Project Proposal

Video Lecture

Video, Slides

Description

The proposal outlines your project's motivation, design, requirements, ethics, and safety. The project proposal is an expansion on the information provided in the RFA. Use the following format (Word template):

  1. Introduction

    • Problem: In a few paragraphs introduce the problem and why it is important. Discuss briefly how it relates to societal concerns such as public health, safety and welfare as well as to global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors. Include any relevant references to justify the existence or importance of the problem.
    • Solution: One to two paragraphs describing the solution. Give a high-level idea of what your solution is, then delve into detail as to how it is implemented. You do not have to commit to a particular implementation at this point, but your description should be explicit and concrete.
    • Visual Aid: A pictorial representation of your project that puts your solution in context. Include other external systems relevant to your project (e.g. if your solution connects to a phone via Bluetooth, draw a dotted line between your device and the phone). Note that this is not a block diagram and should explain how the solution is used, not a breakdown of inner components.

      Sample visual aid for project which remaps GameCube buttons on the fly.

    • High-level requirements list: A list of three quantitative characteristics that this project must exhibit in order to solve the problem. Each high-level requirement must be stated in complete sentences and displayed as a bulleted list. Avoid mentioning "cost" as a high level requirement.
  2. Design
    • Block Diagram: Break your design down into blocks and assign these blocks into subsystems. Label voltages and data connections. Your microcontroller can live in multiple subsystems if you wish, as in the example below.

      Sample block diagram for electric longboard + remote

    • Subsystem Overview: A brief description of the function of each subsystem in the block diagram and explain how it connects with the other subsystems. Every subsystem in the block diagram should have its own paragraph.
    • Subsystem Requirements: For each subsystem in your block diagram, you should include a highly detailed block description. Each description must include a statement indicating how the block contributes to the overall design dictated by the high-level requirements. Any interfaces with other blocks must be defined clearly and quantitatively. Include a list of requirements where if any of these requirements were removed, the subsystem would fail to function. Good example: Power Subsystem must be able to supply at least 500mA to the rest of the system continuously at 5V +/- 0.1V.
    • Tolerance Analysis: Identify an aspect of your design that poses a risk to successful completion of the project. Demonstrate the feasibility of this component through mathematical analysis or simulation.
  3. Ethics, safety and societal impact
    As engineers you have ethical and professional responsibilities in making design decisions. Assess the ethical and safety issues relevant to your project. Consider both issues arising during the development of your project and those which could arise from the accidental or intentional misuse of your project. Specific ethical issues should be discussed in the context of the IEEE and/or ACM Code of Ethics. Cite, but do not copy the Codes. Explain how you will avoid ethical breaches. Cite and discuss relevant safety and regulatory standards as they apply to your project. Review state and federal regulations, industry standards, and campus policy. Identify potential safety concerns in your project. Discuss the impact of your engineering solution in relevant societal, economic, environmental, and global contexts.

Submission and Deadlines

The Project Proposal document should be uploaded to My Project on PACE in PDF format before the deadline listed on the Calendar.

Bracelet Aid for deaf people/hard of hearing

Aarushi Biswas, Yash Gupta, Anit Kapoor

Bracelet Aid for deaf people/hard of hearing

Featured Project

# PROJECT TITLE: Bracelet Aid for deaf people/hard of hearing

# TEAM MEMBERS:

- Aarushi Biswas (abiswas7)

- Anit Kapoor (anityak3)

- Yash Gupta (yashg3)

# PROBLEM

We are constantly hearing sounds around us that notify us of events occurring, such as doorbells, fire alarms, phone calls, alarms, or vehicle horns. These sounds are not enough to catch the attention of a d/Deaf person and sometimes can be serious (emergency/fire alarms) and would require the instant attention of the person. In addition, there are several other small sounds produced by devices in our everyday lives such as washing machines, stoves, microwaves, ovens, etc. that cannot be identified by d/Deaf people unless they are observing these machines constantly.

Many people in the d/Deaf community combat some of these problems such as the doorbell by installing devices that will cause the light in a room to flicker. However, these devices are generally not installed in all rooms and will also obviously not be able to notify people if they are asleep. Another common solution is purchasing devices like smartwatches that can interact with their mobile phones to notify them of their surroundings, however, these smartwatches are usually expensive, do not fulfill all their needs, and require nightly charging cycles that diminish their usefulness in the face of the aforementioned issues.

# SOLUTION

A low-cost bracelet aid with the ability to convert sounds into haptic feedback in the form of vibrations will be able to give d/Deaf people the independence of recognizing notification sounds around them. The bracelet will recognize some of these sounds and create different vibration patterns to catch the attention of the wearer as well as inform them of the cause of the notification. Additionally, there will be a visual component to the bracelet in the form of an OLED display which will provide visual cues in the form of emojis. The bracelet will also have buttons for the purpose of stopping the vibration and showing the battery on the OLED.

For instance, when the doorbell rings, the bracelet will pick up the doorbell sound after filtering out any other unnecessary background noise. On recognizing the doorbell sound, the bracelet will vibrate with the pattern associated with the sound in question which might be something like alternating between strong vibrations and pauses. The OLED display will also additionally show a house emoji to denote that the house doorbell is ringing.

# SOLUTION COMPONENTS

Based on this solution we have identified that we need the following components:

- INMP441 (Microphone Component)

- Brushed ERM (Vibration Motor)

- Powerboost 1000 (Power subsystem)

- 1000 mAh LiPo battery x 2 (hot swappable)

- SSD1306 (OLED display)

## SUBSYSTEM 1 → SOUND DETECTION SUBSYSTEM

This subsystem will consist of a microphone and will be responsible for picking up sounds from the environment and conducting a real-time FFT on them. After this, we will filter out lower frequencies and use a frequency-matching algorithm to infer if a pre-programmed sound was picked up by the microphone. This inference will be outputted to the main control unit in real-time.

## SUBSYSTEM 2 → VIBRATION SUBSYSTEM

This subsystem will be responsible for vibrating the bracelet on the wearer’s wrist. Using the vibration motor mentioned above, we should have a frequency range of 30Hz~500Hz, which should allow for the generation of a variety of distinguishable patterns. This subsystem will be responsible for the generation of the patterns and control of the motor, as well as prompting the Display subsystem to visualize the type of notification detected.

## SUBSYSTEM 3 → DISPLAY SUBSYSTEM

The Display subsystem will act as a set of visual cues in addition to the vibrations, as well as a visual feedback system for user interactions. This system should not draw a lot of power as it will be active only when prompted by user interaction or by a recognized sound. Both of these scenarios are relatively uncommon over the course of a day, which means that the average power draw for our device should still remain low.

## SUBSYSTEM 4 → USER INTERACTION SUBSYSTEM

This subsystem is responsible for the interaction of the user with the bracelet. This subsystem will include a set of buttons for tasks such as checking the charge left on the battery or turning off a notification. Checking the charge will also display the charge on the OLED display thus interacting and controlling the display subsystem as well.

## SUBSYSTEM 5 → POWER SUBSYSTEM

This subsystem is responsible for powering the device. One of our success criteria is that we want long battery life and low downtime. In order to achieve this we will be using a power boost circuit in conjunction with two rechargeable 1000 mAh batteries. While one is charging the other can be used so the user doesn’t have to go without the device for more than a few seconds at a time. We are expecting our device to use anywhere from 20-50mA which would mean we get an effective use time of more than a day. The power boost circuit and LiPo battery’s JST connector allow the user to secure and quick battery swaps as well.

# CRITERION FOR SUCCESS

- The bracelet should accurately identify only the crucial sounds in the wearer’s environment with each type of sound having a fixed unique vibration + LED pattern associated with it

- The vibration patterns should be distinctly recognizable by the wearer

- Should be relatively low cost

- Should have prolonged battery life (so the power should focus on only the use case of converting sound to vibration)

- Should have a small profile and a sleek form factor

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