ECE 110/120 Honors Lab Section : RF Messaging

(Team  31)

Statement of Purpose

Please provide a brief description of your project. List the goals and objectives of your project and explain why this project is useful for the problem your group want to solve or functions that make your project unique. 

Will use RF LoRa Feathers to send and receive digital messages over the air. These transceivers will be connected to E Ink Displays to view the messages. We will use the Arduino language embedded in the Feathers to write the messages.

The purpose behind this project is to increase our knowledge of communication interfaces. Two of the group members work within the Telemetry Sub Team in the ISS Spaceshot Project and would love extra experience with RF messaging and interfaces.

Goal #1: Establish communication between the two transceivers

• Complete physical setup of LoRa Feathers (SPI interface between Feather and transmitter?)
• Complete feather software, each able to switch between transmit and receive modes

Goal #2: Extend range of transceivers

• Attach antennas to each transceiver

Goal #3: Integrate displays into system

• Correctly attach displays to feathers
• Rework/Add code to route console output to displays (GUI?)

Background Research

Please provide details on the background research your group has done for your project. what drives you to work on this project and/or why this project is important. Also include discussions on any similar projects your group have looked at in coming up with your project. How is your proposed project different or similar to those your group have looked at. 

Two of our members are a part of the Telemetry Sub-team in the Illinois Space Society and we wanted to gain more experience in how transceivers worked. We took a look at all the possible projects that we could do with two transceivers. Some of the other projects we were looking at included an automated lightbulb, WIFI system, and a communication system between two devices. Out of all our options, we came to the conclusion that working with Arduino transceivers and eInk Displays would have been our best bet. We found a feather that included a RFM95 LoRa Radio at 900MHz which works perfectly with what we want to do with our display. 

Block Diagram / Flow Chart

System Overview

Provide descriptions to your block diagram and flow chart. State the purpose of each block.

Parts

• https://www.adafruit.com/product/3178 2x
• https://www.adafruit.com/product/258 2x
• https://www.adafruit.com/product/4195 2x

Provide a list of parts that you may need for your project. You should include details such as the quantity, model number, purpose, vendor, and price (excluding taxes and shipping) for each part. This list may change as you work on your project. 

Possible Challenges

We have experience with transceivers, but we still anticipate a lot of debugging to get the hardware to work smoothly. In addition to the hardware side, the feather's software is certain to have flaws. We had a lot of issues in our previous experience correctly importing libraries for the Arduino landscape. And, as with all RF communications, timing is a constant issue. A 5 millisecond delay in the script can be the difference between receiving and missing a message. We have absolutely no experience with the Monochrome eInk Displays so learning our way around those are going to include a heavy amount research.  Lastly, we are aware that the planning of the project has taken longer than we anticipated so trying to shorten the timeframe of the project is going to be a challenge in general. 

References

We do not have any references. This project is an offshoot of our group's work in the Illinois Space Society where we are using similar hardware to communicate between an in-flight rocket and a ground station.