Design Document Check

updated Fa 2020

Description

The Design Document Check (DDC) is intended to aid your team as it prepares its Design Document. The DDC focuses narrowly upon providing feedback on the preparation of historically problematic Design Document elements. If these elements fall short during your Design Review the following week, precious time is lost.

What are the course staff looking for? i) Evidence that the overall idea of the design is sound; ii) A check of a small subset of required components indicates that the project is on the right track.

Below is a checklist of things to have ready for the design document check. Refer to the design document page and grading rubric for a full description of each item.
  1. Introduction
    1. Start with a brief summary (30 sec) or elevator pitch following this template:

      I will build ___A___ (my core product) for ___B___ (my core customer: the person who pays my company or uses the product).

      My customer has a problem ___C___ (describe the problem your customer has)

      My product solves my customer’s problem by ___D___ (how do you solve the problem?)

    2. Be expected to explain further what the problem is, what’s your idea to solve it, and why your idea is novel.
  2. Visual Aid
  3. High-level Requirements
    1. HL requirements are derived from the problem you are trying to solve (put yourself into the customer's shoes). HL requirements should be the essential features that your customers/users really care about. These features distinguish your product from others (e.g. ones available in the market or previous 445 designs). Be abstract (no tech details, you may come up with different design due to other constraints but still solve this problem), quantifiable (no words like continuously, accurately, etc), and unambiguous. HL&RV slides(P.5) has a good example.
    2. We will look at your HL requirements and check if they are what your customers/users really care about. Be prepared to defend your requirements, so that when you get challenged, you can give a well thought out explanation.
  4. Block Diagram
    1. Block Diagram slides
    2. We will check whether this design appears to solve your problem. 
    3. We will check if formatting is clear (lines, legends, etc). Extra caution is needed as students often make mistakes here (but you shouldn't!).
  5. Requirements & Verification Tables
    1. HL&RV slides: from P. 1-17
    2. Block Module Requirements: Break down your HL requirements into block level requirements. These are the requirements in the RV table (they are not the specs of the parts you have chosen).
    3. Verification: A step-by-step approach allows another 445 student to test if the BL requirement is satisfied. This is like an instruction for your module's unit test (with some surrounding dummy modules, a.k.a, mock object(s)
    4. We will review one piece of it. Show us an important one.
  6. Plots
  7. Circuit Schematics
  8. Tolerance Analysis
    1. Identify an important part that you need to perform some quantitative analysis on. This part should have quantitative values critical to the design and require you do calculations and make trade-offs in order to achieve your best design.
    2. Common mistake: Many students do calculations for tangential parts to pad the space.
  9. Safety & Ethics
  10. Citations

During the DDC, your team will have 5-8 minutes to present an example of each of these elements. Expect to share the 30-minute DDC session with two other design teams. Come prepared to learn from their work - both the good and bad.

Your task is to prepare and upload the above elements in a single PDF document to the course website. During your DDC session, you will present directly from your submission, which will be projected for all to see.

The focus of the DDC is not on the details of your design but rather on the details of your formatting; the design of your project will be covered in-depth during the Design Review. Organize your submission in accordance with the Design Document guidance and the example Design Document.

The course staff will focus on providing feedback on the format of your sample DDC elements - the very limited available time will not afford detailed feedback on your design. Please go to office hours for further guidance.

Requirements and Grading

Upload your DDC submission to your project page on PACE (i.e. ECE 445 web board) before arriving at your DDC session.

As in your Design Document, number pages after the title page in your DDC submission.

Any material obtained from websites, books, journal articles, or other sources not originally generated by the project team must be appropriately attributed with properly cited sources in a standardized style such as IEEE, ACM, APA, or MLA.

The course staff at the DDC will assign individual grades to each student based on:

Submission and Deadlines

Sign-up for the Design Document Check on the ECE 445 course website - specifically at the Sign up for Team Presentation item on the PACE tab. Sign-up will open the Monday one week prior to the DDCs.

Upload your DDC submission (.pdf format) to the ECE 445 course website before your DDC session - specifically at the My Project item on the PACE tab.

While you will not complete peer reviews during the DDC, you are expected to actively contribute to the discussion.

Tech must-know and FAQ for design

Here is the link of "Tech must-know and FAQ for design" which is accessible after logging into g.illinois.edu.

Over semesters, ECE445 course staff have encountered repeated mistakes from students. The document above is designed to provide students with the essential knowledge needed in order to have a good design. Spending 5 min reading it might save you 15 hours later. Also, there might be some quiz questions in your DDC or Design Review. Please help us improve this document. We value your feedback!

Oxygen Delivery Robot

Aidan Dunican, Nazar Kalyniouk, Rutvik Sayankar

Oxygen Delivery Robot

Featured Project

# Oxygen Delivery Robot

Team Members:

- Rutvik Sayankar (rutviks2)

- Aidan Dunican (dunican2)

- Nazar Kalyniouk (nazark2)

# Problem

Children's interstitial and diffuse lung disease (ChILD) is a collection of diseases or disorders. These diseases cause a thickening of the interstitium (the tissue that extends throughout the lungs) due to scarring, inflammation, or fluid buildup. This eventually affects a patient’s ability to breathe and distribute enough oxygen to the blood.

Numerous children experience the impact of this situation, requiring supplemental oxygen for their daily activities. It hampers the mobility and freedom of young infants, diminishing their growth and confidence. Moreover, parents face an increased burden, not only caring for their child but also having to be directly involved in managing the oxygen tank as their child moves around.

# Solution

Given the absence of relevant solutions in the current market, our project aims to ease the challenges faced by parents and provide the freedom for young children to explore their surroundings. As a proof of concept for an affordable solution, we propose a three-wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot capable of supporting filled oxygen tanks in the size range of M-2 to M-9, weighing 1 - 6kg (2.2 - 13.2 lbs) respectively (when full). Due to time constraints in the class and the objective to demonstrate the feasibility of a low-cost device, we plan to construct a robot at a ~50% scale of the proposed solution. Consequently, our robot will handle simulated weights/tanks with weights ranging from 0.5 - 3 kg (1.1 - 6.6 lbs).

The robot will have a three-wheeled omni-wheel drive train, incorporating two localization subsystems to ensure redundancy and enhance child safety. The first subsystem focuses on the drivetrain and chassis of the robot, while the second subsystem utilizes ultra-wideband (UWB) transceivers for triangulating the child's location relative to the robot in indoor environments. As for the final subsystem, we intend to use a camera connected to a Raspberry Pi and leverage OpenCV to improve directional accuracy in tracking the child.

As part of the design, we intend to create a PCB in the form of a Raspberry Pi hat, facilitating convenient access to information generated by our computer vision system. The PCB will incorporate essential components for motor control, with an STM microcontroller serving as the project's central processing unit. This microcontroller will manage the drivetrain, analyze UWB localization data, and execute corresponding actions based on the information obtained.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1: Drivetrain and Chassis

This subsystem encompasses the drive train for the 3 omni-wheel robot, featuring the use of 3 H-Bridges (L298N - each IC has two H-bridges therefore we plan to incorporate all the hardware such that we may switch to a 4 omni-wheel based drive train if need be) and 3 AndyMark 245 RPM 12V Gearmotors equipped with 2 Channel Encoders. The microcontroller will control the H-bridges. The 3 omni-wheel drive system facilitates zero-degree turning, simplifying the robot's design and reducing costs by minimizing the number of wheels. An omni-wheel is characterized by outer rollers that spin freely about axes in the plane of the wheel, enabling sideways sliding while the wheel propels forward or backward without slip. Alongside the drivetrain, the chassis will incorporate 3 HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensors (or three bumper-style limit switches - like a Roomba), providing a redundant system to detect potential obstacles in the robot's path.

## Subsystem 2: UWB Localization

This subsystem suggests implementing a module based on the DW1000 Ultra-Wideband (UWB) transceiver IC, similar to the technology found in Apple AirTags. We opt for UWB over Bluetooth due to its significantly superior accuracy, attributed to UWB's precise distance-based approach using time-of-flight (ToF) rather than meer signal strength as in Bluetooth.

This project will require three transceiver ICs, with two acting as "anchors" fixed on the robot. The distance to the third transceiver (referred to as the "tag") will always be calculated relative to the anchors. With the transceivers we are currently considering, at full transmit power, they have to be at least 18" apart to report the range. At minimum power, they work when they are at least 10 inches. For the "tag," we plan to create a compact PCB containing the transceiver, a small coin battery, and other essential components to ensure proper transceiver operation. This device can be attached to a child's shirt using Velcro.

## Subsystem 3: Computer Vision

This subsystem involves using the OpenCV library on a Raspberry Pi equipped with a camera. By employing pre-trained models, we aim to enhance the reliability and directional accuracy of tracking a young child. The plan is to perform all camera-related processing on the Raspberry Pi and subsequently translate the information into a directional command for the robot if necessary. Given that most common STM chips feature I2C buses, we plan to communicate between the Raspberry Pi and our microcontroller through this bus.

## Division of Work:

Given that we already have a 3 omni wheel robot, it is a little bit smaller than our 50% scale but it allows us to immediately begin work on UWB localization and computer vision until a new iteration can be made. Simultaneously, we'll reconfigure the drive train to ensure compatibility with the additional systems we plan to implement, and the ability to move the desired weight. To streamline the process, we'll allocate specific tasks to individual group members – one focusing on UWB, another on Computer Vision, and the third on the drivetrain. This division of work will allow parallel progress on the different aspects of the project.

# Criterion For Success

Omni-wheel drivetrain that can drive in a specified direction.

Close-range object detection system working (can detect objects inside the path of travel).

UWB Localization down to an accuracy of < 1m.

## Current considerations

We are currently in discussion with Greg at the machine shop about switching to a four-wheeled omni-wheel drivetrain due to the increased weight capacity and integrity of the chassis. To address the safety concerns of this particular project, we are planning to implement the following safety measures:

- Limit robot max speed to <5 MPH

- Using Empty Tanks/ simulated weights. At NO point ever will we be working with compressed oxygen. Our goal is just to prove that we can build a robot that can follow a small human.

- We are planning to work extensively to design the base of the robot to be bottom-heavy & wide to prevent the tipping hazard.