Advancing Sustainability Using ICT

The environmental issues we now face are believed to be the result of our social systems. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has the potential to help us better understand, monitor in read-time, and reduce our impact on the environment. AITIS Lab, in the Department of Engineering Science, is committed to utilize the engineering expertise and research activity of its faculty to initiate innovative and sustainable graduate and undergraduate projects to educate future environmentally responsible and skilled engineers. We work with local industries and organizations to provide sustainable engineering solutions. Click here to learn more about our research activities and ongoing projects .....more; / Main Page. Checkout our Calendar of Events.

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The AITIS lab is accepting new students to assist with summer projects. Here is a summary of currently available projects, please note that these projects are mainly for undergraduate students: 

  • PCB board design
    • Deliverables: Interface a microcontroller to a wireless module on a PCB board 
    • Learning outcomes: PCB design, RF communications, Microcontrollers, UART and serial communications, basic networking concepts, PCB design tools 
  • Remote Control Boat
    • Deliverables: Design a remote control boat using LoRa such that it can be controlled from 5km away!
    • Learning outcomes: point-to-point communications, microcontrollers, PCB design
  • Self-Powered Weather Station
    • Deliverables: Design a solar powered weather station for FOP. 
    • Learning outcomes: Microcontrollers, sensors, 
  • TinyML
    • Deliverables: Implement machine learning in a tiny microcontroller! 
    • Learning outcomes: Basic machine learning concepts and tools, embedded system programming, interfacing ChatGPT and a microcontroller
  • Signal Analysis Using a Microcontroller 
    • Deliverables: Interface a microcontroller to several sensors including weight sensor and a microphone and manipulate the input
    • Learning outcomes: Gain hands-on experience in sensor interfacing and data acquisition; Learn about signal processing techniques, including FFT for frequency domain analysis; Develop skills in programming and algorithm implementation for signal manipulation and analysis.
  • Autonomous Scooter 
    • Deliverables: Build a scooter that can autonomously find its way to a building 
    • Learning outcomes: Scooter power management, routing algorithms, GPS
Please contact Dr. Farahmand for more information. 


Smart Greenhouse



The purpose of this project is to collaborate with Petaluma Bounty Farm in Petaluma, CA. The farm's mission is to grow healthy food for everyone through collaboration, education and promoting self-reliance. The purpose of this project is to explore the possibility of upgrading the existing greenhouse at Petaluma Bounty Farm to a Smart greenhouse, a self regulating, micro-climate controlled environment for optimal plant growth.


Team Lead: Alexander Sneed, Nathan Candler, Andres Rivera and Rania Saba
Status: Expected to be completed by December 2020
Funded by: None

AirQulity Station



An estimated 4.5 billion people are currently exposed to particulate matter (PM) levels at least twice the concentration that the WHO considers safe. Existing evidence linking health to air pollution is largely based on populations exposed to only modest levels of PM and almost entirely composed of observational studies, which are likely to confound air pollution with other unobserved determinants of health. The purpose of this project is to design a low-cost air quality station for the city of Rohnert Park. 

Status: Expected to be completed by September 2018 (ongoing)
Funded by: Sonoma State SOURCE Award. 
More Information: See the web page


Battery-less Fire Sensor

Forest fires are one of the most important and prevalent type of disasters and they can create great environmental problems for Nature. It is known that they are detectable and easily preventable. When a wildfire burns out of control, the size of the losses can be almost immeasurable. The cost of such disaster may be millions of trees, in addition to losses of structures, animals (wild and farm), and human life. Automated early fire detection systems have recently received a significant amount of attention due to their importance in protecting the global environment. The purpose of this project us is to explore the design of a battery wild-fire sensor. The sensor uses a power harvesting technology to power up and transmit temperature data. 

Status: Expected to be completed by December 2018 (ongoing)

Funded by: Sonoma County Water Agency through the Waters Collaborative
More Information: Later

Treatment Evaluation of Parkinson Disease


Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, which significantly deteriorates the quality of life especially in the elderly. Today, in the United States alone almost a million individuals have been diagnosed with the disease, making PD an increasingly medical concern. Sadly, as of today, there is no cure for PD. Furthermore, commonly practiced methods are mainly qualitative (not quantitative) and thus fail to evaluate the progress of the disease and it attributes. 
Our goal in this project is to begin a proof-of-concept implementation of highly specialized platform that performs data management, analytics and visualization. The overall aim of this project is better understanding PD.

Status: Expected to be completed by May 2017 (ongoing)
Funded by: Seeking Funding!
More Information: Later

Smart Cane


The purpose of this project is to monitor gait movement, balance, and activity in various patients, in particular, the elderly. 

Status: Expected to be completed by May 2015
Funded by: Grant from CSUPERB
More Information: Later

Water Tank Sensor


This is a collaborative project with students at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. The purpose of the project is to design a water/oil tank depth sensor that can identify if the tank is empty of not. This simple device, probably put together by many hobbyists in one way or another, can be extremely useful and convenient for many people in Ghana. 

Status: Expected to be completed by May 2015
Funded by: Grant from CSU Campus as a Living Laboratory
More Information: Later

SenCell - Cellular-enabled Environmental Sensor Network


The objective of this project is to design a solar powered, cellular enabled, and modular system that can monitor conditions of its surrounding environment and relay that data to an end user. This system will consist of two basic nodes: (1) a sensory node that is placed into the field to gather data and (2) an internet enabled central server which collects sensor data from the sensory nodes for the user. The sensory nodes will communicate with the server using the GSM/GPRS cellular network. Using a PIC microcontroller and a GSM/GPRS modem, the sensory node will have the ability to send collected information to the remote server for analysis by the end user. Data will be made available to the user in the form of a comma separated value (CSV) file, containing both time-stamps and data parameters for each sensory node.

Status: Expected to be completed by May 2014
Funded by: Grant from SSU Provost Office & Grant from CSU Campus as a Living Laboratory
More Information:  Web page

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