EECE 380 Design Studio III

Memorandum #10

March 31, 2014

To: Dr. David Michelson

From: Danny Kim, team leader

This memorandum serves as an update for progress of the EECE 380 Design Studio III team, L2C4, during the week of March 24 – 31, 2014.

Hardware Updates:

For our power management system, we will be using three sets of solar panels in series that are capable of producing 20 V and 200mA. When we tested the solar panels on a sunny day, three panels together were outputting around 180mA and 19V even though they were not set up to be most efficiently.  When we hooked up the solar panels to our power management system circuit, the battery was charging according to our expectations.

With the battery alone, we were able to power the Q4000 on standby mode but we have not yet tested the battery when Q4000 would send a message to the satellite to see the current it draws.

This week we were successfully able to implement both our electrical temperature sensor and our wind turbine, which is our electromechanical sensor. We are still currently working on the implementation of the Arduino code for the accelerometer. We will send these three sensors, as well as the current voltage of the battery into the Q4000 through a multiplexer, since there are only two analog inputs. Voltages from each of these inputs will be read periodically by the microcontroller, and then an average value over approximately 10-15 cycles will be calculated and sent to the server via email. We expect to send updated data at least once per minute, if the microcontroller can handle this traffic. We have yet to test the integration of the sensors with the Q4000.

We were also successfully able to complete the flotation structure for the ocean buoy.

Software Updates:

The Embedded C code is able to interface six analog inputs through a multiplexer. The digital outputs from the Q4000 are used for the selector pins of the mux. We switch between mux pairings at each timer event. The email bodies contain all sensor data in specific JSON format to be parsed by the web server.

The web server now writes to a web page that is viewable on all devices on the same LAN. The URL was set up to be localhost:8888/view/surfingconditions, which can be accessed when the Python server is running. This web page displays the most recent surfing condition data, rather than long term data, since our target audience, surfers, would not need to know the surfing conditions from last week, or even two days ago.

EECE 380 Design Studio III

Memorandum #8

March 23, 2014

To: Dr. David Michelson

From: Jacklyn Dang, team leader

This memorandum serves as an update for progress of the EECE 380 Design Studio III team, L2C4, during the week of March 17 – 23, 2014.

A high level design of the system was determined this week. We planned to follow the third option in our previous memo, “off-shore surf forecasting system.” This system will involve wind, temperature and wave condition sensors that will be sent through an analog multiplexer into the Q4000 microcontroller. The Q4000 will be programmed to periodically switch between each input of the multiplexer to read each sensor’s data, subsequently transmitting the data via email after a given amount of time cycles. The email will then be received by the ECE server where a local web server will parse the data and display it in a web page for surfers to view.

Hardware Updates:

For our power management system, we will be using three sets of solar panels in series that are capable of producing 20 V and 200mA. This will be used to charge a battery that will power our sensors. We will be using two electrical sensors (temperature meter and accelerometer) and one electromechanical sensor (wind turbine). We will send these three sensors, as well as the current voltage of the battery into the Q4000 through a multiplexer, since there are only two analog inputs. Voltages from each of these inputs will be read periodically by the microcontroller, and then an average value over approximately 10-15 cycles will be calculated and sent to the server via email. We expect to send updated data at least once per minute, if the microcontroller can handle this traffic.

Software Updates:

The embedded C code for the Q4000 is currently programmed to receive a single analog voltage, store on the FFS in a *.dat file, and then later read from it. The timer has been set up to periodically transmit an email containing the data along with a time stamp. We successfully forwarded the data in the body of an email from Gmail to our ECE webmail account within the “.orb” folder. After running “myscript.sh”, we were able to retrieve the email body and store it into a text file locally.

Our software design will involve having a Python web server running on the host PC to periodically run the shell script to retrieve data from the body of incoming emails. All data will be transmitted in JSON format for efficient parsing from both ends of our communication process. The Python server will parse the incoming JSON that contains a time-stamp and reading for the appropriate sensors, which will be displayed on a web page, hosted by this server.

EECE 380 Design Studio III

Memorandum #8

March 18, 2014

To: Dr. David Michelson

From: Doug Mosher, team leader

This memorandum serves as an update for progress of the EECE 380 Design Studio III team, L2C4, during the week of March 10 – 17, 2014.

For software, we modified DemoAppsGSM file in order to send a message via satellite to our shared email account. We ended up getting emails but we still need to change the time interval between emails as we were not getting them constantly. Additionally, we we able to print voltage values read from the ADC on the Q4000.

We also discussed some preliminary ideas for the satellite-based oceanography SCADA system. Among our ideas include the following:

Idea #1: Oceanography monitoring system to determine effect of global warming

Argo is a system designed to observe temperature, salinity and currents in the Earth’s oceans. One idea that we discussed was to design somewhat of an extension to the Argo system; that is, a satellite-based oceanographic system that can determine the long-term effects of global warming on oceans by acquiring data on ocean surface temperature, acidity and surface wave velocities. The system will be attached to an ocean buoy. In addition, the system will be sustainable – it will rely on tidal power as a source of energy. Alternatively, we also discussed the possibility of using rechargeable batteries to power the system.

Idea #2: Prohibited motor detection

This system is designed to detect the usage of a motor in areas where motor usage is restricted or prohibited. Using a microphone or a hydrophone, if the sensor is placed in the water, we will be able to detect the presence of a motor. This system would be placed at common entry points and would send a signal whenever a motor is present. This system would be powered by wind power or possibly solar depending on its location.

Idea #3: Off-shore surf forecasting system

Optimal surfing conditions are determined by a number of factors, namely wave speed, ocean swells and water temperature. This ocean buoy system would determine off-shore surfing conditions by measuring temperature, wind speed and wave height. The wind speed at the surface of the ocean mainly determines the wave speed, whereas the wave height is a good indicator of the size of the ocean swell. This system would be powered by batteries that can be charged with wind power.

March 10, 2014

To: Dr. David Michelson

From: Lauren Aliman, team leader

This memorandum serves as an update for progress of the EECE 380 Design Studio III team, L2C4, during the week of March 2 – March 9, 2014. This week was primarily spent on final calibrations and preparation for the project presentation.

On Monday, March 3, we held our weekly meeting to prepare the slides for the project presentation. We carefully reviewed notes from the Spectrum Analyzer briefing lecture to ensure that we met all the general requirements. As well, we discussed important outcomes of the project, including CEAB graduate attributes that we applied whilst working on the spectrum analyzer.

On Thursday, March 11, we had our project presentation during the lab session. Before the demo, we divided up the slides so that each team member has an opportunity to present. During the presentation, we received a few minor criticisms from Prof. Michelson regarding some ambiguities in our slides. Other than that, the presentation went smoothly and the finished spectrum analyzer successfully received and displayed an FM signal in the given frequency and power ranges.

In the next weekly meeting, we will discuss new goals for the next project.