to study the optical behavior of this substrate subject after different laser engraving processes. In parallel, it will be necessary to implement an intelligent processing system for the data obtained by the measurement devices.

Academic supervisor:

José Sebastián Gutiérrez Calderón

department:

Control and Robotics Group of the department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials from Tecnun

area thematic:

Automation and Electronic Systems Engineering

Description and objectives:

Industry 4.0 is currently revolutionizing the way companies manufacture, improve and distribute their products. These smart factories are now integrating a large number of sensors and actuators, and with the Internet of Things (IoT) financial aid , cyber-physical systems and cloud computing, they are enabling data collection and analysis for decision making.

The goal of this PFG would be the automation of a monitored bench, simulating an industrial equipment through a PLC and obtaining data from sensors and actuators through the Internet of Things for further processing.

Academic supervisor:

Íñigo Adín

Division CEIT:

ICT

area thematic:

NDT, RF, Transport

Description and objectives:

This project aims to design a system for detecting cracks in railway rails. At the level of the basic principle of detection, it is proposed here to be carried out by means of a radar technique in radio frequency technologies with the capacity to illuminate the rail in movement. The reflections received must be processed to determine the presence of cracks smaller than the size specified in the regulations before grinding the rail. With this project, the aim is to advance in the specification of the basic principle of detection, and to investigate the needs for mounting on a moving element.

Academic supervisor:

Íñigo Adín

Division CEIT:

ICT

area thematic:

IoT, Energy Harvesting, low energy consumption

Description and objectives:

This project proposes the acquisition and implementation of novel platforms for the transformation of motion, radio frequency, sound or wind into energy usable by autonomous IoT systems. There are currently more integrated and more efficient platforms that promise to provide power to electronic data collection and remote connection systems and it is important to know the real scope of their possibilities. This refers here to testing and merging the possibilities of taking advantage of unusual physical elements/events for these applications, to replace the usual solar panels.

Academic supervisor:

Daniel Valderas.

department Tecnun:

department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

area thematic:

Telecommunications.

Description and objectives:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is driving research toward increased connectivity of tagged items that are read wirelessly. However, the price of tagging millions of objects often makes the final application unaffordable. One possible strategy is to remove the chip from the tags and study their reflected signal in radar mode (chipless tags). Chip-free tags would exhibit a competitive advantage over their chip-based counterparts by an ostensible price decrease. In addition, environmental constraints, such as high temperatures, cause the electronics to fail in certain aggressive scenarios and, therefore, eliminating it by an alternative route in these cases would be a gain. In this context, the identification and reading of chipless wireless sensors based on radar technology (backscattered signals) will be studied through the application of design of sensors, antennas, signal processing, RF electronics and Machine Learning.

• Academic Supervisor:
  Adam Podhorski

The directionality of a traditional microphone is achieved thanks to its mechanical-acoustic design . There is also the possibility of forming a microphone of this subject using several "normal" microphones and by means of signal processing techniques (beamforming), obtain a joint directional characteristic. The project consists of documenting the state of the art and the current market of directional microphones of the subject beamforming, search for suitable amplifiers and ADCs for further processing in a DSP, choose an option and mount it. For students of Industrial Electronics Engineering: no knowledge of signal processing is required.

• Title:
  Diver voice correction.

• Academic Supervisor:
  Adam Podhorski

• profile recommended:
  Degree in Communications Electronics Engineering
  Degree in Telecommunication Systems Engineering

• Description and Objectives:
  Divers working at great depths breathe a mixture of helium and oxygen (heliox), because at high pressures nitrogen is harmful. However, this mixture causes a change in the voice that acquires a characteristic similar to Donald Duck's voice and becomes practically unintelligible. One of the solutions to this problem is to construct a map relating the spectra of different sounds produced in heliox and in air by the same person. The voice produced in heliox is corrected by changing the spectrum of each sound by its corresponding spectrum of normal voice. The goal of this project is to investigate a series of changes and possible improvements in the quality of the corrected voice for an existing design in Matlab of a system of this subject.

• area/department Ceit /Tecnun:
  department from Electronics and Communications - Ceit

• area subject:
  Telecommunication Systems Engineering / Communications Electronics Engineering.

• Title:
  System of Internal Communications for large minivans.

• Academic Supervisor:
  Adam Podhorski

• profile recommended:
  Degree in Telecommunication Systems Engineering
  Degree in Communications Electronics Engineering

• Description and Objectives:
  In large minivans it is quite difficult to maintain a conversation between passengers in different rows due to a higher noise level than in conventional passenger cars. The goal of this project is to review the ideas to solve this problem proposed so far, design a multichannel Internal Communications system with echo cancellation, simulate it in Matlab and make a prototype based on a C6713DSK DSP board equipped with a multichannel audio interface and test it in a car.

• area/department Ceit /Tecnun:
  department from Electronics and Communications - Ceit

• area subject:
  Telecommunication Systems Engineering / Communications Electronics Engineering.

Academic supervisor:

Andoni Irizar

department Tecnun/Division CEIT:

CEIT. Materials and Manufacturing Division

area thematic:

Electronic systems

Description and objectives:

In today's industrial processes it is increasingly necessary to monitor the manufacturing process and the quality of the components resulting from the process. There are a wide variety of methods that allow such monitoring in real time, that do not require separating the parts from the rest for analysis and that do not damage the parts in the process. The most commonly used inspection techniques are those using electromagnetic fields, ultrasonic signals and machine vision. This project deals with ultrasonic techniques. The Ceit has its own ultrasonic signal test bench that allows to generate and capture ultrasonic signals in a simple way from a PC. The goal of project will consist of making a proposal of design of a miniaturized test bench (for example, the size of a Raspberry). As a comparison, the current design occupies the size of a Desktop computer. It would involve making a block diagram of the system, making a selection of components including the processing platform to be used and the components of the power source . Finally, it will be necessary to estimate the consumption and cost of the final equipment.

Academic supervisor:

Santiago Miguel Olaizola.

department Tecnun/Division CEIT:

CEIT. Powder Metallurgy and Laser Additive Manufacturing Group

area thematic:

Optics/Communications Optics

Description and objectives:

The additive manufacturing and laser group at CEIT has a modern and precise laser system that generates 100-femtosecond pulses to etch surface textures on different types of materials. The goal of this project is to evaluate the maximum definition of the equipment to define lines on thin gold films for application in high-end consumer products industry. The achievable definition is expected to be less than one micrometer. The student will learn to use the tool laser for materials processing, acquire and use advanced optical concepts, and use nanometer resolution metrology systems (afm, profilometry, microscopy) to characterize the equipment.

Academic supervisor:

Íñigo Adín.

department Tecnun/Division CEIT:

CEIT. ICT Division

area thematic:

Positioning and communications

Description and objectives:

This project tries to propose novel techniques to achieve indoor and outdoor positioning by means of opportunity signals in combination with GNSS satellite signals (GPS, Galileo, etc.). The current trend is to merge the GNSS signal with inertial sensors and vision and radar based sensors for precise guidance. However, there are less expensive techniques using signals already present in the spectrum and application environment that can be useful. Wifi, Bluetooth beacons can be used as anchors and by fingerprinting techniques based on the received power, accuracies of the order of a few meters can be achieved. However, the new 5G, with higher frequency spectra and smaller cells can be useful for positioning by signal arrival time. There are also constellations of commercial satellites in low orbits that emit signals that can also be used for this purpose.

The goal is to establish the techniques used in each case and to estimate the achievable accuracies.
 

Academic supervisor:

Santiago Miguel Olaizola.

department Tecnun/Division CEIT:

CEIT. Powder Metallurgy and Laser Additive Manufacturing Group

area thematic:

Optics/Communications Optics

Description and objectives:

In this PFG the program Lumerical, which is an FDTD optical simulator, will be used to simulate different optical elements. Optical elements have dimensions typically between 0.1 and 10um, they can be used as diffraction gratings, optical filters, mirrors or antireflective coatings. Therefore their optical properties must be estimated as accurately as possible. With the financial aid of the technical staff of CEIT, it will be possible to fabricate these devices and evaluate the accuracy of the simulations performed.