Hardware

Hardware Resources

The Srivastava Senior Design Lab has a wide variety of hardware available for use in projects, including microcontrollers, DSP boards, LINX RF transmitters and receivers, GPS units, webcams and more. These things can all be checked out from you TA for use on your project. See below for more details, and check out the links above.

Development Boards

Intel Galileo Development Boards

The lab has 25 Intel Galileo Development Boards available for checkout. The following links are useful resources for working with these boards:

Microcontrollers

PIC Microcontrollers

The lab has a number of PIC16F877A microcontrollers available for use in projects. It is understandable that wiring errors might happen, so each student is allowed to burn out a maximum of two PICs. They are programmed in a simplified C instruction set and are used to simplify design and perform IO with ease. Check the PIC Tutorial for more information.

BASIC Stamp Microcontrollers

The BASIC Stamp is a simple, tiny microcontroller with serial communications abilities, programmed in BASIC. This makes it ideal for simple applications where I/O speed is not critical, and the complexity of the HC12 is not needed.

DSPs

TI TMS320C54x DSPs

We have several C54x DSPs available for checkout (if demand is high, sharing a DSP with another group may be needed). Check out these resources for more information:

TI TMS320C6713 DSP

We have one TMS320C6713 (16 Mb) Floating Point DSP that was graciously donated by TI. The board is in the TA cabinet and is available for checkout.

LINX RF modules

We have a number of LINX transmitters and receivers available in the lab for RF projects, with a choice of the LC Series (315 or 418 MHz) or the HP series (902-928 MHz band).

GPS kits

We have 2-3 Garmin 12 XL GPS receivers. The Garmin units are equipped with a serial communication port and can be interfaced with microcontrollers or computers to provide information on position (lat, long, altitude, time) and velocity (differentiation of position). We also have one equivalent Motorola kit, and another kit by Ashtech (Eval and development kit, 990285). There are antennas on the roof of EL with wires into the lab so that data can be acquired while in the building (for testing purposes). The antennas can be accessed through connectors in the back left corner of the lab, by the far computer.

Cloud-controlled quadcopter

Anuraag Vankayala, Amrutha Vasili

Cloud-controlled quadcopter

Featured Project

Idea:

To build a GPS-assisted, cloud-controlled quadcopter, for consumer-friendly aerial photography.

Design/Build:

We will be building a quad from the frame up. The four motors will each have electronic speed controllers,to balance and handle control inputs received from an 8-bit microcontroller(AP),required for its flight. The firmware will be tweaked slightly to allow flight modes that our project specifically requires. A companion computer such as the Erle Brain will be connected to the AP and to the cloud(EC2). We will build a codebase for the flight controller to navigate the quad. This would involve sending messages as per the MAVLink spec for sUAS between the companion computer and the AP to poll sensor data , voltage information , etc. The companion computer will also talk to the cloud via a UDP port to receive requests and process them via our code. Users make requests for media capture via a phone app that talks to the cloud via an internet connection.

Why is it worth doing:

There is currently no consumer-friendly solution that provides or lets anyone capture aerial photographs of them/their family/a nearby event via a simple tap on a phone. In fact, present day off-the-shelf alternatives offer relatively expensive solutions that require owning and carrying bulky equipment such as the quads/remotes. Our idea allows for safe and responsible use of drones as our proposed solution is autonomous, has several safety features, is context aware(terrain information , no fly zones , NOTAMs , etc.) and integrates with the federal airspace seamlessly.

End Product:

Quads that are ready for the connected world and are capable to fly autonomously, from the user standpoint, and can perform maneuvers safely with a very simplistic UI for the common user. Specifically, quads which are deployed on user's demand, without the hassle of ownership.

Similar products and comparison:

Current solutions include RTF (ready to fly) quads such as the DJI Phantom and the Kickstarter project, Lily,that are heavily user-dependent or user-centric.The Phantom requires you to carry a bulky remote with multiple antennas. Moreover,the flight radius could be reduced by interference from nearby conditions.Lily requires the user to carry a tracking device on them. You can not have Lily shoot a subject that is not you. Lily can have a maximum altitude of 15 m above you and that is below the tree line,prone to crashes.

Our solution differs in several ways.Our solution intends to be location and/or event-centric. We propose that the users need not own quads and user can capture a moment with a phone.As long as any of the users are in the service area and the weather conditions are permissible, safety and knowledge of controlling the quad are all abstracted. The only question left to the user is what should be in the picture at a given time.

Project Videos