V. Hunter Adams

Lecturer of Electrical Engineering, Cornell University (vha3@cornell.edu), 208 Phillips Hall

Projects

This list includes both personal projects and projects generated for assignment to students. I have provided all source code for personal projects. The code for projects which may be assigned to students is not posted publicly, but I'd be happy to send it to you if you email me.

RP2040 (Raspberry Pi Pico) projects

  1. Stepper motor driver written in PIO assembly for RP2040
    - Lorenz System on an Etch a Sketch
    - Direct digital synthesis of circle on an Etch a Sketch
  2. VGA driver written in PIO assembly for RP2040
    - Mandelbrot Set
    - Barnsley Fern
    - Game of Life
    - Graphics primitives
  3. Realtime Audio FFT to VGA Display with RP2040
  4. Resistive touchscreen to VGA display with RP2040
  5. PID control of 1D helicopter with RP2040
  6. Chained-DMA signal generator thru SPI DAC on RP2040
  7. Dual-core Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS) on RP2040

PIC32 microcontroller projects

  1. Enigma machine emulated on PIC32
  2. Birdsong synthesizer on PIC32 (written up as a lab assignment)
  3. Boids algorithm on PIC32 (written up as a lab assignment)
  4. Realtime audio spectrogram on PIC32 (written up as a lab assignment)
  5. Zoom-interactive robot on PIC32 (written up as a lab assignment)
  6. Particle systems on PIC32

DE1-SoC FPGA projects

  1. GFSK demodulation in Verilog on the DE1-SoC
  2. Mandelbrot and Julia set visualization on the DE1-SoC

CC1310 microcontroller projects

  1. Monarch chip-satellite
  2. Modified Monarch for vineyard and cattle monitoring

Raspberry Pi projects

  1. GFSK demodulator on Raspberry Pi for use with CC1310 microcontroller

Artistic projects

  1. Paint and clay

Machine learning projects

  1. Data prognostics using symbolic regression

Mathematical projects

  1. Attempting to understand something beautiful
  2. Communicating with interstellar ships

Expository webpages

For my own future reference. Intended audience is myself.

  1. Direct digital synthesis (webpage takes a few moments to open)
  2. PID controllers (phenomenological introduction)
  3. PID controllers (analytical introduction)
  4. Fixed point arithmetic
  5. Introduction to estimation (particle filters, sigma-point filters, EKF's, UKF's, KF's)
  6. Worked estimation examples
  7. Gyro-based multiplicative UKF for quaternion estimation
  8. Coding gain from matched filtering
  9. Rigid body dynamics and determination
  10. Link budget analysis

Prepared as supplemental course material for MAE 5160 (Spacecraft technology and systems architecture). Intended audience is senior/masters level mechanical engineers.

  1. Cassini spacecraft overview, and thoughts on exploration
  2. NASA mission design process
  3. Requirements, trades, & risks
  4. Orbital mechanics and orbit design
  5. Spacecraft propulsion/GNC
  6. Space environment
  7. Spacecraft avionics

I am experimenting with the new Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller. Keeping track of my notes in the pages below. Intended audience is myself.

  1. Setting up C/C++ build environment for Raspberry Pi Pico on Windows
  2. Creating/building a new C/C++ Raspberry Pi Pico project on Windows
  3. Raspberry Pi Pico C/C++ SDK architecture

Courses, lectures, and talks

Instructed courses

  1. ECE 4760 (Digital Systems Design Using Microntrollers): This is a microcontroller laboratory and design course using the PIC32. Started in Spring, 2021.
  2. ECE 5760 (Advanced Microcontroller Design and System on Chip): This is an FPGA laboratory design course using the DE1-SoC. Started in Fall, 2020.
  3. MAE 5160 (Spacecraft Technology and Systems Architecture): A survey in contemporary space technology from satellite subsystem design through launch and mission operations, focusing on the classical subsystems of robotic and human-rated spacecraft, rockets, planetary rovers, and habitats, and with an emphasis on issue of spacecraft-system architecture and design. Taught in Spring, 2020.

TA'd courses

  1. Astro 1101 (From new worlds to black holes): Instructors for this course were Steve Squyres and Alex Hayes. Linked below are the supplemental webpages that I prepared for my recitation students each week.

Other talks/posters

  1. Chipsats. An extended discussion of the theory and applications of chip-satellites. (Slides)
  2. The Mandelbrot Set. From an ECE 5760 lecture (above). Linked separately because it is a favorite topic.
  3. Monarch venture pitch - Slides only
  4. Customer discovery guest lecture - Slides only
  5. Final presentation for iCorps - Slides only
  6. 2018 femtosat workshop talk - Slides only
  7. Viticulture poster

Academic papers

Dissertation

  1. Theory and Applications of Gram-Scale Spacecraft

First author

  1. R-Selected Spacecraft
  2. A scalable packet routing mechanism for chip-satellites in coplanar orbits
  3. Lost in space and time
  4. Interplanetary optical navigation
  5. A probabilistic network formulation for satellite swarm communications

Contributing author

  1. Design of the Alpha CubeSat: Technology Demonstration of a ChipSat-Equipped Retroreflective Light Sail
  2. Cislunar Explorers: Lessons Learned from the Development of an Interplanetary CubeSat

Professional documents

Articles

External links