Computer Engineering Capstone Design
A two-term team design project that takes a real client's need to a delivered, verified hardware and software system: team charters, roles and capacity planning; stakeholder needs and traceable, verifiable requirements; concept generation, screening and weighted trade studies with sensitivity analysis; system architecture, hardware-software partitioning and power budgets; interface control documents and data formats; risk registers and design FMEA; work breakdown, critical path scheduling, budgets and earned value; prototyping, tolerance analysis and design reviews; verification and validation with field trials and confidence intervals; reliability, safety and security by design; standards, radio and emissions regulation, intellectual property and professional ethics; and the final report, demonstration, handover and reflection, with runnable Python analyses and a capstone solar-powered trail counter built for a client.
CMP-499 Year 4 3 credits 12 lessons · 4 h 13 min ▶ Video lessons coming soon
Offered by HSM University · Computer Engineering
This is the Canadian version of this course. See the American version.
What you'll learn
- Organize a capstone team with clear roles, a signed team charter, a capacity-based work plan and effective meetings, decision logs and client communication.
- Elicit needs from all stakeholders and write a traceable, verifiable requirements baseline with assigned verification methods under change control.
- Generate and screen design concepts, compare them with a weighted decision matrix supported by evidence and sensitivity analysis, and document the decision in a trade study.
- Define a system architecture, allocate functions, partition them between hardware, firmware and cloud, and build a power budget that sizes energy storage and harvesting.
- Identify every interface with an N-squared diagram and specify interface control documents with exact data formats, timing, versioning and medium limits.
- Manage project and technical risks with a risk register, and perform a design FMEA prioritized by severity, with actions that prevent causes and reduce severity.
- Plan and control a project with a work breakdown structure, critical path schedule, budget and earned value metrics, and report status honestly.
- Plan a sequence of prototypes that retire risks, apply worst-case, RSS and Monte Carlo tolerance analysis, and prepare for and run effective design reviews.
- Distinguish verification from validation, write a verification plan and procedures, size statistical tests with confidence intervals, and run a field trial.
- Estimate reliability with parts-count and temperature models, analyze hazards, and apply security-by-design practices such as threat modelling, unique keys and secure boot.
- Identify applicable standards and regulations, run pre-compliance tests, manage intellectual property and software licences, and apply codes of professional ethics to design decisions.
- Close out requirements, write a final report, deliver a public demonstration and presentation, hand over a complete package to the client and reflect on lessons learned.
Course content
12 lessons · 4 h 13 min total · final exam
- 1 The capstone project: process, teams and the team charter 24 min · quiz
- 2 Client needs and measurable requirements 23 min · quiz
- 3 Concept generation and trade studies 20 min · quiz
- 4 System architecture and hardware-software partitioning 20 min · quiz
- 5 Interfaces and interface control documents 20 min · quiz
- 6 Risk management and failure modes and effects analysis 21 min · quiz
- 7 Schedule, budget and earned value 21 min · quiz
- 8 Prototyping and design reviews 21 min · quiz
- 9 Verification and validation 20 min · quiz
- 10 Reliability, safety and security by design 20 min · quiz
- 11 Standards, regulation, intellectual property and professional ethics 21 min · quiz
- 12 Final demonstration, report, presentation and reflection 22 min · quiz
- E Final exam 20 questions
Requirements
Recommended background. You can start any course at any time.
Description
A two-term team design project that takes a real client's need to a delivered, verified hardware and software system: team charters, roles and capacity planning; stakeholder needs and traceable, verifiable requirements; concept generation, screening and weighted trade studies with sensitivity analysis; system architecture, hardware-software partitioning and power budgets; interface control documents and data formats; risk registers and design FMEA; work breakdown, critical path scheduling, budgets and earned value; prototyping, tolerance analysis and design reviews; verification and validation with field trials and confidence intervals; reliability, safety and security by design; standards, radio and emissions regulation, intellectual property and professional ethics; and the final report, demonstration, handover and reflection, with runnable Python analyses and a capstone solar-powered trail counter built for a client.
Part of the Engineering stream, typically taken in year 4.