Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
20 ZZZ-Mate : Pulse Driven White Noise Generator
 Haruya Kamitani
Sanjana Chunduri
Vakaris Ragauskas
 Jeff Chang design_document1.pdf
design_document2.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
video
Team Members: Sanjana Chunduri (sc65) / Vakaris Ragauskas (vragau2) / Haruya Kamitani (hkamit2)

#Problem:

According to the CDC, about 70 million Americans suffer from sleep deprivation. Lack of sleep causes various issues in our daily lives such as tiredness, lack of concentration, and in extreme cases, heart failure, diabetes, and various serious conditions.
Some of us rely on external sound sources for falling asleep. Currently, there are various white noise machines out in the market. However, most of these devices output a single, continuous signal. According to one article (https://krisp.ai/blog/background-noise-impact/), “the continuous background noise also known as white noise which comes from machines and other appliances, can harm your brain, it does so by overstimulating your auditory cortex”. According to one Healthline article (https://www.healthline.com/health/parenting/white-noise-for-babies#cons), a 2014 study concluded that “regular exposure to these sound pressure levels may be damaging to infant hearing and auditory development.”

#Solution:

White noise is typically beneficial during the earlier sleep stages, when people are more likely to be awoken by distracting noises or thoughts. However, rather than continuously playing background noise through the night and overstimulating the auditory cortex, our design aims to combat typical sleep deprivation issues by supporting users through all stages of their sleep cycle: Wake, light sleep, deep sleep, REM, and repeat. By taking pulse rate measurements as an indicator of the user’s current sleep stage, our sound generation device will adjust the volume of the white noise. A wristband with a photo sensor and green LEDs will be used to detect the user’s heart rate and will wirelessly relay the information to the white noise generator to adjust the volume as necessary.

#Solution Components

-Subsystem 1(Noise Source):

Power Supply Section: Noise source unit will be powered by 9-15VDC voltage. AC/DC adapter cable will be used. This power supply will provide a necessary power for MPU and if necessary, for speaker power amplifier as well as noise source.

MPU: ESP32 or related with built in Bluetooth/WiFi. This will be used to communicate with another ESP32 which will be built into the wearable band. The pulse rate data received from the wearable band will be used to control the output level of the noise source.

Speaker: Speaker with a wideband output frequency range (100Hz - 20kHz) will be used as white noise has an even power level across the full frequency spectrum. We may implement a power amplifier circuit with a simple transistor topology.

Noise Source: If it is manageable through ESP32, this will be programmed in MPU. Otherwise, transistor/opamp based white noise source will be implemented.

-Subsystem 2 (Wearable band):
MPU: another ESP32 microcontroller to send the pulse data to the main speaker/source unit.

Heart rate sensor: MAX30100 or MAX30102 or SEN11574

Battery: Lithium ion 3.3/5VDC



#Criterion For Success

One high-level goal of our project is to have wireless communication between a heart rate sensor wristband and a white noise machine. This wristband should be able to detect the heart rate of the user and differentiate between the four sleep stages of the user and differentiate between slight increases in heart rate to detect unrest. With software implementation, the WNG should decrease in volume when transitioning between sleep stages and after detecting an increase in heart rate.

Interactive Proximity Donor Wall Illumination

Sungmin Jang, Anita Jung, Zheng Liu

Interactive Proximity Donor Wall Illumination

Featured Project

Team Members:

Anita Jung (anitaj2)

Sungmin Jang (sjang27)

Zheng Liu (zliu93)

Link to the idea: https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=27710

Problem:

The Donor Wall on the southwest side of first floor in ECEB is to celebrate and appreciate everyone who helped and donated for ECEB.

However, because of poor lighting and color contrast between the copper and the wall behind, donor names are not noticed as much as they should, especially after sunset.

Solution Overview:

Here is the image of the Donor Wall:

http://buildingcampaign.ece.illinois.edu/files/2014/10/touched-up-Donor-wall-by-kurt-bielema.jpg

We are going to design and implement a dynamic and interactive illuminating system for the Donor Wall by installing LEDs on the background. LEDs can be placed behind the names to softly illuminate each name. LEDs can also fill in the transparent gaps in the “circuit board” to allow for interaction and dynamic animation.

And our project’s system would contain 2 basic modes:

Default mode: When there is nobody near the Donor Wall, the names are softly illuminated from the back of each name block.

Moving mode: When sensors detect any stimulation such as a person walking nearby, the LEDs are controlled to animate “current” or “pulses” flowing through the “circuit board” into name boards.

Depending on the progress of our project, we have some additional modes:

Pressing mode: When someone is physically pressing on a name block, detected by pressure sensors, the LEDs are controlled to

animate scattering of outgoing light, just as if a wave or light is emitted from that name block.

Solution Components:

Sensor Subsystem:

IR sensors (PIR modules or IR LEDs with phototransistor) or ultrasonic sensors to detect presence and proximity of people in front of the Donor Wall.

Pressure sensors to detect if someone is pressing on a block.

Lighting Subsystem:

A lot of LEDs is needed to be installed on the PCBs to be our lighting subsystem. These are hidden as much as possible so that people focus on the names instead of the LEDs.

Controlling Subsystem:

The main part of the system is the controlling unit. We plan to use a microprocessor to process the signal from those sensors and send signal to LEDs. And because the system has different modes, switching between them correctly is also important for the project.

Power Subsystem:

AC (Wall outlet; 120V, 60Hz) to DC (acceptable DC voltage and current applicable for our circuit design) power adapter or possible AC-DC converter circuit

Criterion for success:

Whole system should work correctly in each mode and switch between different modes correctly. The names should be highlighted in a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing way. Our project is acceptable for senior design because it contains both hardware and software parts dealing with signal processing, power, control, and circuit design with sensors.

Project Videos