Electrical engineering is a branch of engineering that deals with the study and application of electricity, electromagnetism, and electronics. Here we explain some electrical projects for engineering students. Projects in the field of electrical engineering are easy to find if you read this post.
Electrical projects that are useful for electrical engineering final-year students are explained here. We would explain a few conventional projects that could be expanded in an innovative way so that it becomes an attractive project.
All the projects that we are going to explain here are to develop some hardware setup. That means, these projects will be helpful for final-year engineering students.
Electrical Projects for engineering Students
#1 Soft Starter for 3-phase induction motor to reduce starting current
3 phase induction motors are self-starting machines. Starters are used in 3-phase induction motors to avoid power quality issues that might be caused in the power utility grid when it starts.
An induction motor draws a large current and hence reduces the line voltage at starting.
A soft starter is a circuit of power electronics components (thyristor) that controls the induction machine’s applied voltage. A soft starter will have the circuit and control logic to vary the voltage to the motor. The development of a soft starter for electric motors would be a good project.
What’s new you can do?
Do you feel that the soft starter for 3 phase induction motor is an already available method of motor starting and you have nothing new to do with it?
The Control logic of a soft starter is the part where you can experiment. You can go for a time-based open-loop starter for an electric motor and a sensor-based closed-loop starter for an electric motor.
In addition to a single logic in the control system, the hardware could be developed to compare the effect of more than one logic in the control circuit of a soft starter.
#2 SVPWM Control of 3-phase induction motor in electric vehicle
Speed control of motors becomes easier since the introduction of power electronics components. Effective voltage manipulation using power electronics components reduces the heat losses that happened in the resistive control of motors.
Pulse width modulation inverters control the speed of motors in general. PWM can be of different types – Sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM), State Vector Pulse Width Modulation (SVPWM), etc. Fewer harmonics injections into the system is a notable advantage of SVPWM.
SVPWM inverters can be used in an electric vehicle for speed control. By controlling the pulses, the direction of the current flow can also be controlled, and regenerative braking can be done using the converter.
You can develop an SVPWM inverter for speed control of electric vehicles. The control system for the inverter would be a closed loop. The position of the rotor might be needed for implementing the SVPWM logic.
What’s new in the project?
You can demonstrate the regenerative braking using the SVPWM inverter controller. Along with the principle of the electric motor controller using SVPWM, the demonstration of regenerative braking makes the project stand out in electrical projects for engineering.
Here you can implement Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) also and compare the waveforms obtained.
#3 Closed loop Traffic Control system using image sensing
How does the traffic control system work? Most of the traffic control lights are based on time. That means the red light glows for a fixed time and not allow to pass vehicles until the time elapses. The light glows red even though there are no vehicles passing from the opposite side.
What if the traffic controller would be more intelligent to decide how long to stop vehicles? Visual feedback of vehicles on the road will be helpful to decide how long the red light should glow.
If there are no vehicles on the crossroad, red lights need not glow. An intelligent traffic controller uses image processing to decide how to control and effectively manage vehicles.
It’s not hard to develop a closed-loop traffic control system and it would be one of the best academic projects.
#4 Electric Motor Protection Circuit for electric scooter
The life of a machine increases as it operates under normal conditions. Excessive stress on the motor in terms of current, voltage, temperature, etc. reduces the life of the motor. An electric scooter motor protection circuit to protect the motor from over voltage, under voltage, etc. can be developed.
Why would we select an electric scooter motor? It opens the door to developing an electric scooter yourself – another interesting and challenging electric project for engineering students.
What’s new you can do?
Find out the limitations of protection circuits for induction motors and then develop one with thermal, over voltage, under voltage, and over-current protection.
#5 DC-DC Converter for renewable energy sources/electric vehicle
Boost converter converts electrical energy (DC) at low voltage to high voltage. An electrical system could be developed in such a way as to tap electricity from more than one renewable energy source.
For example, a photovoltaic system and a Wind energy system can be connected together using a DC bus.
It’s always easy to convert energy generated at a variable frequency from the windmill to DC and store it in a battery or transmit it to the load. Where do we need a DC-DC converter?
A small village street light can be supplied with DC power from the battery itself. The DC-DC converter can be used for the same.
Another notable use of DC-DC converters is in electric vehicles. Electric energy from the high-voltage battery converts to low-voltage DC to supply auxiliaries in the vehicle. A DC-DC converter does the job.
#6 Arduino-controlled home automation system
Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs – a light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message – and turn them into an output – activating a motor, turning on an LED, or publishing something online.
You can tell your board what to do by sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board [source].
The home automation system is one of the interesting electrical projects for engineering. The controller used for the home automation system varies according to the complexity of the system. An Android phone and Arduino board can control light, fan, and other electrical appliances.
If the logic to control electrical appliances is installed in the board itself, the project can help to achieve many objectives such as electricity bill minimization, and peak load shifting.
You can buy the best Arduino boards for projects from here Arduino [Affiliate].
Electrical Engineering research projects
Engineering projects that involve hardware are described in this post. If you are a Masters Degree student or would like to do a project in electrical engineering that is highly research oriented then you can read the post 100+ electrical vehicle-related projects.
You may read the book Electric Vehicle Research Projects to get more ideas.
Conclusion
We have briefly discussed 6 engineering projects for final year electrical and electronics engineering students. Projects from the post are not limited to the number 6. From each topic you can develop a large number of innovative projects.
Key points
- Soft Starter for 3 phase induction motor to reduce starting current
- SVPWM Control of 3 phase induction motor in electric vehicle
- Closed loop Traffic Control system using image sensing
- Electric Motor Protection Circuit for electric scooter
- DC-DC Converter for renewable energy sources/electric vehicle
- Arduino controlled home automation system