Category: Jeff’s Status Reports

Personal Progress

This week I finished building the frame for the final demo and lights.
We also tested the setup to make sure it works. I also performed full comprehensive on the hardware system to make sure it’s still performing normally.

Plans for Next Week

We plan on fine tuning the demo setup and also working on the final poster and documentations.

Risk and Risk Management

The biggest risk to our project right now is not finishing the final document. Our mitigation plan is to start early.

System Design Changes

As of now there hasn’t been a change to the existing design of the system.

Schedule

The schedule has not changed and everyone is on schedule.

Personal Progress

This week we did extensive testing and confirmed that our blinds works. There is however some amount of error at the edges and the blinds work much slower and less consistent when adjusting the blinds upwards. This is because it requires much more torque to make the blind goes upwards and the gear occassionally skips and had to go much slower to get the torque.

I also designed and built the frame for the final demo. I also worked on the final presentation slides.

We are on schedule and nothing needs to be changed.

Plans for Next Week

We plan on finishing the final document and finish building frame.

Personal Progress

This week I updated the hardware software interface to allow for interruption of blinds. I also got cardboard to build the fake window frame for the final demo and began construction of the frame.

I am currently on schedule personally since the hardware system is fully complete and am waiting to the software team to be fully finished to perform full system testing.

Plans for Next Week

There plenty of sunny days on the coming week so we will be doing full integrated system testing and calibration. I will also finish building the frame.

The tests planned for the hardware system include sending in test vectors asking the blinds to move the blinds at every 10 cm intervals (10cm, 20cm, 30cm from the top). I also plan to test the light detect circuit by moving it into the light and not light and make sure the response is correct.

Personal Progress

This week I was able not able to fully assemble the blinds because I can’t install the blinds into my bedroom due to my lease and tried to find solutions. I’ve considered plywood, pvc pipes, cardboard, and other ways to build a frame but because I’m not allowed into the woodwork area and lack of power tools, we settled with command strips. After placing the order for the command strips, I manually held up the blinds to test if it will work and what is the rate the blinds can move. I also helped Dianne and Elizabeth in software testing and integration.

I am current still behind on schedule because of the issue detailed above. There is no real way to adjust the schedule since the arrival of the command strip is outside our control and can only shorten testing period.

Plans for Next Week

If the command strips arrive by next week, I will begin full integrated testing in real environment. In the meantime I will help test software accuracy and think of other temporary measures to enable earlier full system testing.

Personal Progress

This week I was able to speed up the motor system to a reasonable speed by  setting the Vref to the correct voltage and to send out control pulses at the fastest pace possible. I also finish setting up the interface for the software people to send the control they want the motor to perform. I also finished assembling the 3D printed gear pieces with the motor.

I am current still on schedule and no need for adjustment.

Plans for Next Week

To test the motor system with actual blinds attached.

Personal Progress

This week I was able to test our light detection circuit in actual sunlight and was able to extract the threshold for sunlight as shown below in figure 1. I was also able to get the stepper motor working. It can rotate in both direction and at different speeds and duration.  I also set up the initial serial interface to receive some basic commands from the serial monitor (currently just adjusting the direction of the rotation.  I also learned how to use Cura for 3D printing slicing for the 3D printing request for the gear to turn the blind. I submitted a request for a quote to make sure it fits in our budget as shown in figure 2.

figure 1: Left is direct sunlight, Right is ambient light

I am current still on schedule and no need for adjustment.

 

Plans for Next Week

The motor currently turns very slowly and I’ve been researching how to make it turn faster. I found a few solutions and plan on implementing them and testing it next week. I also hope the gear gets printed by next week so I can attach it to the motor and begin testing on the actual blinds.

Personal Progress

This week our team just focused on writing our design document. I focused on writing all the subsections that involves the sensor system and motor system.  I also worked on writing the related work section and risk mitigation plan section.

We are on schedule and don’t need to make any changes to my schedule and plan.

Plans for Next Week

I plan to test the light detection circuit under actual sunlight so I can find the brightness threshold for actual sunlight. I also hope to get the motor control fully completed.

Personal Progress

This week the majority of our hardware purchases arrived and I’ve began work on assembling our hardware system. I finished building our sunlight detection circuit (figure 1). As shown in the Arduino code and serial monitor results, the circuit can determine the brightness shining on the photoresistor.

Figure 1 (above) : Light detection circuit

 

Figure 2: Light detection code

Figure 3: Analog Pin result under Room light, Flash Light, and Low light respectively

I’ve also began working on stepper motor control system as shown below.

I had to move the tasks in my schedule around because we did not receive the D455 Depth Camera this week and thus moved up the task of setting up the motorized blinds and other sensor system.

Plans for Next Week

I plan to test the light detection circuit under actual sunlight so I can find the brightness threshold for actual sunlight. I also hope to get the motor control fully completed.

Personal Progress

Our original plan of utilizing the RealSense Depth Camera L515 that the school already had fell through because after some testing, we found out the L515 Camera’s depth perception range gets severely hindered by sunlight (down to max depth range of 1.5m away). This lead me to do research for new hardware that fits our need. We settled with the RealSense Depth Camera D455 because it has a 6m range in sunlight and from a vender that we know we can trust and has good documentations. However the D455 is pretty pricey so we double checked our hardware needed to build our motorized blind to make sure it all fits within budget. I was able to get it down to all fit within the budget with $100 still available as leeway.

We also collected data to test our Light Area of Effect (LAoE) algorithm on Wednesday.  The predicted light area from our LAoE is about 10% off from the actual area the sunlight affected. This is expected since our LAoE algorithm simplifies light to be a particle and thus move in a straight line when in reality light is both a particle and wave and thus would bend outwards a little.

While I am waiting for the hardware purchase to be approved and to arrive, I helped with the design presentation and design report.

We are ahead of schedule because we originally schedule work to began after design presentation so all the work we are doing now were work planned for the coming week.

Classes knowledge utilized

For this weeks work, I’ve utilized knowledge from 18220 to understand the circuit diagram of other arduino controlled motorized blinds.

Plans for Next Week

If we were able to obtain the new RealSense Depth Camera D455 and the hardware for the blinds within the next week, I would be working on setting it up. During the downtimes, I would continue assisting Elizabeth and Dianne with their work.