EECE 380 – Design Studio III
Technical Memo 6
Project Team: L1—B4
Names and Student Numbers:
Omar Omari
54434105
Michael Long Li
28084101
Qian Fang
55983100
Nat Wongpatimachai
54589106
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Team Organization Meeting – Outcomes
Tuesday 29th October, 2013:
The TA has given us instruction and a short tutorial regarding the Q4000 and the first lab.
All of the groups in our cohort along with the professor met to determine the direction that the
project is going. In this discussion, possible options and ideas for the project are listed, which
will be finalized on the next lab session.
Thursday 31st October, 2013:
Nat, Frances, Omar and Michael installed the QTC, IAR and PuTTY software and went through
the provided sample program for the Q4000 to get started on the first lab. The lab involved
outputting the phrase “Hello, World!!” onto the terminal window of a program called PuTTY.
The professor organized a brainstorm session with all four groups to determine projects that will
utilise the full power of the ORBCOMM satellite. As a result, all groups agreed to work on a
joint-collaborative project. Each group will design a sensor system which will then be integrated
with other groups’ sensor systems to make an advanced security sensor system, which will be
monitored via the ORBCOMM satellite, for a remote cottage in the mountains.
Next, each of the groups began discussing ideas for using sensors for wireless security systems
so that each group could decide what type of sensor should they use for the project. Ideas such as
motion sensors, thermal sensors, humidity sensors and smoke sensors were brought up.
Tuesday 5th November, 2013:
The group further discussed which of the sensors mentioned on Thursday would be suitable for
the project given the time constraints and individual workloads. In the end, the Humidity sensor
was chosen for its flexible applications in that the detection of humidity levels could be used for
determining whether an area, such as a cottage on a hill, is humid enough for a person to need
moisturizing medication.
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Nat and Omar continued to work on the “Hello, World!!” lab by getting the phrase to appear on
the QTC logger terminal, and also started to look at the next lab, which involved sending the
phrase “Hello, World!!” to the group’s email via the ORBCOMM satellite.
France and Michael discussed the hardware parts that were ordered and what other parts were
required.
Thursday 8th November, 2013:
Nat and Omar continued configuring the provided sample code called DemoAppGSM, and were
successful in sending the phrase “Hello, World!!” to the group’s email via the ORBCOMM
satellite. Next, Nat and Omar began to plan how to interface an ADC circuit with the Q4000
software. To do this, they began by verifying the sample code in DemoAppADC to see how the
voltage readings will be obtained.
Monday 11th November, 2013:
Figure 1: Simple ADC circuit to be interfaced with the Q4000 modem
After verifying that the provided code template DemoAppADC worked as expected on the
Q4000, Nat and Omar made some modifications to the code. The modified code will take in the
analog voltage via ANA0 channel outputted from the circuit shown in Figure 1, then converted
using the voltage conversion rate of 0.00855. The value will then be store and send to our group
email via ORBCOMM satellite. Some data have been sent to the email, but some adjustment to
the code is needed to change the datatype of the stored value to make it readable.
We ordered the humidity sensor HCH-1000-001 from Honeywell through digikey. We also laid
out a circuit design waiting for the parts arrive and test the output. According to the data sheet,
the sensor act like a variable capacitor with respect to humidity.
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Figure 2: Humidity vs. Capacitance from datasheet
According to the graph above (Figure 2）, we can calculate the relationship between humidity
and capacitance. With correct capacitance, we can vary the output voltage to the ADC, and by
limiting the correct current, and correct conversion logic done in Q4000, the correct humidity
can be collected.
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