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Kushaan’s status report for 3/8

 

This week I worked on fine tuning the model. I found a dataset that had fire from various point of views and perspectives. My main concerns during this process were: generalization of the perspective (can the model find our use case), quantity of sata (can this actually fine tune), and generalization to picam quality.

 

I fine tuned 11n, 11s, 11m. 11n was the smallest and took half an hour to fine tune 50 epochs. The results were promising. I also took some test images of fire in pans (our use case) on my phone and it generated a clean bounding box. 11s and 11m gave pretty bad results in comparison. Much noisier bounding boxes and under detection. We decided to use 11n going forward.

 

Once the picam arrived I did some testing using that image quality. However, it performed really well and detected 95% of our testing images. I wrote a script that took images every 2 seconds and then inferred on them.

 

One limitation of the current model is it’s night time performance. For the sake of MVP, this is not a pressing concern but is something I want to focus on after MVP. This will likely involve me making custom data.

 

I also helped out on the circuit testing. On that front, we found how to get a clear wave to drive the speaker with. We saw promising results on candle testing but need the collimater to get better results.

 

Next week I plan to work on the controls loop and interfacing since we didn’t have all the necessary hardware before break. Then I will integrate this with the vision code for a rudimentary loop.

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Team Status Report for March 8th

This week we aimed to reach our MVP requirements. With this, we were able to get the speaker and amplifier components working together. The robot chassis was built, and the imaging model was able to detect different fires that we set up well. The most significant risk that could jeopardize the success is the what if case on not being able to extinguish a fire. More specifically, even with the speaker built, it was not able to extinguish the fire. However, we are currently still working towards the idea that using a collimator will be able to put it out. On the other hand, increasing the power would also be able to be tested.

There are changes to the existing design of the system that could or may not remain the same. That would be the existing RC filter that was initially implemented. We thought that this would help with getting rid of any noise and distortion, however, with testing this week, the amplifier itself was able to fine tune the signal so there was no need for the filter. Although, if needed in the future, it is still in consideration. Cost-wise, this doesn’t change in particular as all parts were able to be found in TechSpark and such.

Part A:

This product will meet the consideration of global factors as fires exist globally. No matter the country or continent, fires, especially at home and not wild, are found commonly. This product will be able to help individuals who live in an home environment extinguish fires with ease. Furthermore, it helps for those of all ages. Whether old or young, in different stages of life, tech or not technologically savvy, this device is easy to use and requires little to none involvement on the user’s end. Governments and international organizations all emphasize the importance of fire safety regulations, which is why this further fits with in consideration of global factors.

Part B:

This product does not apply with consideration of cultural factors. It does not apply as it has no part in beliefs, values, traditions, language, etc. Since it is a technical product for a technical use, it does not take part in any cultural factors. The purpose is for safety which is designed for a universal functionality which is why it considers global factors. It relies on scientific principles of fire extinguishing which makes it universal and independent of cultural factors.

Part C:

This product applies with consideration of environmental factors as one of the main reasons as to why we are using acoustic waves, is to eliminate harmful environmental consequences that traditional extinguishing methods dispose of. For example, the powder extinguishing method continues many different types of chemicals that have proven to be harmful to bodies of water, the ecosystem that takes part in the cycle of water, and the soil and ground around as well. It is hard to throw out the extinguisher as it is then considered hazardous waste, and furthermore, it would then have to be rebought to fight more fires. Our product is reusable and does not contain any harmful chemicals and does not damage any parts of the environment that it is used in.

Part A was written by Cole MacSwain. Part B was written by Kushaan Misra. Part C was written by Stephanie Mao.

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Steph’s Status Report for March 8th

This week, I helped our group try to reach our MVP requirements.

One thing was trying to pick out components for the RC filter which was initially going to be 1.2KOhm resistor and a 2.2microF since this would yield a cutoff frequency of 60.29. However, with further testing, the amplifier fine tuned the signal enough without noise and distortion which allows no need for the filter. I further investigated this and documented the total harmonic distortion graphs that I found in the amplifier chip’s data sheet in the design report. However, it may still be in consideration to be used in the future as testing continues.

Since I was not in Pittsburgh when the robot chassis came in, I was unable to work and help on it. However, I continued to help by documenting the project in the design report, putting in the use case and design requirements, implementation, and such.

This week, I plan to construct the collimator and attach to the working speaker and amplifier apparatus to see if this will put out the fire as intended. I also plan to help on test the robot and integrating the speaker apparatus with the chassis.

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Cole’s Status Report for Mar 8th.

This week I helped as our group completed a large portion of the requirements of our MVP.

I helped to successfully write code for our ESP32 microcontroller DAC to generate the 60Hz sine wave. This was not only verified on input to the Amplifier using the oscilloscope and it was verified on the output of the Amplifier to ensure that the 60Hz wave was unmodulated.

I also helped to attach and the speaker to the Amplifier and verify that we could produce a sound. The speaker was not able to put out a fire but this was to be expected as we need a column to focus the sound waves in order to extinguish a fire.

I also helped to assemble the robot chassis that finally came in. While the it has not been tested it certainly will be this coming week.

I also helped to write the Design Report we had due friday helping to organize figures and write our testing plans for various parts of our project.

This week I plan to test the robot to make sure we can accurately drive it in the directions we need. The goal by the end of the week is to make the chassis able to integrate with the Raspberry Pi.