Project :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

#	Title	Team Members	TA	Documents	Sponsor
40	Vertical Climbing Drone	Jacob Corsaw Jeffrey Chang Josh Crosby	Jeff Chang	design_document2.pdf final_paper1.pdf other1.pdf photo1.jpg photo2.jpg photo3.jpg presentation1.pdf video1.mp4
	#Vertical Climbing Drone Team Members: Jacob Corsaw (jcorsaw2) Jeffrey Chang (jdchang3) Josh Crosby (jcrosby3) #Problem For about the past decade, drones have become more available and more widely used in many commercial, industrial, and domestic applications. These drones have allowed us to see and examine situations that a human could not with unprecedented freedom. Specifically, we can now use drones to scope out crawlspaces, vents, pipes, and other tight environments where it would require much more work to put a human inspector. That being said, these drones are nearly all of a similar build: wheels or tracks to crawl along the floor. However, in vents and pipes, we put bends in them to change elevation. A tracked or wheeled drone that rides along the floor will be unable to move any further, as it would get stuck on the upward bend or be lost if it went downward through a vertical shaft. Our solution aims to change this. We propose a similar foundation, as in a wheeled or tracked drone, to explore tight spaces, but we would like to add a third method of traversal to allow our drone to climb vertically, provided new and convenient access to a full length of ventilation, plumbing, etc. A top mounted track or wheel structure that can extend out to fill the length from floor to ceiling of a small space would allow the drone to drive itself up or down a vertical shaft. That is, it can climb walls so long as there are two surfaces on the top and bottom to wedge itself between. The additional freedom that comes from a new plane of traversal would have many applications. As mentioned before, this would be a prime traversal tool to scout ventilation ducts and pipes for blockages, damages, and other conditions that would otherwise be problematic to the operation of these systems. Furthermore, we can easily fabricate a holder to attach wire or cable that would allow our drone to be the perfect candidate to run cabling and wires in the space between floors, the gap in the walls, or the tight areas in the ceiling. The utility this provides, and convenience, should be apparent to see. The fields that would use this drone currently have tools that attempt to accomplish what our idea is ideal for to a limited degree. We have special snaking tools to carry wires and cables, but they have limited range and cannot take a vertical bend very well. There are already drones as mentioned earlier to traverse small spaces, but they are forced to ride on the ground and also fail to traverse any vertical dimension. Our proposal would be the ideal tool for any job that tight spaces are involved. #Solution Components The subsystems of our drone would be broken down as follows: -Mechanical Mechanical is somewhat short. We need to make sure our motors are chosen wisely so we can have a fantastic power to weight ratio. We'll need these to turn our wheels/tracks. The other mechanical issue is the ability to raise and lower the top wheel/track so it can wedge itself into the diameter of the space. We'll probably use a scissor lift style expansion mechanism to achieve this. -Camera The drone will have some sort of camera that we'll need to stream back to the user so that they can see what the drone is seeing and maneuver accordingly. -Remote Control System We're planning on using a remote control as the method that we'll use to drive our drone. Wires will weight it down the farther it goes and can get wrapped around objects. We'll need to get a remote-control system going on our drone for mobility's sake. -Cable Holder This should be pretty straightforward; we just need a clamp of some kind to hold various kinds of wire in place while the drone traverses. #Criterion for success -The drone should display the proper mobility expected of standard drone that drives along the ground. We'll have the drone rotate in place to turn as well as be able to drive forward and backward -The top track should be able to expand to fit the diameter of the space to apply additional traction. -The drone should be remote-controlled and stream video back to the user. -The drone should be able to drag and feed a wire behind it while traversing a space. -The drone should have the ability to climb in tight vertical spaces.

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

Project Videos

Group59_DemoVideo