The most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project is if we fail to integrate all of our hardware components. We plan on testing out the individual hardware components prior to connecting everything together. A lot of research has been done to ensure that components are compatible. More research will be done if needed. In addition, we have to ensure that the Nucleo board will be able to turn the Jetson on/off since that is the major target in our low power goal. Jiamin did some research into this topic, but the ideas will have to be tested out once she comes back to Pittsburgh in 2 weeks. If we are unable to use the Nucleo board to wake the Jetson, then we might have to consider using some sort of physical momentary switch to activate the signal.
After the proposal presentation we realized that the 2 degrees of error for the temperature reading from the FLIR IR camera is not good enough. We looked into cameras that could have better accuracy, but those were way out of our budget. From the TA’s suggestions, we decided that a sensor might be a better option. We decided on a sensor from the MLX90614 series. However, most sensors can only measure from a very short distance (2-5 cm). We did some more research and found that specifically the MLX90614-DCI has an accuracy of 0.5 degree of error for room temperature and 0.2 degree of error for human body temperature. It can also detect from a distance 50 cm, about 20 inches. The FLIR IR was originally around $200 and now we no longer need to buy a separate board to interface the camera with the Jetson. The sensor we chose is only $60, providing a little more breathing room in our $600 budget.
The schedule has not been changed. Everything is still happening according to the initial Gantt chart created for the proposal presentation.