Ben Cizdziel: Programmable LED Signs for Campus Buses

Benjamin Cizdziel is an undergraduate electrical engineering major and computer engineering minor who
will begin his third year at UCSC in Fall 2011.  He worked in Katia Obraczka's Inter-Networking Group (i-NRG) in
the summer of 2011 through the UCSC SURF-IT program.  During his time there, he worked with graduate student Kerry Veenstra on the Bus Tracking System (BTS) project, whose major goals are to provide real-time campus bus location maps on the web along with an ad-hoc networking testbed.  Benjamin's summer project was designing programmable LED route signs for UCSC campus buses.

The sign design involves an LED matrix used to display the route characters and a microcontroller that
controls which rows and columns of the matrix are turned on.  Additionally, font files are processed to generate data used to drive the correct LEDs to display the text.  A working miniature prototype has been built, which validates the design approach.  The next step is to develop a full-size prototype, which will be powered by the bus battery.  In an effort to reduce the power consumption of the sign, DC step-down converters will be used to power the LED display.

In the future, the microcontroller used to power the LED sign will also wirelessly transmit GPS route data to campus base stations.  Benjamin will continue working on this project in Fall 2011.