People & Office Hours

Office Hours Schedule

Office hours are held weekly in the senior design lab. This sheet will be updated if any schedule changes. Make sure to double check the sheet before assuming there will be a TA present when you go!

Spring 2025 Instructors

Name Area
Prof. Mark Butala (Instructor)

butala@illinois.edu
Prof. Arne Fliflet (Instructor)
3056
afliflet@illinois.edu
microwave generation and applications
Prof. Aaron Geiger (Instructor)

ageiger2@illinois.edu
Prof. Zhefeng Guo (Instructor)

zhefengg@illinois.edu
Prof. Huan Hu (Instructor)

huanhu2@illinois.edu
Prof. Timothy Lee (Instructor)

lee527@illinois.edu
Prof. Craig Shultz (Instructor)
CSL 220
shultz88@illinois.edu
Haptics, Human Computer Interaction, Signals, Audio, HCI, Actuators
Fatemeh Cheraghi Pouria (TA)

fatemeh5@illinois.edu
Amritesh Dasari (TA)

mdasari2@illinois.edu
Lukas Dumasius (TA)

lukasd2@illinois.edu
Alma Furayi (TA)

afurayi@illinois.edu
Caitlin Jones (TA)

caitlinj@illinois.edu
Xiaoyue Li (TA)

xiaoyuel@illinois.edu
Image Processing, Deep Learning
Chunzeng Luo (TA)

cluo@illinois.edu
Muhammad Malik (TA)

mmalik@illinois.edu
Ian Meliala (TA)

imeliala@illinois.edu
Yiqun Niu (TA)

yiqunn2@illinois.edu
Qi Wang (TA)
ZJUI C318
qiw7@illinois.edu
Xinyi Xu (TA)

xinyixu@illinois.edu
Ronghui Zheng (TA)

ronghuiz@illinois.edu
Yuchuan Zhu (TA)

yuchuan5@illinois.edu
Yutao Zhuang (TA)

yutaoz@illinois.edu

Other Important People

Name Office Phone Email Area
Dean Biskup UIUC ECE Building   dbiskup2@illinois.edu UIUC TA

Cloud-controlled quadcopter

Featured Project

Idea:

To build a GPS-assisted, cloud-controlled quadcopter, for consumer-friendly aerial photography.

Design/Build:

We will be building a quad from the frame up. The four motors will each have electronic speed controllers,to balance and handle control inputs received from an 8-bit microcontroller(AP),required for its flight. The firmware will be tweaked slightly to allow flight modes that our project specifically requires. A companion computer such as the Erle Brain will be connected to the AP and to the cloud(EC2). We will build a codebase for the flight controller to navigate the quad. This would involve sending messages as per the MAVLink spec for sUAS between the companion computer and the AP to poll sensor data , voltage information , etc. The companion computer will also talk to the cloud via a UDP port to receive requests and process them via our code. Users make requests for media capture via a phone app that talks to the cloud via an internet connection.

Why is it worth doing:

There is currently no consumer-friendly solution that provides or lets anyone capture aerial photographs of them/their family/a nearby event via a simple tap on a phone. In fact, present day off-the-shelf alternatives offer relatively expensive solutions that require owning and carrying bulky equipment such as the quads/remotes. Our idea allows for safe and responsible use of drones as our proposed solution is autonomous, has several safety features, is context aware(terrain information , no fly zones , NOTAMs , etc.) and integrates with the federal airspace seamlessly.

End Product:

Quads that are ready for the connected world and are capable to fly autonomously, from the user standpoint, and can perform maneuvers safely with a very simplistic UI for the common user. Specifically, quads which are deployed on user's demand, without the hassle of ownership.

Similar products and comparison:

Current solutions include RTF (ready to fly) quads such as the DJI Phantom and the Kickstarter project, Lily,that are heavily user-dependent or user-centric.The Phantom requires you to carry a bulky remote with multiple antennas. Moreover,the flight radius could be reduced by interference from nearby conditions.Lily requires the user to carry a tracking device on them. You can not have Lily shoot a subject that is not you. Lily can have a maximum altitude of 15 m above you and that is below the tree line,prone to crashes.

Our solution differs in several ways.Our solution intends to be location and/or event-centric. We propose that the users need not own quads and user can capture a moment with a phone.As long as any of the users are in the service area and the weather conditions are permissible, safety and knowledge of controlling the quad are all abstracted. The only question left to the user is what should be in the picture at a given time.