Engineering

Together with Engineering and Computer Science faculty, the SEL mentors undergraduate students completing senior design classes in the College of Engineering. In doing so, students in SEL are partnered with engineering students who develop novel cyberinfrastructure and technologies to improve the capacity to solve environmental and other real world problems.

Student research projects which have been completed and/or are underway include:

Computer Science:

• Class of 2006-07:

Database and Graphical User Interface (GUI) for accessing automatic weather station data.

• Class of 2007-08:

Database, GUI and trust and optimization algorithms for hyperspectral reflectance measurements made on a robot tram system in northern Alaska.

Mechanical Engineering

• Spring 2007:

An aerodynamic robotic tram for measuring hyperspectral reflectance from a semi-permanent tram system.

• Fall 2007:

A sensor arm for measuring the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) from a robotic cart system.

• Spring 2008:

A semi-autonomous off-road unmanned ground vehicle to facilitate remote environmental measurements.

A portable infrastructure for measuring the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) at the plot level.

Electrical and Computer Engineering:

• Class of 2008:

Control system for regulating air intake and measuring the environmental conditions of a series of chambers in controlled plant growth experiment.

Portable spectrometer for measuring plant and ecosystem-relevent spectral indices such as NDVI, PRI, WBI and EVI.