Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
52 Coil Gun Control System and UI
Area Award: Teamwork and Collaboration
 Adwaita Dani
Bryan Mbanefo
Felipe Fregoso
 Luke Wendt design_document0.pdf
design_document0.docx
final_paper0.pdf
presentation0.pptx
proposal0.pdf
Members: Adwaita Dani (aadani2), Felipe Fregoso (fregoso2), Bryan Mbanefo (mbanefo2)

Project Desciption:
The coil gun constructed by groups in the previous semesters, Prof Reinhard and Chris Barth were able to design and implement the SCRs and related power circuits. Control systems for synchronizing of firing of the SCRs to accelerate the projectile through the barrel still needs to be implemented. There is also a need to design a user interface to operate the gun effectively.

Overview of proposed solution:
VCSELs (semiconductor lasers) couple with photodiodes have been installed on the barrel of the gun to accurately measure the velocity of the moving projectile. The data from these sensors will be used as inputs to a microcontroller/FPGA. An algorithm on the microcontroller/FPGA would give a trigger output to initialize energization of the magnetic coils on the barrel. We could also use a time-of-flight sensor to get an added set of data on the position of the projectile.
The UI would be implemented using a separate controller and an attached screen. It will show details of the shot such as power consumed, barrel velocity of projectile, etc.

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