Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
7 Non-Intrusive Smart Unlocking Mechanism for College Dormitory Rooms
 Arnav Mehta
Raghav Pramod Murthy
Yuhao Cheng
 John Li design_document1.pdf
final_paper3.pdf
grading_sheet1.pdf
other1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
video
# Non-Intrusive Smart Unlocking Mechanism for College Dormitory Rooms

Team Members:
Raghav Pramod Murthy (raghavp4)\
Arnav Mehta (arnavm7)\
Yuhao Cheng (yuhaoc7)

# Problem
Many college students living in dorms frequently face the problem of forgetting their keys. For many students, it’s their first time having to manage keys to get into their rooms, and with busy schedules, it’s very easy to forget or even misplace them. This can create a huge hassle. While some systems, like facial recognition systems, can bypass the standard key-lock system, they are not feasible to install on the college dorm doors; they need to be drilled into the interior of doors, which is costly. Other forms of authentication, such as voice recognition, are not easy to add either. This brings us to a more practical and non-intrusive solution: a lock/unlocking mechanism that does not modify the internal locking system of the door. Almost all door locks can be unlocked through the rotation of some exterior component of the door like the lock or the handle. This naturally leads us to explore a solution geared towards a flexible rotation system that can more easily integrate with existing door locks.

# Solution
We propose a portable system that turns the lock on the door (similar to how a person on the inside of the door would manually turn it to let someone in). This non-intrusive unlocking mechanism will be portable and transferable – it can be easily removed from one door and put onto another. The user attempting to access a room would scan their face on an app, and make a sound for 5 seconds (picked up by a microphone on the cellphone) to initiate voice authentication. The authentication would occur in the backend. If the face and the voice match a face and voice that has been previously registered on the app, the web app will send a signal to the microcontroller to initiate the unlocking process. The user will also be able to register other faces and voices (for example for their roommate) to allow multiple people to use this unlocking system. An important note is that this entire unlocking system will not interfere with manual unlocking with a key.



# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1: Turning Mechanism
This will be the component that physically turns the lock to unlock the door once it receives a signal.

ESP32-S3 microcontroller chip\
DRV8825 Stepper Motor Driver\
Stepper Motor: STEPPERONLINE Nema 17 Stepper Motor Bipolar 2A\
Custom PCB\
LM1117-2.5 Voltage Regulator\
12 V Battery\
Flexible Steel Cable to turn the handle

## Subsystem 2: Facial recognition + Voice Recognition app/User Interface for Authentication

Function: Authenticate the user by scanning their faces and analyzing their voice

Components:
Android app\
Flask backend hosted in GCP\
Google Cloud speech-to-text + recognition API\
DeepFace open source model to compare faces\
MongoDB instance to store face data / voice data


# Criterion For Success

Unit Test Goals:
1. Desired accuracy of the facial recognition model: 95% (on large online dataset and around 20 of our own pairs of cellphone images)
2. Desired accuracy of the speech-to-text + recognition API model: 90%
3. Processing times (from when user submits voice and face to when the signal is sent to the PCB) under 5 seconds

Functionality Goals:
Portability/Transferability of Unlocking System:
1. We will achieve this goal if we can mount our contraption onto a door in under ten minutes.

Facial Recognition + Voice Recognition:
1. We will achieve this goal if users who authenticate themselves (registering their face and voice), take a picture of themselves, and submit a voice sample can unlock the door without a key.
2. We will achieve this goal if an unauthorized user (a user who has not authenticated themselves with face and voice through the app) is unable to open the door.

Covert Communication Device

Ahmad Abuisneineh, Srivardhan Sajja, Braeden Smith

Covert Communication Device

Featured Project

**Partners (seeking one additional partner)**: Braeden Smith (braeden2), Srivardhan Sajja (sajja3)

**Problem**: We imagine this product would have a primary use in military/law enforcement application -- especially in dangerous, high risk missions. During a house raid or other sensitive mission, maintaining a quiet profile and also having good situational awareness is essential. That mean's that normal two way radios can't work. And alternatives, like in-ear radios act as outside->in communication only and also reduce the ability to hear your surroundings.

**Solution**: We would provide a series of small pocketable devices with long battery that would use LoRa radios to provide a range of 1-5 miles. They would be rechargeable and have a single recessed soft-touch button that would allow someone to find it inside of pockets and tap it easily. The taps would be sent in real-time to all other devices, where they would be translated into silent but noticeable vibrations. (Every device can obviously TX/RX).

Essentially a team could use a set of predetermined signals or even morse code, to quickly and without loss of situational awareness communicate movements/instructions to others who are not within line-of-sight.

The following we would not consider part of the basic requirements for success, but additional goals if we are ahead of schedule:

We could also imagine a base-station which would allow someone using a computer to type simple text that would be sent out as morse code or other predetermined patterns. Additionally this base station would be able to record and monitor the traffic over the LoRa channels (including sender).

**Solutions Components**:

- **Charging and power systems**: the device would have a single USB-C/Microusb port that would connect to charging circuitry for the small Lithium-ion battery (150-500mAh). This USB port would also connect to the MCU. The subsystem would also be responsible to dropping the lion (3.7-4.2V to a stable 3.3V logic level). and providing power to the vibration motor.

- **RF Communications**: we would rely on externally produced RF transceivers that we would integrate into our PCB -- DLP-RFS1280, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16871, https://www.adafruit.com/product/3073, .

-**Vibration**: We would have to research and source durable quiet, vibration motors that might even be adjustable in intensity

- **MCU**: We are likely to use the STM32 series of MCU's. We need it to communicate with the transceiver (probably SPI) and also control the vibration motor (by driving some transistor). The packets that we send would need to be encrypted (probably with AES). We would also need it to communicate to a host computer for programming via the same port.

- **Structural**: For this prototype, we'd imagine that a simple 3d printed case would be appropriate. We'd have to design something small and relatively ergonomic. We would have a single recessed location for the soft-touch button, that'd be easy to find by feel.

**Basic criterion for success:** We have at least two wireless devices that can reliably and quickly transfer button-presses to vibrations on the other device. It should operate at at *least* 1km LOS. It should be programmable + chargeable via USB. It should also be relatively compact in size and quiet to use.

**Additional Success Criterion:** we would have a separate, 3rd device that can stay permanently connected to a computer. It would provide some software that would be able to send and receive from the LoRa radio, especially ASCII -> morse code.