Monthly Archives: March 2014

Project 2 Memo 4

Date: March 30th, 2014
To: Dr David Michelson
From:  Adebayo ADEGBOLA
Jeffrey CHU
Gregory LEE
Mustafa MUSSAYEV
Eric TUNG

Subject : OrbCOMM project update

This memo is an update for the week of March 24 – March 28, 2014.

For this week, we came up with different ideas for sensors and structure. Instead of salinity, we are going to be measuring the water level, water flow, and temperature. We also clarified whether or not a stationary object such as an oil rig was acceptable as opposed to something like a buoy. We chose to do this because these sensors fit more nicely with each other and allow us to tell a much better story. The scenario where these sensors could be applicable make much more sense than our previous sensors. We have managed to build and/or buy the sensors that we need for our project and have tested them to ensure that they work. What we still need to do hardware-wise is to build the actual oil rig itself.

In terms of software, we were having difficulties getting the emails to forward properly to the proper folders with the value of one of the input channels on the modem. However, there is a problem in that it will forward properly for the first couple of emails but fail to forward all the emails after that. We have yet to find out why this problem occurs. What we need to do now is to ensure that all the data that we measure is sent through email successfully, not just a single value. In addition, we need to add a function that can help measure the flow rate of the water.

Project 2 Memo 3

Date: March 23rd ,2014

 

To: Dr David Michelson

 

From:  Adebayo ADEGBOLA

          Jeffrey CHU

          Gregory LEE

          Mustafa MUSSAYEV

           Eric TUNG

Subject : OrbCOMM project update

This memo is an update for the week of March 17 – March 21, 2014.

This week, our team decided on the features that we want to have in our project, such as salinity, viscosity and temperature meters. The hardware parts that are required for building were determined and a team member was appointed for buying components.

In the lab on the wednesday, we set up a timer and changed the IAR program so that is shows a particular message on PUTTY periodically. Also the team tried to show two different messages at the same time, however later we found out that it is not possible.

In the lab on friday, we created a folder to collect all the mail from the satellite with. The mail which was delivered to our gmail account at first was now filtered and redirected by gmail to our ece email. We added some lines in our code so that the mail shows specific subject line, which was “L2D2 testing” for us. In addition, we learned to use the Batch scripting method.

Project 2 memo 2

Date: March 14th ,2014

 

To: Dr David Michelson

 

From: Adebayo ADEGBOLA

        Jeffrey CHU, Team Leader

        Gregory LEE

        Mustafa MUSSAYEV

         Eric TUNG

Subject : OrbCOMM project update

This memo is an update for the week of March 10 – March 14, 2014.

This week, we had a tutorial on reading values and flash file saving in the lab. In the lecture, we reflected on how our first project went. there was no group meeting as we did not know enough to do anything on project yet. During the tutorial, we learned how to adjust the Q4000 to read from different ports by altering the code. We created a voltage divider with resistors found in the lab and fed it into port 0 of the modem, then we altered the original code to read from that port. It was successful and were able to detect changes in the values displayed on the computer. However, we did not look for a way to change the conversion factor.

In the Friday lab, we got the Q4000 to send an email to our group email that contained a message inside. The message said “team l2d2 was the best”. Our Next goal is to come up ideas for our project,and then begin working on it as soon as possible. Since we do not have much time left, we must work quickly and efficiently without much room for error in order to be successful on this project.

EECE 380 Team L2D2 Project 2 Week 1

MEMORANDUM

TEAM L2D2

Adebayo ADEGBOLA

Jeffrey CHU

Gregory LEE

Mustafa MUSSAYEV

Eric TUNG TEAM LEADER

Week 1(March.3 – March.7) – Spectrum Analyzer Demo and Starting Project 2

During this week we had:

  • lecture on Monday on team meeting strategies

  • spectrum analyzer demo on Wednesday and lab tutorial on Friday

 

Wednesday

This week was our demo week and on Monday we still had quite a bit of troubleshooting to complete. Our peak detector suddenly broke down and we rebuilt the same circuit many times but it never worked. Our solution was to try to build a different circuit. Although this plan worked, our output from the peak detector was not as accurate due to larger fluctuation. Even after our calibrations, the dBm is sometimes accurate and sometimes inaccurate. We decided to stick with this because we did not have enough time to make more adjustments. Overall, the demo was very successful and we were very happy with our results.

Friday

We started our new project, the Orbcomm project, during this lab session. Being quite different from the Spectrum Analyzer project, we realized it was something we would definitely have to learn more about and get used to. We spent almost one third of the lab session being taught the basics of the project such as how to use Putty and roughly how we are supposed to complete it. For this lab session, we were given the task of editing a file of C code to send an email to our group email that we created this session as well. While it sounds quite simple, it proved to be more difficult than we had originally thought. We did manage to send one or two emails but could not get an email to send consistently. By the end of the lab session, we had three emails sent to our group email.

 

ECE 380 Design Studio III Memorandum 5

Date: March 2, 2014

 

To: Dr David Michelson

 

From: Jeffrey CHU – Team Leader

Adebayo ADEGBOLA

Gregory LEE

Mustafa MUSSAYEV

Eric TUNG

Subject : Spectrum Analyzer Project Update.

This memorandum is an update for the week of February 24 – march 2, 2014.

Hardware

We faced issues with the common emitter transistor amplifier as the AC input voltage was not amplifying. But after playing with some values, we were able to get it working with 2 NPN 3904 transistors. The peak detector also gave us some issues which we managed to fix Friday by messing around with the peak detector part values. At the end of Friday, we managed to solve most of the hardware issues, put everything together and get it working very well with our software with frequencies between 51 to 54 Mhz. We could not get a bench on Saturday because the lab was full, and people hogged the benches for a very very very long time >: E .  the project on the oher hand, was going well, until Sunday where everything suddenly stopped working for some unknown reason.

Software

The software is working well, as we were able to implement a log amplifier, and a video filter. We also adjusted the frequencies and offset of our ramp generator so that it could detect 50 Mhz.

We are currently troubleshooting our hardware to see what the issue is, and to take the appropriate measures to fix it, and get it working before the date of our demo.