Course Overview

Welcome to ECE 445/ME470 Senior Design ZJUI Spring 2022!

Welcome to the class! If you've looked at the course Calendar, you've probably already noticed that this class is quite different from most other classes in the department. The class only meets as a whole for the first four weeks of the semester. During these lectures you will meet the Course Staff, learn about specific requirements, resources, and project choices for the course, and have a chance to meet other students. These are some of the most important weeks for the class since the decisions you make during this time will determine what you'll get out of this class and, in many ways, how much you'll enjoy it.

In this course, you will form teams and propose projects that solve an engineering problem in a unique way. The projects generally involve a device that you will design, build, and demonstrate. We are excited to see what projects you create with this semester! In the midst of an ever changing learning environment, we want to encourage you to think, create, design, and build exemplary projects. We want to ensure that your experience in 445 demonstrates your potential as an engineer graduating from the University of Illinois.

This course is taught hybridly for ME and ECE students, and some projects are mentored by ZJUI faculty. Here are a few items that you will need to consider as we enter into this semester.

Digital Controlled LED Rotating Display System

Guanshujie Fu, Yichi Jin, Keyi Shen, Chentai (Seven) Yuan

Featured Project

# TEAM MEMBERS

Chentai Yuan (chentai2)

Guanshujie Fu (gf9)

Keyi Shen (keyis2)

Yichi Jin (yichij2)

# TITLE OF THE PROJECT

Digital Controlled LED Rotating Display System

# PROBLEM

By visual persistence phenomenon, we can display any images and strings with a rotating LED array. Many devices based on this idea have been developed. However, there are some common issues to be solved. First, the images or strings to be displayed are pre-defined and cannot be changed in a real-time way. Second, the wired connection between some components may limit the rotation behavior, and harm the quality of display. Some economical wireless communication technologies and new ways to connect components can be applied to achieve a better display and real-time image update.

# SOLUTION OVERVIEW

We aim at developing a digital controlled LED rotating display system. A servo motor is controlled to drive the stick with one row of LED to do circular rotation. The connection between LEDs, control circuit, motor and other components should be simple but firm enough to suppose good display and high-speed rotation. Moreover, there is another part to handle users’ input and communicate with the display part via Bluetooth to update images in a real-time and wireless way.

# SOLUTION COMPONENTS

## Subsystem1: Display Subsystem

- LED Array that can display specific patterns.

- Controller and other components that can timely turn the status of LEDs to form aimed patterns.

## Subsystem2: Drive Subsystem

- Servo motor that drive of the LED array to do circular rotation.

- Controller that communicates with the motor to achieve precise rotation and position control.

- An outer shell that has mechanisms to fix the motor and LED array.

## Subsystem3: Logic and Interface Subsystem

- Input peripherals like keyboard to receive users’ input.

- A FPGA board for high-level logics to handle input, give output and communicate with other subsystems.

- Wireless communication protocol like Bluetooth used in communication.

- VGA display hardware offering Graphical User Interface.

# CRITERION OF SUCCESS

- Users can successfully recognize the real-time patterns to be displayed.

- It achieves the precise rotation and position control of motor.

- The motor can drive the LED array and any necessary components to rotate stably and safely.

- The LED array is under real-time control and responds rapidly.

- The communication between components has low latency and enough bandwidth.

# DISTRIBUTION OF WORK

- Chentai Yuan(ME): Mechanisms and servo motor control.

- Guanshujie Fu(CompE): Logic and Interface design and keyboard & VGA display implementation.

- Keyi Shen(EE): Wireless communication and servo motor control.

- Yichi Jin(EE): Circuit design, keyboard & VGA display implementation.