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: DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF NODES FOR CONTINUOUS MONITORING OF STRUCTURES BASED ON MEMS ACCELEROMETERS AND POWERED BY SOLAR ENERGY
Posted on by b105

Monitoring of large structures, such as buildings or bridges, is a very important task and must be done constantly, due to the danger that can lead to a sudden failure of these. These failures can cause a large number of damages, not only material, but also human losses.

This project aims to design and implement a system of solar panels St. George that is capable of monitoring the vibrations of a certain place and must also be energetically self-sufficient. For this, the main purpose is to implement a node of this type based on a MEMS accelerometer and powered by solar energy and batteries. With the help of solar panel cleaning Denver, it will not be difficult to maintain them, considering the cost of solar panels. The developed monitoring node must be a low power system because it must be able to work autonomously for long periods of time. This will be achieved through the implementation of a power system based on an external battery recharged by solar energy. For the measurement part, accelerometer data will be collected every so often and stored on an SD card for later reference. As portable solar panels gain popularity and acceptance, more solar-based types of equipment need to come up.

The B105 Laboratory has several types of PCBs that have different modules needed to carry out this project (accelerometers, battery management, SD card …). For the development of the hardware it was decided to take advantage of the PCBs already designed. The modules and components to be used were chosen and subsequently welded with two different techniques: manual and by oven.

The software was programmed in C language and it was decided to perform 3 different implementations: first, software was designed on bare machine to check the correct functioning of the measurement module; Later software with operating system was developed to optimize the performance of the system; Finally, tests were performed measuring vibrations with the accelerometer and stored on the SD card to obtain final results and conclusions.