Special Circuit :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

Special Circuit

A student whose Senior Thesis Project (ECE 499) does not involve the design and construction or testing of electronic devices or hardware is required to complete a Special Circuit Project in the ECE 445 lab during the semester they take ECE 499. In addition, students enrolled in ECE 445 who are not undertaking a hardware dominant project are required to complete the special circuit (although this is strongly discouraged and the course staff will work with your team to make sure you have enough hardware in your project to avoid having to complete the special circuit.)

The special circuit is typically posted in the middle of the semester. Once you sign up for the special circuit (see below), you will be assigned a TA, a locker, and a special circuit which generally takes about 12-15 hours to complete. When you have it designed and built, you will give a functional demonstration to your TA, who will then inform the professor who will inform undergraduate advising that your task is complete. You are NOT required to attend any of the classes, reviews, demos, or presentations associate with the ECE 445 class.

Sign up for Spring 2020 is now open

Sign up for the Special Circuit assignment on the Lab Access page. Instructions for completing the special circuit will then be provided in the near future. Please check this page for updates.

Link to all Special Circuit design problems. 

Iron Man Mouse

Jeff Chang, Yayati Pahuja, Zhiyuan Yang

Featured Project

# Problem:

Being an ECE student means that there is a high chance we are gonna sit in front of a computer for the majority of the day, especially during COVID times. This situation may lead to neck and lower back issues due to a long time of sedentary lifestyle. Therefore, it would be beneficial for us to get up and stretch for a while every now and then. However, exercising for a bit may distract us from working or studying and it might take some time to refocus. To control mice using our arm movements or hand gestures would be a way to enable us to get up and work at the same time. It is similar to the movie Iron Man when Tony Stark is working but without the hologram.

# Solution Overview:

The device would have a wrist band portion that acts as the tracker of the mouse pointer (implemented by accelerometer and perhaps optical sensors). A set of 3 finger cots with gyroscope or accelerometer are attached to the wrist band. These sensors as a whole would send data to a black box device (connected to the computer by USB) via bluetooth. The box would contain circuits to compute these translational/rotational data to imitate a mouse or trackpad movements with possible custom operation. Alternatively, we could have the wristband connected to a PC by bluetooth. In this case, a device driver on the OS is needed for the project to work.

# Solution Components:

Sensors (finger cots and wrist band):

1. 3-axis accelerometer attached to the wrist band portion of the device to collect translational movement (for mouse cursor tracking)

2. gyroscope attached to 3 finger cots portion to collect angular motion when user bend their fingers in different angles (for different clicking/zoom-in/etc operations)

3. (optional) optical sensors to help with accuracy if the accelerometer is not accurate enough. We could have infrared emitters set up around the screen and optical sensors on the wristband to help pinpoint cursor location.

4. (optional) flex sensors could also be used for finger cots to perform clicks in case the gyroscope proves to be inaccurate.

Power:

Lithium-ion battery with USB charging

Transmitter component:

1. A microcontroller to pre-process the data received from the 4 sensors. It can sort of integrate and synchronize the data before transmitting it.

2. A bluetooth chip that transmits the data to either the blackbox or the PC directly.

Receiver component:

1. Plan A: A box plugged into USB-A on PC. It has a bluetooth chip to receive data from the wristband, and a microcontroller to process the data into USB human interface device signals.

2. Plan B: the wristband is directly connected to the PC and we develop a device driver on the PC to process the data.

# Criterion for Success:

1. Basic Functionalities supported (left click, right click, scroll, cursor movement)

2. Advanced Functionalities supported(zoom in/out, custom operations eg. volume control)

3. Performance (accuracy & response time)

4. Physical qualities (easy to wear, durable, and battery life)