Electronics and E&TC Final Year Project Topics

What separates an electronics project from a module assembly

Evaluators can usually tell when a project is just a microcontroller wired to breakout boards. To show electronics understanding, include at least one part that you designed and calculated yourself, such as a filter, a converter, an amplifier stage or a custom PCB.

Then back it up with measurements. An oscilloscope trace, a frequency response or an efficiency curve compared with your simulation gives you far stronger material for a report and viva than a photo of a finished box.

Power electronics and energy

1. MPPT solar charge controller — STM32 or dsPIC, IR2104 gate driver, MOSFETs, INA226, LTspice
   A direct panel-to-battery connection wastes power as sunlight changes. Design a synchronous buck converter, implement perturb and observe tracking, and compare harvested energy against a simple PWM charger.
2. Active cell balancing for a lithium battery pack — BQ76920 or similar monitor, MOSFETs, STM32
   Passive balancing burns excess charge as heat. Build a switched-capacitor or inductor-based balancer for a small pack, and measure balancing time and energy loss against resistive bleeding.
3. Bidirectional DC-DC converter for storage — Half-bridge MOSFETs, gate driver, C2000 or STM32, MATLAB Simulink
   Batteries in microgrids must charge and discharge through one stage. Design a low-voltage half-bridge converter with current control, and measure efficiency across the load range in both directions.
4. Wireless power transfer with coil alignment study — Class E or full-bridge inverter, Litz wire coils, resonant capacitors, LTspice
   Efficiency falls sharply when coils are misaligned. Build a resonant low-power link, then measure efficiency against distance and offset and compare series and parallel compensation.
5. Three-phase BLDC motor driver — DRV8301 or gate drivers, STM32, current shunts
   Sensorless control is difficult at low speed. Build an inverter stage, use back-EMF zero crossing for commutation, and study startup behaviour and speed regulation under load.

Embedded systems

1. CAN bus sensor network for an EV prototype — STM32 with CAN, MCP2551 or TJA1050, CAN analyser
   Point-to-point wiring becomes unmanageable in vehicles. Link battery, motor and display nodes over CAN, then inject faults to study how the bus behaves and recovers.
2. Ultra-low-power data logger — STM32L or nRF52, load switch, current profiler, FRAM
   Battery life depends on sleep behaviour as much as on battery size. Design a logger with careful power gating, profile its current in each state, and verify your predicted battery life.
3. RTOS-based industrial controller — FreeRTOS, STM32, MAX31855 thermocouple interface, solid-state relay
   Missed deadlines in control tasks cause real failures. Implement a PID temperature controller under an RTOS, measure task jitter with a scope, and compare results against a bare-metal loop.
4. TinyML keyword or machine-sound detector — Edge Impulse or TensorFlow Lite Micro, Cortex-M4 board, MEMS microphone
   Sending audio to the cloud costs power and privacy. Run a compact neural network on a microcontroller to detect a keyword or fault sound, and report memory, latency and accuracy.

Signal processing and communication

1. Software-defined radio signal classifier — RTL-SDR, GNU Radio, Python
   Spectrum monitoring needs to identify signal types automatically. Capture signals you are legally allowed to receive, generate features from them, and classify the modulation type at varying signal-to-noise ratios.
2. Adaptive noise cancellation in speech — MATLAB, DSP board or STM32F4, two microphones
   Fixed filters fail when noise changes. Implement LMS and RLS filters with a reference microphone, run them in real time, and compare convergence speed and SNR improvement.
3. Visible light communication link — High-brightness LED, MOSFET driver, photodiode, transimpedance amplifier, microcontroller
   Radio is restricted in some environments. Send data through LED light intensity, build the photodiode receiver, and measure bit error rate against distance and ambient light.
4. LoRa link budget and range field study — SX1276 modules, GPS, Python analysis
   Datasheet range rarely matches real conditions. Calculate a link budget, take field measurements across urban and open terrain, and compare spreading factors against the path-loss model.

VLSI and FPGA

1. FIR filter on FPGA with area and speed trade-off — Verilog, Xilinx Vivado, Basys 3 or similar board
   Hardware filters can be parallel, serial or pipelined. Implement all three in Verilog, then compare resource use, maximum clock and power from the synthesis reports.
2. AES encryption core on FPGA — Verilog or VHDL, Vivado, testbenches
   Software encryption can be too slow for constrained links. Implement AES-128 in hardware, verify it against published test vectors, and compare throughput with a software version on a microcontroller.
3. Small RISC-V processor core — Verilog, RISC-V GCC toolchain, Vivado or open-source tools
   Designing a processor makes computer organisation concrete. Implement a subset of RV32I with a pipeline, handle hazards, and run compiled test programs on an FPGA.
4. Low-power SRAM cell comparison — LTspice or ngspice, Sky130 PDK, Magic layout
   Leakage is a major concern at small geometries. Simulate 6T and 8T SRAM cells, then compare static noise margin, read stability and leakage using an open process kit.

Biomedical and instrumentation

1. Low-noise ECG acquisition front end — AD620 or INA128, op-amps, or AD8232 as a comparison, ADC, MATLAB
   ECG signals are tiny compared with mains interference. Design an instrumentation amplifier stage with filters and right-leg drive, and measure common-mode rejection. Use battery power and never connect to mains during testing.
2. Four-wire impedance measurement instrument — Op-amps, precision reference, 24-bit ADC such as ADS1220
   Contact resistance corrupts low-resistance readings. Design a precise current source with Kelvin sensing, measure known resistors, and report the accuracy and repeatability of the instrument.
3. Low-cost capacitance-based liquid level sensor — PCB electrodes, 555 or FDC2214 converter, microcontroller
   Float sensors jam and wear out. Design a non-contact capacitive probe with a signal-conditioning circuit, calibrate across liquids, and study the effect of temperature.

A practical plan for your hardware timeline

• Simulate first in LTspice or MATLAB, so that your report has values to compare with measurements.
• Prove one risky block on a breadboard or perfboard before designing a full board.
• Design the PCB in KiCad and leave enough time for at least one revision.
• Add test points and order spare parts, since first boards rarely work perfectly.
• Record bench measurements as you go, including failures and what you changed.

Getting support

Road2Tech in Pune mentors students on project scope, reference papers, IEEE paper support, synopsis, report and black book. Share your topic and what you have built so far, and we can discuss the next steps and where you need help.