Created by Pham, Matthew Dang-Vinh, last modified on Sep 27, 2018

Matthew Pham (mdpham2@illinois.edu) ECE120

Kevin Palani (kevinrp2@illinois.edu) ECE120


Introduction

  • Statement of Purpose

    • Currently, there are a multitude of smart dorm/home improvement products. In order to build a device for different use cases (lights, blinds, fans, etc.) there is no standardized method to operate and allow for any communication between devices. In order to engineer a solution, we will design and build a hub for smart devices of all kinds.

  •  Background Research

    • The IoT market is growing at a significant rate. It is projected to generate more than $500 billion globally by 2022. Consumers and companies alike are rushing to automate their processes using the IoT. Just from the ECE 110/120 Honors section alone many groups (including us) wanted to build a project revolving around smart device control. The IoT is the next step in technological innovation and we would like our project to revolve around this technology.


Design Details

  • Block Diagram / Flow Chart



  • System Overview
    • The IoTSmartDevice will be composed of an input port, an output port, a processing unit, and a WIFI chip. There will also be a sensor, such as a light sensor, and an output, like a light bulb.
    • A switch on the device controls the output voltage
    • The device would periodically send the input data to the server via a rest API, which would store it in a database
    • The device output can be changed through a command from the server. It will probably receive this signal through a websocket.
    • The server will issue a command to the output device if the device's input passes a user specified condition, or if the user issues a command to the server from the mobile or web portals
    • SmartHome devices such as Alexa could also issue a command to the server
    • The aggregate data can be visualized through the web portal.
    • The time series data base and data visualization can be added using InfluxDB and Grafana respectively


Parts

  • ESP 8266 WIFI chip

  • Arudino nano

  • 3D printed case

  • 4 way switch

  • AND gates

  • Capacitors

  • 12V battery pack

  • Linux Server (Used to host webpage and database) (We can deal with this if necessary)



Possible Challenges

  • Getting a server

  • Lack of experience with hardware

  • Connecting device to WIFI


References

https://www.influxdata.com/time-series-platform/influxdb/

https://grafana.com/

https://aws.amazon.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266

http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/Capacitive-voltage-divider.php


Attachments:

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Comments:

Useful idea!  What devices will you be controlling though and how to you plan to demonstrate this in lab?  Do you already have smart devices you plan to link together?  Also, make sure to not get too caught up in the software as this is still a hardware-based lab.  Please meet with a CA this week in lab to discuss your project in more detail before it's approved.
Posted by mnwilso2 at Sep 25, 2018 08:02

Hi,

We have attached some more diagrams showing example Smart Devices that we will build to demo the project. As for the software portion, we will build most of it using open-source solutions which significantly reduces the work required. The mobile and smart home integration will be the lowest priority. To be clear, based on our skills, the hardware portion of this will definitely be the most difficult, as neither of us have hardware experience, but we both have software experience.
Posted by mdpham2 at Sep 27, 2018 19:48