TFM: Development of an electronic system for monitoring people’s parameters
Posted on by b105

Road safety is one of the objectives of the European Union due to the high number of infractions committed every year by drivers and pedestrians, and the large amount of accidents with fatalities registered in Europe year by year. Therefore, any step taken in order to deal with this problem is beneficial for everyone.

Current technology allows increasing the security measures of vehicles, which, together with consciousness-raising of drivers and pedestrians, take us one step closer to the reduction of these figures. Every day more people decide to use biosensors for controlling their vital signs. The transfer and adaptation of the aforementioned systems to the situation in which a driver is, permit to complement both legal actions accomplished and consciousness-raising measures, improving road safety.

The main objective of this Master’s thesis consists of the development of an electronic system that allows drivers to notice the indisposition to drive, permitting to avoid an accident and also an infraction.

After analyzing the parameters that affect driving and are related to the driver, those that can be monitored in a non-intrusive way and without using disposable material were chosen: body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, stress level, and alcohol level.

All of that has been gathered in a single module formed by three PCBs. Both hardware and software have been designed. The proposal has been assembled and the case and the band have been 3D-printed in order to form the final device with a smart bracelet form factor. This module has been designed with the purpose of having small dimensions and low consumption since it is powered by a battery.

Finally, several tests have been carried out to verify the proper functioning of the system. The biggest challenge was found while obtaining blood pressure based on the photoplethysmography signal. Through those tests, the developed software could be adapted according to the results obtained, since offset values that have to be applied and the times that sensors need could be known. This also permitted to discover errors committed during previous stages of the development process.

Therefore, it can be confirmed that the general objectives set have been accomplished.

Technical viability of the proposal could be proved, and this informs of the existence of several application fields that the project could have, as is the case of professional drivers.

TFM: Development and implementation of a wireless network focused on energy management in home automation
Posted on by b105

The objective of this Master Thesis is the design, implementation and validation of a wireless node network that will have as target the energy management in home automation environments. This system will be capable of sending the collected data to a server and will also be able to control certain nodes from others. Furthermore, it will operate autonomously, not needing any user intervention to connect a new node to the network or for sending data to the server.

To achieve that, first, existing solutions have been analyzed and three nodes have been built, having each one of them a different functionality. For their construction, both their hardware electrical design and implementation, and their software implementation have been developed. Their stability has also been tested with several communications and functionality tests.

After the initial tests, several aspects of the nodes where found to be improvable, so the boards were revised and build again, one of each functionality, with the detected errors corrected. Along with theses ones, three additional copies (nine in total) were built with a different communications submodule, substituting the original RF chip and its support components.

For the battery-operated nodes, current consumption was measured, and a battery duration was estimated. Also, all these nodes were put under test as part of one common network, where the coverage of the nodes and system stability were checked, among others.

At the end of this document, some conclusions of the obtained results are discussed, and the original objectives of the thesis were checked to see if they have been accomplished.

This group of nodes will be left installed in the laboratory B105 permanently, allowing the increase in the number of nodes and functionality in future work or as a base for future tests.

Desarrollo e integración de nuevos servicios para sistemas IoT de recolección y gestión de grandes datos
Posted on by frta

At the present time a massive amount of data is being generated by many kinds of devices such as wearables, mobile phones, temperature or humidity sensors and many others. Data could be treated and represented in order to understand and analyse the information the carry within it. The aim of this project is to carry out the software development needed to bring new utilities to the data management and representation platform deployed in the B105 Electronic Systems Lab. Data used by the platform is generated on an IoT environment by different type of sensors. There are many tools developed by third parties in charge of data management and representation, but this project pretends to extend the system developed in the B105 Electronic Systems Lab based on an own web service.

In other to achieve the objectives of this project, some new utilities are going to be developed and the bugs of the previous versions of the platform will be corrected. These include the implementation, among others, of: an authentication mechanism to the platform, a system to export and import data in a simple way or a system to calculate some data statistics. To do so, JavaScript will be used in addition to client-server and server-databases communications.

TFM: Development of a protocol for the wireless communication of monitoring data for real- time representation
Posted on by b105

With the development of the IoT, the number of devices of different nature and size
that are distributed throughout the environment has increased enormously, generating data
continuously. These data can often be processed where we generate them. However
sometimes we can not have enough computing power to do it or we want to access them
remotely to see the correct functioning of a system or for example to store them in a
database.
With this background it makes necessary to develop an electronic system that can be
conected in an easy way to the place where we are generating the information and transport it
to our central node. For our particular case, we aspire to establish a real time stream in order
to represent the data in a graphic, in order to give to the user a proper view of the
performance of his sensor node.
We have developed a WIFI gateway that allows this automation that we have
explained. We have used the Zentri AMW 106, an ultralow consumption WIFI module who fits
perfect in our requirements. We can attach via serial (using UART) to our electronic system to
the module where we generate the data and creating a TCP-IP client send to our server
wirelessly.
We have also made an effort in develop an user friendly application in the server side.

This application has the ability of representing the data we are sending in real time and at the
same time to store in a file having a register. This register can be accessed to consult the
values obtained in a certain time.

PFC: Analysis and Design of a Control and Management System of the Integrity and Load of Trains in the Underground Work based on a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)
Posted on by b105

Building or remodelling large underground areas, such as tunnels, are very complex
projects where there are some very specific needs and dangers.
Historically it has been considered that tunnels were dangerous places and therefore it
was inevitable that fatal accidents took place during construction works. In fact, there
have been many casualties in tunnels under construction. However, nowadays, tunnel
safety is an essential aspect all over the European countries and particularly, in Spain.
Also, it is equally important the construction work management during construction
phase: effective management of resources (workers, raw materials, tools, etc.) within
the tunnel and the machinery involved, with the ultimate goal to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of the construction site. Most of the mentioned resources
are moved by trains, due to their great ability to transport huge amount of materials
using less time/effort.

Many of the measures taken in tunnels, and particularly on trains dedicated to this kind of works, are done manually and with the constant intervention of operators and maintenance personnel which may, in some cases, lead to errors, planning delays and as a result, to increase the final cost of the work. In the case of traffic control and railway equipment inside tunnels, mechanisms for monitoring and management are scarce and usually insufficient for proper operation; these environmental, structural and traffic control mechanisms, become critical during indoors construction work.

Therefore it is necessary the development of a system able to: firstly, immediately detect any problem in the train or in the tunnel infrastructure, react quickly and mitigate effectively the possible consequences; and secondly, able to manage train traffic, detecting at all times the position of each train or other machinery(such as trucks) accurately and safely. The system shall manage and act effectively and quickly with all those measures, parameters, and location coordinates as noted by professionals from a heavy haul trucking company the American Freight Inc.

The first objective of this project was to provide key solutions for wireless seamless connectivity and interoperability in rail tunnel infrastructures by considering everyday physical environments of trains which will significantly contribute to decrease incidents and accidents at work, as well as to the optimization of the works of the rail machinery in terms of time, project costs and operation and maintenance of the equipment and facilities.

As a result of the project, it was implemented a prototype capable of managing freight trains at construction work sites, able to prevent disasters and accidents at building (or refurbishment) stage in large underground areas such as tunnels.

The solution designed and developed is able to reduce the effort and time required for integrating WSN solutions and services into tunnel works, railway safety-related and multipurpose systems, and to reduce maintenance costs of on-board WSN services by providing a single general integration indoor platform for wireless sensors and wireless communication services, with centralized and standard interfaces for existing systems.