Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
62 Automated Multi-Cat Feeder
Lingxiang Cai
Omolola Okesanjo
Qingyuan Liu
Nithin Balaji Shanthini Praveena Purushothaman design_document2.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
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presentation1.pdf
proposal2.pdf
ECE 445 (SENIOR DESIGN PROJECT) REQUEST FOR APPROVAL

Team Members:

Omolola okesanjo (omolola2)

Lingxiang Cai (lcai15)

Qingyuan Liu (ql21)

PROBLEM

A cat feeder. Lots of pet owners (cat owners especially) have different cats at home, moreso different breeds. When these owners are not home or are away, feeding them becomes difficult especially with different diets and different nutritional needs. There needs to be a way to measure nutritional needs of different pets and feed them according to those needs, where the owner is at home or not.

SOLUTION

To solve this problem, we want to build an automated cat feeder system with an identification system for the different cats/pets. This system dispenses food for each cat according to their planned diet and nutritional needs. We incorporate a feeder system to dispense food, an RFID system to identify each cat before dispensing and a timer that works with the feeder system.

SOLUTION COMPONENTS
FEEDER SYSTEM

This is a mechanical system that is integrated with the RFID and timer system. After identifying which cat needs food and based on the timing needs of the cat diet, the motor dispenses the right food mixture and the right quatity into the bowl for the cat to eat. The circuit is going to be integrated with the RFID on a microcontroller on a PCB.

RFID SYSTEM

When a cat comes to the system for food, the RFID system is used to read data (based on a chip on the cat) to see which breed, types of food the cat needs, quantity, etc.

TIMER/CLOCK

This is to set a regular time to determine when the dispenser should dispense food because we don't want our cat over eating under under-eating.

CRITERION FOR SUCCESS

High-Level Goals:

The RFID system can successfully identify different cats and determine what to feed them based on pre-recorded data (good measure would be 2 or 3 cats.)
The timer works according to the instruction based on each cat.

The dispenser is able to dispense food.

The dispenser can mix the right food for each cat.

The PCB works correctly.

All systems are able to be integrated together.

Master Bus Processor

Clay Kaiser, Philip Macias, Richard Mannion

Master Bus Processor

Featured Project

General Description

We will design a Master Bus Processor (MBP) for music production in home studios. The MBP will use a hybrid analog/digital approach to provide both the desirable non-linearities of analog processing and the flexibility of digital control. Our design will be less costly than other audio bus processors so that it is more accessible to our target market of home studio owners. The MBP will be unique in its low cost as well as in its incorporation of a digital hardware control system. This allows for more flexibility and more intuitive controls when compared to other products on the market.

Design Proposal

Our design would contain a core functionality with scalability in added functionality. It would be designed to fit in a 2U rack mount enclosure with distinct boards for digital and analog circuits to allow for easier unit testings and account for digital/analog interference.

The audio processing signal chain would be composed of analog processing 'blocks’--like steps in the signal chain.

The basic analog blocks we would integrate are:

Compressor/limiter modes

EQ with shelf/bell modes

Saturation with symmetrical/asymmetrical modes

Each block’s multiple modes would be controlled by a digital circuit to allow for intuitive mode selection.

The digital circuit will be responsible for:

Mode selection

Analog block sequence

DSP feedback and monitoring of each analog block (REACH GOAL)

The digital circuit will entail a series of buttons to allow the user to easily select which analog block to control and another button to allow the user to scroll between different modes and presets. Another button will allow the user to control sequence of the analog blocks. An LCD display will be used to give the user feedback of the current state of the system when scrolling and selecting particular modes.

Reach Goals

added DSP functionality such as monitoring of the analog functions

Replace Arduino boards for DSP with custom digital control boards using ATmega328 microcontrollers (same as arduino board)

Rack mounted enclosure/marketable design

System Verification

We will qualify the success of the project by how closely its processing performance matches the design intent. Since audio 'quality’ can be highly subjective, we will rely on objective metrics such as Gain Reduction (GR [dB]), Total Harmonic Distortion (THD [%]), and Noise [V] to qualify the analog processing blocks. The digital controls will be qualified by their ability to actuate the correct analog blocks consistently without causing disruptions to the signal chain or interference. Additionally, the hardware user interface will be qualified by ease of use and intuitiveness.

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