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About Ian Furniss

  • Senior Electrical Engineering Student at Sonoma State University

  • Licensed Electrical Contractor

  • Father of two

  • Technical Marketing Engineer at Keysight Technologies, Inc.

About Kenneth Kleinsmith

  • Senior Electrical Engineering Student at Sonoma State University

  • 5+ Years R&D and Manufacturing Exp

  • Enjoys Traveling to Foreign Countries with his Wife

  • R&D Engineering Tech at Analog Devices, Inc.

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PLAD:

Power Line Arc Detector

By: Ian Furniss and Kenneth Kleinsmith

About Our Project

The intent of this project is to investigate the efficacy in detecting radio frequency interference (RFI) emitted from overhead power lines and combining this data with an automated mapping system via GPS. The basic system design will include three primary components: a radio front end, a processor, and a global positioning system (GPS). The radio front end that is used is the HackRF One, the processor used is the Raspberry Pi Model 3B, and the GPS used is the Gumstix PreGo PPP using the U-Blox Neo-7P GNSS.  The HackRF One and the GPS unit both feed in their information into the processor. The Raspberry Pi will be operating on linux and running GNU Radio Companion while the GPS module’s update rate will result in inputing decimeter-level accuracy.

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Documents

Check out our Project Proposal Document and our Project Proposal Presentation for more information
about the early development of PLAD.

Power Plant

Project Proposal Document

Here is the proposal for our project including the engineering methodologies we have incorporated into creating our arc detection device. It details the product development life cycle including the problem, our solution, design, schedule, budget, as well as the Marketing and Engineering requirements which define the boundaries
of PLAD.

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Project Proposal Presentation

Here is the slide deck we used to pitch our vision of PLAD. The presentation was constructed from the proposal document and was designed to communicate the benefits of PLAD. In the presentation we speak to achieving appropriate scope for the given time, meeting customer requirements and meeting deliverables within the time allotted for the senior design project.

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ABOUT OUR PARTNERS

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SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

Electrical Engineering Dept.

We partnered with Sonoma State University (SSU) to work on our foundational product: The Early Fault Detection System. The synergy from joining forces was inspirational, and we look forward to working with them in the future.

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DR. MOHAMED SALEM

Professor of Electrical Engineering

Dr. Mohamed Salem proposed the project to us in the early days of the fall 2018 semester. Mohamed is currently the academic advisor for the Early Fault Detection System. Dr. Mohamed Salem received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2009, with focus on communications and signal processing. He has several years of experience as a postdoctoral fellow and a lecturer. His areas of interest are electromagnetic waves propagation and scattering, antennas, and RF and microwave devices.

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MR. CHRIS STEWART

Co-founder and President/COO of Pocket Radar Inc.

Mr. Chris Stewart, generously, accepted our invitation to join the Early Fault Detection Systems team shortly after the project was accepted. He has been instrumental in the development of both Ian Furniss and Kenneth Kleinsmth, as well as playing a role in the product evolution. Mr. Chris Stewart is President and co-founder of Pocket Radar Inc. and Invention Planet, LLC. He received his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from The Ohio State University, and has completed postgraduate studies in electromagnetics and communications at Stanford and OSU. He worked at Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies for 25 years where he designed microwave test and measurement equipment and gained extensive experience in R&D, Manufacturing, Marketing, and Business Management. Chris led multiple intrapreneurial teams to start several new businesses inside Agilent and HP before striking out as an independent entrepreneur. He holds 5 granted patents with more pending. Chris is actively involved in entrepreneurial mentorship at Sonoma State University. He also serves as chairman of the External Advisory Board for the SSU Maker Space.

CONTACT US

Rohnert Park, CA, USA

furniss@sonoma.edu
kleinsmi@sonoma.edu

123-456-7890

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