Author: zhengzeg

This week I have been having conversations with the team members about the overall design of our project and investigating the implementation details. I brainstormed a list of problems we might face and questions we need to answer. For example, what communication protocol we need to use for the components to talk to each other, how to control the camera, etc. After doing some research, I was able to draw the high-level block diagram (see team report). After some investigation, I came up with a design that can utilize different AWS services to handle the backend of our project with scalability at its core. Specifically, the RPi will upload the image to an S3 bucket, which will trigger an AWS Lambda function that houses the CV component. The Lambda function will then send the output (a list of detected objects, for example) to our webapp server. After talking with faculties, we decided not to pursue this path, at least for now, because scalability isn’t really our priority at the moment. However, we might explore with this design after the MVP. For the MVP, we will choose to use only one AWS EC2 instance to run both our webapp and the CV component.

I have also been modifying & drawing more diagrams (flow diagrams, class models, etc.) in preparation for the upcoming design review. For the next week, I will start building the backbone of our webapp and get OAuth working. I will work with Keaton to continue developing the webapp component, and if we can receive the hardware in time, I will also start testing with the camera.

This week I have been discussing with the team members about the implementation details and how our project will look like on a higher level. After the discussion, we have decided to use a Raspberry Pi in place of a Jetson Nano board and hand the image processing steps to the cloud. The reasoning behind this decision is detailed in the team report.

I drew the workflow diagrams so that we can all have a better understanding of the architecture of our project (see team report). I am still working on the implementation diagrams and I will post them once our design is finalized. I began investigating ways the board will communicate with the web server. If we use standard HTTP POST requests, we will need to implement a robust verification system so that one user’s device won’t update another user’s inventory. I also looked into ways users will interact with the system (e.g. how to set it up out of the box, how to reset, etc.). Current candidates are pairing the device with a smart phone via Bluetooth and attaching a touchscreen with a graphical user interface to the fridge. Further discussions on these topics are needed as we might need to rescope our project and adjust the requirements.

Over the next week, I will work with Keaton to perform the benchmarks and Jay to design communication protocols & APIs.