2007-2008

FACILITY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Name of student: Hans Nana Siaw

Supervisor:  Mr. Isaac K. Nti

ABSTRACT

Facility management involves efficient allocation of resources amongst all assets owned, bearing in mind all constraints necessary to make decisions taken successful. The decisions that are needed to heighten management performance in this domain involve having enough relevant data on the assets. Computerizing this process allows for fast and easy access to the data as well as to generate informative results required to aid in management decisions. This project reports on the design and development of the software system for the computerization operation to enable managers and administrators know all assets in a particular facility and with the help of the computer analyze the information. The software development was based on two-tier architecture; a back-end for information, and a front-end for users. The back-end constitutes a database that stored information about the facility as well as items in it and users who will be interacting with the software. The front-end constitutes of a GUI (graphical user interface) through which users would see the information in the database and interact with them. The developed system was tested and it performed satisfactorily as expected.

A COMPUTERISED BROADCAST AUTOMATION SYSTEM

Name of student: James Ainooson

Name of Supervisor:  Mr. Isaac K. Nti

ABSTRACT

The aim of this project was to design and implement a computer-based broadcast automation system. The actual job of the system is to automate the playback of recorded information for broadcasting and also to coordinate presentation of live events. One area where this software system can be very useful is the section where broadcasters keep track of which media is used on which show so that the appropriate intellectual property owner can be compensated or credited if necessary. The system was built using an object oriented software design approach in the C++ programming language. Different pieces of software running together (either on a single computer or over a network) coordinate and provide the broadcast automation. The system was optimized particularly for video broadcasting. The various subsystems developed were the broadcast server, the scheduler, the media library manager, and an associated library to provide the framework for all the other programs. A feature that allowed for embedding information such as the logo of the station, scrolling of texts at the bottom of the screen, etc during streaming of the video was also incorporated. The system implementation was based on the Linux operating system. To test the performance of the system, recorded videos were used. The system broadcast the videos according to the given time schedule and also kept a log of every activity that was performed. The system performed satisfactorily as expected but could be enhanced further by incorporating additional features to make it work better.

DEVELOPMENT OF A WEB BASED SECURITY SYSTEM

Name of student: Jonas Malm

Supervisor:  Mr. Wiafe Owusu-Banahene

ABSTRACT

The aim of this project was to develop a Web-based monitoring system for the monitoring of homes, offices, and places of interest or installations where security systems are needed. To accomplish the work, a centralised database was developed with MySQL and a server application (Move action) for the security camera was customised and integrated to the system. A file transfer mechanism (FileZilla FTP) to upload pictures to an Apache web server was also configured, customised and integrated to the system.  A front-end in the form of a GUI (Graphical User Interface) was developed using HTML and PHP. Provision was also made for user to log-on to the system in order to have authorized access to live activities at remote locations. The system was developed on a Windows (Vista Ultimate 6.0) platform. To test the performance of the system, a webcam camera was connected to a computer hosting the camera server. The camera took pictures automatically anytime motion was detected. The pictures were first stored on the hard drive of the computer and then transferred to the web server hosting the website through a File Transfer Protocol.

PROGRAMMABLE DISPLAY SYSTEM USING FPGA

Name of student: Hotor Bless

Supervisor:  Dr. Godfrey A. Mills

ABSTRACT

Until recently, information display for adverts and notices were done by direct writing on billboards which did not provide avenue for flexibility and management of what to present. However, with the advent of microprocessors/ microcontrollers and LED display systems, it is now possible to display the information in digital form and in a dynamic and more graphical way in real-time. This project aims at introducing reconfigurable FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) technology as a core system for flexible information display on dot-matrix LED display. The project covered the design and implementation of three main modules: input module, processing module, and output module using the VHDL (Very High Level Description Programming Language) to drive the information on a 7-segment LED system. The DRAM of the FPGA serves as a storage area the information to be displayed, which makes modification easy to handle. For the system development, the Actel ProAsic plus FPGA board was used and the display was synthesized using the Actel Libero 8.3. To test the performance of the system, two short phrases “FPGA4FUN” and “UNIVERSITY OF GHANA” were created and displayed on the 7-segment LED system, which was multiplexed on a breadboard. The results showed that with the 7-segment LED display system, messages can be displayed at a rate of 2ms per character whereas with the dot-matrix LED, higher rate such as 2ns per character could be attained.

DESIGN OF A COST EFFECTIVE INVERTER

Name of student: Benson-Lamidi Ayuba

Supervisor:  Mr. Charles K. Nartey

Co-Supervisors:  Dr. Godfrey A. Mills and Mr. Agyare Debra

ABSTRACT

Output voltages from inverter circuits are required to be very stable and constant and this is accomplished by using multiple components which tend to make the device quite expensive. This project work seeks to employ basic components to design low-cost low-power inverter device to support low power consuming devices. The design was first carried out using a PSpice simulation model. An output voltage of 240Vac at 50 Hz was achieved by connecting the positive terminal of a 12Vdc battery to a single 4060B IC chip and two of 4013B IC chips. The current to the IC chips was limited by connecting resistors between the battery unit and the ICs. Decoupling capacitors was used to pass the direct current to the ground. A 32.768kHz crystal oscillator was used to generate an input signal to the 4060B chip and the output was fed as an input to one of the 4013B chips. The output of the second 4013B chip was used to drive two switching transistors to saturation in order to provide a 12Vac as an input to a step-up center-tap transformer. The transformer stepped up the 12Vac to a 240Vac to operate the load. To test the functionality and performance of the system, the design was implemented using a 10kHz crystal oscillator due to unavailability of the required oscillator. The voltage measured at the output of the transformer was 35Vac instead of the desired 240Vac due to the choice of crystal oscillator. The output voltage of the inverter varied with the frequency of the crystal oscillator used and to obtain stability of the output, a feedback system consisting of a PIC microcontroller was used to compare the input of the transformer to the output of the inverter. 

DEVELOPMENT OF VOICE OVER IP SYSTEM FOR THE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY

Name of student: Yenkyi Emmanuel

Supervisor:  Dr. Godfrey A. Mills

ABSTRACT

Emergence of the internet technology has come along with it a renewed approach to voice communication. It is now possible to use specialized phones known as IP-phones to transmit voice data over the internet. This project work seeks to take advantage of the existing wide area network (WAN) and the internet infrastructure of the University of Ghana to provide voice communication within the Legon campus and between the main campus and its satellite stations using the conventional analog or intercom telephones rather than the IP-phones. To accomplish the system, the connectivity and number of extensions to use were first designed. This was followed by installation of the software for the system and configuration. The main server software used was the Asterisk, which is an open-source code. A dial plan for call routing was also developed and configured to the system. The developed system was integrated to the data network of the University and phone calls were established using two analog phones in the Offices of the Faculty of Engineering. The tests conducted gave expected results. However, small latency in the order of few seconds was noticed as two users communicated.

A PULSE RATE COUNTER

Name of student: Lamptey Joseph

Supervisor:  Dr. Godfrey A. Mills

Co-supervisor:  Dr. Elsie E. Kaufmann

ABSTRACT

The project aims at developing a device that has the ability to numerically count a train of periodic pulses of heart beat captured from the human body using transducers. As part of the objective, a graphical user interface was designed using Visual Basic (VB) to lend the following usefulness to the project: display the waveform, count and display the rate of pulses numerically, store the data in a secured database, enable playback of the data and pulse the recording. The project was implemented using 74LS190N (counter), 74LS47 (decoder) and LM555 (timer). The possibility of using FPGA instead of the 74LS190N integrated circuit was also explored. This was accomplished through the use of VHDL (Very high speed hardware descriptive language) software for programming the FPGA chip. The counting was regulated by a timer which enabled the counting for a period of 1min or 60 seconds. The output was displayed by three 7-segment displays (common cathode type). The developed system was tested using square waves and sine waves from a signal generator as well as arbitrary clock signal. The counting was continuous for the square wave until the timer halted the count. The output observed with the sine wave, unlike the square wave, indicated fluctuations about the number 3 and sometimes 8 or 9. The negative half cycle was forcing a backward count. In using a half sine wave, however, in simulation the pulse rate count was successful. The prototype was extended to the counting of the human heart rate using the Silver/Silver-Chloride electrode as a sensor. The expected result was not accomplished due to the use of an inappropriate signal wire in interfacing the circuit and the electrode.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A WEB-BASED SPATIAL INFORMATION SYSTEM

Name of student: Awuah-Baffour Chrispin

Supervisor:  Mr. Wiafe Owusu-Banahene

ABSTRACT

Access to spatial data in the country has been a very huge impediment in the country’s quest to improve upon easy dissemination of spatial information. This project work was therefore intended to explore the use of open source software to create spatial information system which will make geo-data available over the web for easy access. A simple geo-data was acquired from a MapServer UMN’s website and developed as a prototype. The MapServer was used to produce the web maps for users to interact with. The developed system provided the platform for users to provide query, analyse, and easily interpret the data. Testing of the system yielded the expected results.