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Leadership is an area of increasing interest for the engineering profession. Strategic documents assert the need for engineers to take more prominent leadership roles to better inform complex policy decisions. Engineering leadership scholars assert, however that adequate models of how engineers lead do not exist and that traditional leadership models are contrary to the collaborative norms of engineering practice. To address this gap in engineering leadership literature, this dissertation develops a model of how engineering students lead in team-based design project environments, an example of the collaborative environment that is commonplace in engineering practice. This quantitative study used a combination of round-robin (360-degree) survey data and course grades to examine the Full Range of Leadership within mechanical engineering-centric capstone design teams. Using a combination of cluster analyses, social network analyses, and regression analyses in a three manuscript approach, this dissertation 1) validated a Mechanical Engineering capstone version of the Full Range of Leadership, 2) determined the degree of shared leadership within the teams and how to classify teams based on their degree of shared leadership, and 3) related shared leadership to both team effectiveness and team attributes. The study resulted in a shared leadership model for engineering design teams. The model represents leadership as a three-form, shared phenomenon within teams. The amount of leadership within the team relates positively to both the group process and satisfaction measures of team effectiveness, but not to task performance. This relationship is moderated by the distribution of leadership, indicating that a limited amount of shared leadership may be more effective. Selected team attributes are related to the degree of shared leadership within the teams. The results broaden our conceptualization of leadership beyond an individual phenomenon, making it a shared phenomenon that is an integral component of design teamwork as it relates to design team effectiveness. / Ph. D.

The study of this research has a challenge of learning data gathering sensor programming and design of electronic sensor circuit. The cost of autonomous vehicle development is expensive compared to purchasing an economy vehicle such as the Hyundai Elantra. Keeping the development cost down is critical to maintaining a competitive edge on vehicle pricing with newer technologies. Autonomous vehicle sensor integration was designed and then tested for the driving vision data-gathering system that requires the system to gather driving vision data utilizing area scan sensors, Lidar, ultrasonic sensor, and camera on real road scenarios. The project utilized sensors such as cheap cost LIDAR, which is that drone is used for on the road testing; other sensors include myRIO (myRIO Hardware), LabVIEW (LabVIEW software), LIDAR-Lite v3 (Garmin, 2019), Ultrasonic sensor, and Wantai stepper motor (Polifka, 2020). This research helps to reduce the price of usage of autonomous vehicle driving systems in the city. Due to resolution and Lidar detecting distance, the test environment is limited to within city areas. Lidar is the most expensive equipment on autonomous vehicle driving data gathering systems. This study focuses on replacing expensive Lidar, ultrasonic sensor, and camera to drone scale low-cost Lidar to real size vehicle. With this study, economic expense autonomous vehicle driving data acquisition is possible. Lowering the price of autonomous vehicle driving data acquisition increases involving new companies on the autonomous vehicle market. Multiple testing with multiple cars is possible. Since multiple testing at the same time is possible, collecting time reduces.

Thesis (MScEng)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A wide variety of design methodologies exist in literature and the methodologies employed may differ among companies and even among design teams. Therefore a software tool, called DiDeas II, is being developed for the early phases of mechanical engineering design. DiDeas II is customisable to accommodate various design methodologies. An approach for customisability which allows the user interface and data structure to be customised without changing the source code has been implemented in previous developments via an approach combining ontology and conceptual graphs. This approach is expanded in this thesis to allow for the implementation of various design methodologies through the use of tables for the display of information with inheritance of data among these tables. During groupwork, communication is both asynchronous and synchronous. DiDeas II has been developed in this thesis to facilitate and capture both asynchronous and synchronous communication between team members. Capturing such communications has the potential to provide insight into design decisions. The communication functionality was assessed in case studies in an academic environment. DiDeas II proved to be effective at recording “soft” information during design and placing the information into context for future reference. The degree to which DiDeas II could be customised to suit the design process at different companies was assessed through discussions with engineers in industry. These discussions showed that it was possible to customise DiDeas II according to the design processes followed by the participants. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: „n Wye verskeidenheid ontwerpsmetodologieë bestaan in die literatuur en die metodologieë wat gebruik word kan tussen maatskappye en selfs tussen ontwerpspanne verskil. Daarom word „n sagteware-hulpmiddel, genaamd DiDeas II, ontwikkel vir die vroeë fases van meganiese ingenieursontwerp. DiDeas II is pasbaar om voorsiening te maak vir verskeie ontwerpsmetodologieë. „n Benadering vir pasbaarheid wat toelaat dat die gebruikerskoppelvlak en datastruktuur aangepas kan word sonder om veranderings aan die bron-kode te maak, is geïmplementeer in vorige ontwikkelings deur „n benadering wat ontologie en konseptuele grafieke kombineer. Hierdie benadering is in hierdie tesis uitgebrei om voorsiening te maak vir die implementering van verskeie ontwerpsmetodologieë d.m.v. tabelle vir die vertoon van informasie, met data wat “oorgeërf” word tussen hierdie tabelle. Kommunikasie is beide asinkroon en sinkroon tydens groepwerk. DiDeas II is in hierdie tesis verder ontwikkel om beide asinkrone en sinkrone kommunikasie metodes te bemiddel en daarvan rekord te hou. Die rekordhouding van sulke kommunikasie het die potensiaal om insig te bied aangaande ontwerpbesluite. Die kommunikasie funksionaliteit is geassesseer in gevallestudies in „n akademiese omgewing. DiDeas II was effektief in die rekordhouding van “sagte” informasie tydens ontwerp, sowel as om sulke informasie binne konteks te plaas vir latere verwysing. Die mate waartoe DiDeas II aangepas kan word om voorsiening te maak vir die ontwerpsprosesse van verskillende maatskappye, is geassesseer deur gesprekke met ingenieurs in industrie. Hierdie gesprekke het getoon dat dit moontlik is om DiDeas II aan te pas volgens die ontwerpsprosesse wat die deelnemers gebruik.