TidalSim Senior Project Report

Throughout the course of this project, our team helped the Cal Poly Biological Sciences department refine an intertidal zone simulator. The aim of this device is to allow any marine biologist to easily simulate a vast range of tidal zones in order to test animal behaviors within these zones. Another goal of this project is to make each simulation tank independent from the others by using a single microcontroller to handle all inputs and outputs of the system as well as logging all relevant data. The current system is set up so that a separate microcontroller handles dissolved oxygen and food dosing for all four tanks. One program controller per tank will make experiment setup more straightforward and thus was main goal of the project. Another goal was to make experiment setup data (tide transitions, temps, DO etc) input all in one file in Excel. The current system has some experiment data input through Excel and some that needs to be compiled in the code. This forces the scientists that use the simulator to be familiar with the development software and also introduces the risk of bugs being created accidentally. Our process to reach these goals and objectives has been documented in order to replicate the system in the future

Development of Monitoring System Based on Internet of Things (IoT) for Freshwater Prawn Farming

Aqua-farming or water farming is an aquatic counterpart to agriculture or ground farming. It is one of methods to make out foods or commercial product. With the current incompetent aqua-farming activities such as labour energy consumption to monitor the water quality and to change the water in the tank in schedule so that this project is important to tackle down the problems stated. This project aimed to reduce the incompetency of water quality monitoring process and the water changing process by developing a vertical freshwater prawn tank to reduce space with an automated water changing and IoT based monitoring system. The autonomous system implemented with solenoid valve and waterpump will recycle the water from the prawn tanks with the clean water from the reservoir tank. The monitoring system employs ultrasonic sensor and waterproof temperature sensor that will monitor the water level in the prawn tanks and the temperature of the water respectively that will be visualized in the Thingspeak Channel regularly. This project will be implemented as a prototype with an IoT technology for the freshwater prawn farming activity using low-cost embedded devices like Arduino Mega2560, ESP8266 Wi-Fi module and the RTC module. The value from the sensors’ reading will be visualized in the Thingspeak Channel displa

Level and Temperature Controlled Vessel

Using two Arduino microcontrollers, level and temperature Proportional-Integral control systems for a continuously stirred tank reactor were designed and configured. Open-loop step tests were performed and fitted with First Order Plus Time Delay responses so that controller tuning parameters could be analytically derived. The effectiveness of the designed systems was evaluated by monitoring the response of closed-loop setpoint changes

Solar powered water purification system

Santa Clara University\u27s 2011-2012 Solar-Powered Water Purification System team is developing a solution to create a water distillation system, heated by solar troughs and solely powered by photovoltaic (PV) panels that can produce clean, drinkable water. This device would balance cost and efficiency to be marketable to lower-income locations, such as developing countries that suffer from shortages of clean water. In accomplishing this, the team will ensure that the system is sustainable and requires minimal maintenance

Harbor Security System

Harbors and ports provide the infrastructure for commercial trade and naval facilities. It is vital to ensure the safety of these locations. The Harbor Security System provides an optical ‘gate’ using underwater lasers and photodetectors. This system allows monitoring of both surface and submarine vessels traveling into and out of the harbor. Also, the system provides real time alerts when unauthorized vessels enter the harbor. This project provides a proof of concept for a Harbor Security System to be implemented in Portsmouth Harbor. A scaled model of the detection system was constructed and tested. This detection system is capable of detecting surface and submarine vessels along with their velocity and length. Results of the study showed that the average error of the size estimate was 15% and the average error of the velocity estimation ratio(slope) was 9%

USV charging based on WPT system

With the increasing demand of water and underwater exploration, more and more electric unmanned surface vehicles (USV) are put into use in recent years. However, because of the present battery technology limits, these devices require to be recharged frequently that is a challenging problem taking into account the complex water environment where these equipments are acting. To improve safety and convenience of USV charging a wireless power transfer (WPT) system is proposed in this dissertation. In this case, the boat can be controlled to go to the charging facilities. During charging by the implemented WPT system, the state of charging can be remotely monitored by host computer. The moving control is based on embedded system. The relative position between transmitting coil and receiving coil is supposed to be sensed by magnetic sensor, since the relative position has great impact on transmission efficiency. The remote monitoring software was implemented in the host computer and was developed in LABVIEW. A graphical user interface was developed to control the boat moving and collect the data from the WPT and the boat sensors. The effectiveness of the proposed system was tested for instance in the laboratory environment and in-field tests are also planned in the near future.Com a crescente procura da exploração em ambientes aquáticos e subaquáticos , os veículos elétricos de superfície não tripulados ("electric unmanned surface vehicle" -USV) têm sido cada vez mais utilizados nestes últimos anos. No entanto, devido aos limites atuais relacionados com a tecnologia utilizada nas baterias, os dispositivos precisam de ser recarregados com frequência para poderem operar num ambiente aquático complexo. Para melhorar a segurança e a conveniência do carregamento da bateria de um USV, um sistema para recarregamento da bateria de um barco não tripulado através de transferência de energia sem fios("wireless power transfer" - WPT) é proposto nesta dissertação. Neste caso de estudo, o barco tem a capacidade de ser controlado para chegar a um ponto de recarregamento da bateria, que se encontra fixado por uma doca mecânica. Enquanto o sistema WPT érecarregado, os dados associados ao processo de recarregamento da bateria podem ser monitorizados por um computador host. O controlo da movimentação do barco é baseado num sistema embebido. A posição relativa entre a bobina transmissora e a bobina receptora deve ser detectada pelo sensor magnético, uma vez que a posição relativa tem um grande impacto na eficiência da transmissão. Em termos do computador host, foi utilizado o software LABVIEW para programar a interface que permite controlar o movimento do barco e recolher os dados. Finalmente, a eficácia do sistema proposto foi experimentada e testada num ambiente de laboratório

E-Water Level: Educational Kit For Testing Student Knowledge On Transient Response Using Water Level Control

Control Principle course is a part of syllabus in the diploma or degree in Electrical Engineering programme where students are exposed to topics such as time response analysis. One of the topics in this course is Transient Response analysis where it requires students to calculate the characteristic of the response based on set of formula. One of the difficulty encounters in delivering this topic is students having difficulty to relate the theory with the application as most theoretical part of this topic does not explain on how the transient response graph is obtained in the first place. In order to address this problem, this paper proposed E-Water Level educational kit that can be used by student in order to understand independently the transient response analysis by applying theory on the water level control application where the student knowledge on Transient Response parameters are tested, namely the delay time, rise time, damping ratio and setting time. The system consists of Arduino Microcontroller, water tank, water pump, relay, ultrasonic sensor and electronic display. The novelty of this educational kit is that the educational kit is adaptive in bridging the gap between theory and application in which the data is generated by real application of water level and the answers for the questions are automatically generated based on the data obtained. Thus, each student will experience different set of question

All-terrain mobile robot desinfectant sprayer to decrease the spread of COVID-19 in open area

The application of disinfection is becoming popular in recent months due to the COVID-19. Usually, the disinfection is used by spraying the liquid into an object. However, the disinfection process for humans and objects in the human environment is still done manually and takes time and increases exposure to viruses. Robotic technology can be a solution to handle that problem. Following that problem, robot design is proposed with many abilities and features. The robot can operate in remote conditions and full function for approximately 56 minutes and spray the liquid for more than 1 meter. This research can effectively be applied in COVID-19 handlings

Laminar Flow Hood System Design

In 2011 health care costs for transplants were over 12 billion dollars in the United States for evaluation, procurement, facilities use, physicians, and post-transplant check-ups. In 2012 burns hospitalized 40,000 people and over 17,000 people received organ transplants. Sadly, the number of organ donors greatly lags the number of people on the transplant waiting list and the gap has widened over the decades. While preventative health care is extremely important, researching tissue engineering (TE) to treat patients in fatal condition provides alternatives for replacing or repairing a variety of damaged tissue. These alternative treatments can considerably reduce the supply-demand gap for transplant organs and hopefully reduce the cost of such procedures in the future. Breakthroughs in TE such as tracheal transplants, porcine heart valves, dermal tissue, and others show substantial potential in the medical field. However, technology for this relatively new field of research limits its progress. For example, growing tissues require a specific environment for stability and optimum growth. In this project a laminar flow hood is built which sustains an ideal tissue environment and can assist TE research and development. This paper outlines the control system for a laminar flow hood, also referred to as a tissue engineering hood, in which scientists could engineer and investigate tissues. The laminar flow hood keeps tissues alive by regulating CO2 concentration, temperature, airflow, and humidity to provide the optimum environment for tissues to thrive

Adaptive Control of IoT/M2M Devices in Smart Buildings using Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

With the rapid development of wireless communication technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) are becoming essential for many applications. One of the most emblematic IoT/M2M applications is smart buildings. The current Building Automation Systems (BAS) are limited by many factors, including the lack of integration of IoT and M2M technologies, unfriendly user interfacing, and the lack of a convergent solution. Therefore, this paper proposes a better approach of using heterogeneous wireless networks consisting of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and Mobile Cellular Networks (MCNs) for IoT/M2M smart building systems. One of the most significant outcomes of this research is to provide accurate readings to the server, and very low latency, through which users can easily control and monitor remotely the proposed system that consists of several innovative services, namely smart parking, garden irrigation automation, intrusion alarm, smart door, fire and gas detection, smart lighting, smart medication reminder, and indoor air quality monitoring. All these services are designed and implemented to control and monitor from afar the building via our free mobile application named Raniso which is a local server that allows remote control of the building. This IoT/M2M smart building system is customizable to meet the needs of users, improving safety and quality of life while reducing energy consumption. Additionally, it helps prevent the loss of resources and human lives by detecting and managing risks.Comment: Accepted in IEEE Sensors Journa