This week I got was able to calibrate the RFID Reader. After research and a meeting with Tamal, I came to the conclusion that the best way to go forward is to tap the ring to the pendant to activate the protocol, rather than having a button. Since there is no active RFIDs available for the frequency we are operating, switching the power off to trigger is not an option. There is also a way we can short the coils inside of the tag, but the tag is extremely small and may make the ring build awkward. Furthermore, we only have one tag we can even experiment with for now. I have worked on the voice detection trigger as well. We have ordered a new microphone that is better for our desired usage. I believe we will have the product done on time, but there is not much slack time for us. As a result, we will try to have a first final product soon. Next week I hope to finish RFID working as a trigger, having a ring, and speech detection functioning.
Anika’s Status Report 4/6
This week I spent a lot of time improving certain parts the interface of the app as well as implementing the ability to actually send text messages to the inputted emergency contacts when a button is pressed and the ESP 32 sends an alert to the companion app. I also spent time creating an “alert dialog” that upon recieving a “alert!” from the esp, prompts a popup on the app asking the user to confirm or cancel the alert. If confirmed the text will be sent, and if not it gets disregarded. Additionally I began working on the geofencing interface. Thus far I have created a preference page where the user can input their home address as their reference point (using google API’s to auto-predict the address as they type) . Once they input their home address and the latitude and longitude coordinates get stored. I also have to add a button for the user to input their desired geofence radius. After this the next step is to repeatedly get the current lat and long coords and then use compute the Haversine Distance to see if we have exceeded our geofence range -> to then alert the companion app.
To verify this has been working we have been testing sending an alert with a button on the breadboard connected to the ESP. We test when the bluetooth is disconnected whether the message has been sent via the cellular chip and if it is connected does the companion app receive the message. We also have been inputting different number of emergency contacts to see when sending a message it goes to all users. I have also repeatedly sent messages to see if my alert dialog box works (not just once and that it keeps working no matter if i cancel or confirm). There are still currently some timing issues that I am looking to fix.
I have attached a Demo with my progress below: April 6th Status Report Demo
Team Status Report 3/30
This week we have divided up work in order to present working parts for the interim demo.
Anika: establishing a connection between the companion app and the esp in order to send contact information to the esp.
Olivia: getting the esp to send information to the cellular module
Bradley: getting the RFID working.
We’ve successfully established the first 2 parts and by the interim demo we hope to show everything connected on the breadboard to show our progress. With the progress we have so far I think we are getting back on track with our timeline.
Demo video for ESP and Companion App connection
Bradley’s Status Report for 3/30
This week, I worked on the breadboarding, specifically getting the RFID module to turn on. A problem we are running into when trying to breadboard it is that since data in, reset, and power ports are all right next to each other, so it is hard for them all to stay in place while testing. There is also an issue with calibrating the RFID reader, since the datasheet is not very comprehensible and not much documentation is available elsewhere. However, the parts we have are compatible so it will just take some more time in order to get it finally working. Furthermore, while trying to design how we would make the ring, Tamal informed us that using metal to cover up the RFID ring may not be reliable in terms of distance and actually shorting the signal. He suggested we revert back to the button, where we short the RFID tag. We are behind, but I believe we can have something prsentable for the interim demo.
Olivia’s Status Report for 3/30
As we prepared for a demo coming up this week, I worked a lot on the hardware setup and code, as well as deciding what we would be ready to present for our interim demo. I worked on the cellular module and completed the code to make calls as well as send texts. This took several hours of debugging and working with different programs and connections to ensure the ESP 32 could properly send serialized data to the cellular module. I also created an interim demo design to fully present a presentable version of our PCB design. I also worked on the GPS programming of the cell module to ensure we had location proximity trigger and be able to accurately receive location data ( I was able to receive location data but was unsure about accuracy and working on honing that this week as we enter final testing).
Happy Easter!!🐣
Anika Status Report 3/30
This week I have been working on creating a bluetooth connection between our companion app and the ESP to present during our interim demo. I’ve been working on the companion app side via flutter and I have been able to successfully establish a connection with the ESP. The next step we wanted to accomplish was to write information to the ESP about certain contacts we want to send messages to etc. To do this I created a dropdown menu allowing the user to create 3 emergency contacts. When they select “enter contact _x” they are prompted to input a phone number and “submit” upon submitting, this information gets utf8 encoded and sent to the esp in a message saying update preferences SOSx [phone number]. This message is then able to be broken down by the esp. I tested the bluetooth connection and data transmission to the esp 32 and it works successfully. I have attached a demo video showing the process. I will continue working on the PCB next week and try to get to some geofencing.
Olivia’s Status Report for 3/23
This week we received multiple vital parts of our design from the suppliers, so this week was spent testing and ensuring the PCB design matched our new specifications. Since I tested the RFID, motor, and attempted testing the microphone and cell, as well as after multiple discussions and a meeting with Tamal to figure out specific logistics of the PCB to ensure correctness we had to make several changes. We realized that we bought an analog microphone and that if we wanted to use it, we would either need to create our own digital processor or get a digital microphone. We decided to go forward with a new microphone as that also helped with better compatibility with the ESP and overall design requirements. I also ordered a new cellular device, as after discussing how the solder pad cell chip we currently have would work, we realized a better and cheaper option would be to go with a cellular kit that already has a prepaid cell plan that we could use, as well as great depth documentation and discussion of projects which will help with debugging. It was also exciting as the new cell chip has GPS which minimized our parts and provided us with GPS location without additional modules. As our design finally starts coming together, it is exciting to start putting things together and visualize what our final design will look like.
Bradley’s Status Report for 03/23/2024
This week, I helped with grabbing information regarding all of the parts to help create my teammates create the schematic for the PCB. I also helped with testing the RFID Readers we recieved this week, and whether or not they would be sufficient to detect the rings tag being covered up. So far, it has not worked well with the current RFID Reader module, but I am continuing on improving it. Furthermore, I am also working on the app’s code, namely the connection between the ESP32 and the Flutter app, in order for the user to have preferences as well as their emergency contacts saved (for the cellular module when there is no service/phone nearby). So far, it has not been completed, and am in the process of Bluetooth connection from the app to low energy bluetooth. I think we are a bit behind on schedule for this part of the app, but I think I can finish it within this week. The ordering of parts and making sure they will/and work properly was a lot of the focus within the past few weeks for the team, and soon that will be behind us.
This next week I should be able to complete bluetooth connection for the app, as well as some starter code for the false alarm detection.
Team Status Report for 3/23
the most significant risks right now for the project are delivery time on the PCB and whether our current iteration of the PCB and system will function properly. We have spent an extensive amount of time this week on making sure that our parts are compatible and will function as intended. We are making sure 100% because it’s more important for the PCB to be correct than for it to be earlier but not quite correct.
We made some adjustments to the parts such as a new cellular chip with GPS and antenna included (Old one was less integrated, and more difficult to work with the PCB we are ordering), voltage dividers (to have the 11v battery supply all the various modules), and a new microphone (old one was analog, so transcription would not possible). We are also picking a smaller RFID Tag, since covering it up will be difficult with the current one we have (it’s too big).
No major updates to the project schedule. PCB is not quite on time, but will be ordered very soon.
Anika’s Status Report for 3/23
This week I continued working on the schematic and redesigning parts of our PCB. We had a meeting with Tamal on Friday to discuss our current schematic, and Olivia and I met today to make changes accordingly discuss what parts we need to return and now buy based on our conversation with him. I initially had most of the pieces on the schematic as components to solder on, but looking at the pieces and datasheets these pieces were already on a daughter board board, so all we need to include on the actual PCB are header pins that we can mechanically place the boards into. We also upon discussion got a new digital microphone as opposed to the analog one we previously had. In addition I added decoupling capacitors to all the components on the board and modified the schematic to correctly use the voltage regulators. I replaced the voltage regulator I had for the motor from linear to switching as to not waste power. I also added header pins to connect our external 11V battery. We are stepping it down to 5V using another linear regulator and connecting that to the battery pin of our miniESP. We also are planning to return our cell module and antenna and we are ordering a new cellular dev kit instead. this already comes with a built in PCB so we discussing how we want to deal with this. (glue it onto our existing PCB and then connect physical wires from the header pins of our PCB to the cell PCB to power and transmit information? )We need to figure that out. We also are unsure of how to connect the recharge pin of our battery. I hope to have this schematic done by tomorrow so we can send it again for feedback. I have attached the “unfinished” changes below: