Project :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

#	Title	Team Members	TA	Documents	Sponsor
32	Observation Balloon For Testing Centers	Jiajie Wang Shuaicun Qian Tunan Zhao Yichi Zhang	Yutao Zhuang	design_document1.pdf final_paper2.pdf proposal2.pdf	Timothy Lee
	GROUP MEMBERS Yichi Zhang NetID: yichi6 Tunan Zhao NetID: tunanz2 Jiajie Wang NetID: jiajie3 Shuaicun Qian NetID: sqian8 PROBLEM A floating balloon drone that monitors students who are taking tests. Needs to be non-noisy and provide aerial observation of the students to make sure that they are not cheating. Normally, if we want to use the drone to monitor the students, the sound will heavily affect the students and it may cause danger. Therefore, we want to create a safer machine that can achieve the goal. We can remotely control the direction and the height of the balloon. And we can bring it to the place where has no camera to monitor the student. SOLUTION OVERVIEW Our design is a none-noisy balloon drone that can be controlled by human remotely to monitor the students that taking the exam. The most important part is we need to make it not noisy as the normal drone. We want to use some special way to avoid using noisy motor. And to make it more useful, we make the drone equipped with several cameras which can send the pictures to our cellphone with Bluetooth. And if possible, we want to use the computer version to automatically detect if there are any students suspected cheating. SOLUTION COMPONENTS SUBSYSTEM #1: BALLOON DESIGN Design the overall structure of the balloon, including the shape and size. Choose which gas to use for construction based on their weight, durability, and strength. Create a physical model of the balloon using 3D printing or laser cutting. SUBSYSTEM #2: FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM Design a control panel that includes a joystick and other necessary controls. Choose appropriate sensors for detecting altitude, speed, and orientation of the plane. Implement algorithms for stabilizing the plane during flight and adjusting control surfaces for directional control. SUBSYSTEM #3: POWER AND PROPULSION Choose a suitable motor which has no noisy and propeller to provide the necessary thrust for the plane. Design and integrate a battery system that can power the motor and control systems for sufficient time. Implement a power management system that can monitor the battery voltage and ensure safe operation of the plane. SUBSYSTEM #4: IMAGE TRANSMISSION Buy a small monitor that can capture the picture. Control the battery it uses. Transmit the picture to user's phone. If possible, automatically detect whether there is someone cheating. CRITERION FOR SUCCESS 1.Floating balloon drone with flight controls built for indoor environments. 2.Able to capture suspicious student activity during testing. DISTRIBUTION OF WORK Yichi Zhang: POWER AND PROPULSION Tunan Zhao: IMAGE TRANSMISSION Jiajie Wang: BALLOON DESIGN and FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM Shuaicun Qian: BALLOON DESIGN and FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM

Featured Project

# Wireless Charging Table Supporting Multiple Devices with Arbitrary Placement

# Problem

While more and more device manufacturers adopt wireless charging into their smartphones and headphones, most currently available wireless charging pads only support a single device and require strict alignment between the device and the coil. Misalignment can negatively influence both user experience and charging efficiency. In certain scenarios such as cafeterias, a table that can simultaneously charge multiple devices with arbitrary placement can be useful and COOL, allowing the users to sit wherever they like and to arbitrarily place their devices.

# Solution Overview

We intend to design and manufacture a table with multiple mobile coils placed in an intermediate layer below. Driven by step motors, a tool grabber attaches the coils using electromagnets and drop them in the right place. Computer vision will be used to recognize devices (phones, AirPods, etc.) and guide the chargers to corresponding locations. Once the coil is in place, it will first communicate with the device (Qi protocol) to verify whether the device can be charged wirelessly. If yes, the charging process will start. Otherwise, the coil will be moved back to its original location. The scheduling algorithm ensures the wires get separated and neat.

# Solution Components

* Mechanical subsystem. The main moving component of the system is a large-scale X-Y moving mechanism under the table. The coils will be placed between two panels above the moving mechanism and will be caught and dropped to the right place by the moving tool head. The tool head will be developed with electromagnets or magnets with Z-axis moving capability.

![sketch](https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece445zjui/pace/getfile/18618)

* Vision detection subsystem. This includes a camera and a processing unit. It detects the locations of phones and other chargeable devices and send their positions to the control unit. In real-world settings, pre-installed surveillance cameras may be used as the video source so that no additional camera is required. Embedded GPU (NVIDIA Jetson Nano as a candidate) or cloud service can be used for image processing.

* Power supply control. It is used to control wireless chargers and supply power to devices if and only if the handshake between charger and device is successful. Status will be reported to the central control unit.

* Central control unit and embedded software. According to the output given by the vision detection system or the feedback from the power supply system, the central control unit should move the chargers with proper scheduling algorithm to pair chargers with devices and keep wires of coil separated and neat.

# Criterion for Success

* The vision detection system can localize chargeable device at an accuracy of over 80% and response within 2s.

* The power system can supply powers when a chargeable device is present, and not supply power when the misdetection happens. Correct feedback can be sent to the central control system.

* The mechanical system moves correctly according to the commands given by the central control system.

* The central control system can send correct commands to the mechanical system given the position information from the vision system and the feedback from the power supply system. It should be able to keep wires of charging coil separated.

# Evaluations on Alternative Solutions

The technology of wireless charging emerged some time ago, but its inclusion in commercial devices doesn’t take off until recent years. Intuitively, wireless charging doesn’t bring much additional convenience compared to the wired charging, but its adoption by major manufacturers has proven its value. Similarly, in certain settings such as the cafeteria, charging without alignment may significantly increase user experience, comparing to having only a few fixed charging locations.

An alternative solution to enable table-scale wireless charging is to deploy multiple coils covering the whole table. But it doesn’t solve the alignment problem unless the coils are heavily overlapped, which has been proven to be difficult by already canceled Apple AirPower.