By Robert Dioso, James Mackaman, Connor Maines, Jordan Tick
Our project automatically and dynamically regulates temperature, light, and carbon dioxide within an aquarium to ensure optimal plant growth along with maintaining fish health.
To do so, it uses a sensor system to measure and track the aquarium’s state and then regulates the system according to specified parameters using various actuators.
Freshwater aquariums with live plants, both with and without fish, are a fun hobby, but often inaccessible due to the technical difficulty required to maintain an environment that promotes the health and growth of plants while maintaining a safe environment in which fish can live. Current methods, for CO2 in particular, require a work-intensive process involving measurements with chemical test strips combined with manual tuning and regular monitoring to maintain ideal values.
Our system lowers the barriers to entry for those interested in owning planted aquariums. Using our system, the user will need less technical knowledge about aquarium upkeep as well as freeing them from this work-intensive process by automating each step according to given parameters.
The Seneye device tracks pH changes in the aquarium, leaks, heater issues, and lighting issues. It lets the user view the data through its client interface, but iti differs from our product in that it only monitors the aquarium rather than automatically reacting to changes within it.
Maoi is a device which moves within the aquarium, keeping the glass clean as well as letting the user view the aquarium through a camera. This device adds an element of automation to aquarium ownership, but it differs in that it does not monitor or regulate the properties in which we are interested.
There are various timer systems which allow aquarium owners to control lighting, heat, and even CO2 on schedule. This differs from our product in that it is an approximation method while our product monitors these values and controls them based on measurements rather than a timer.
Our system will be used to simplify the managing of aquarium light, heat, and CO2 concentration. It is intended to be used not only make the hobby more accessible to those who would otherwise be put off by the difficulty of managing an aquascape, but also to be a valuable automated tool for the excperienced aquarium keeper as well by reducing the tedium involved with aquarium mantinence.
Our system architecture has three components. The core component is the TI CC3200 Network MCU which monitors the aquarium state and regulates tempurature, light, and CO2. The secondary component is the server which pushes system parameters to the MCU and receives sensor data from the MCU using the AWS IoT service. The final component is the web application which pushes desired system setup parameters to the server as well as retrieves historical and new sensor data from the server.
Connor MainesFront-End Software |
Jordan TickBackend Software |
James MackamanHardware |
Robert DiosoFirmware |