Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
48 Self-cleaning cat litter box
Chi Zhang
Jian Chen
Weiman Yan
 Xihang Wu design_document4.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pdf
proposal2.pdf
PROBLEM

Self-cleaning cat litter box is an existing product. However, it has three downsides. One is that the machine could only deposit waste into a drawer but not remove it from the litter box, thus the smelling is still bad inside the box and the parasite from cat waste may cause infection. Second, the product is too expensive ($500+). The third problem is that this product does not support remote control. Users would not be able to clean the box if they are not physically near the box.


SOLUTION OVERVIEW

Our design is to both gather the cat waste and pack them into a plastic bag. We first detect whether the cat is inside the box. If not, we would close the box door and start cleaning. After the process is finished, the door would be opened again. Also, our design could be controlled remotely by phone or computer so that the user could clean the litter box even when they are not at home.


SOLUTION COMPONENTS

 Subsystem #1: Power Source: This could be AC Power Source since most likely it will be used in house; it is convenient to supply power at a stationary pose.

 Subsystem #2: The Litter Box: The litter box will be a normal boat-shape litter box. We would make some change on the sidewall and both front and back to fit our other subsystems.

 Subsystem #3: Cleaner function: We plan to design a comb shape cart to do the filter job. (size of the comb gap should be able to collect the waste but pass the cat litter). The comb cart is controlled by four motors that can move along the sidewall of the box. The cart has two modes of motion: one is pushing from one side to another to do the filter work; second is push the waste up to pour it into the plastic bag.

 Subsystem #4: Waste Collection: We would make an open pouring area on the back of the box. We plan to use another four motors to control the waste collecting process. Two motors would be used to open the pouring area door and the other two motors would be used to tight the trash bag.

 Subsystem #5: Safe Security: To prevent the situation that cats are inside the box while the machine starts to clean, we plan to place sensors to detect whether cats are nearby. We are thinking about ultrasonic or PIR sensors. PIR might have an accuracy problem, while ultrasonic may annoy cats (since cats can hear up to 64,000HZ). We would do more research on that and find the best solution.

 Subsystem #6: Control System: One of our team members had experience with IOT. We would like to design the whole product controlled by a phone connected through wifi. We plan to program an ESP32 dev board with Arduino IDE and send data to the cloud using ThingSpeak platform.


CRITERION FOR SUCCESS

Our criterion for success would be to have our litter box self-cleaned and all waste packed inside a plastic bag without human effort. The clean system should be able to remove at least 90% of the waste. The plastic bag should be fastened so that the parasite from cat waste (that could cause infection) would not leak outside. With the end product, the user should be able to use a phone or computer to clean the cat litter box remotely at any desired time.

Resonant Cavity Field Profiler

Salaj Ganesh, Max Goin, Furkan Yazici

Resonant Cavity Field Profiler

Featured Project

# Team Members:

- Max Goin (jgoin2)

- Furkan Yazici (fyazici2)

- Salaj Ganesh (salajg2)

# Problem

We are interested in completing the project proposal submitted by Starfire for designing a device to tune Resonant Cavity Particle Accelerators. We are working with Tom Houlahan, the engineer responsible for the project, and have met with him to discuss the project already.

Resonant Cavity Particle Accelerators require fine control and characterization of their electric field to function correctly. This can be accomplished by pulling a metal bead through the cavities displacing empty volume occupied by the field, resulting in measurable changes to its operation. This is typically done manually, which is very time-consuming (can take up to 2 days).

# Solution

We intend on massively speeding up this process by designing an apparatus to automate the process using a microcontroller and stepper motor driver. This device will move the bead through all 4 cavities of the accelerator while simultaneously making measurements to estimate the current field conditions in response to the bead. This will help technicians properly tune the cavities to obtain optimum performance.

# Solution Components

## MCU:

STM32Fxxx (depending on availability)

Supplies drive signals to a stepper motor to step the metal bead through the 4 quadrants of the RF cavity. Controls a front panel to indicate the current state of the system. Communicates to an external computer to allow the user to set operating conditions and to log position and field intensity data for further analysis.

An MCU with a decent onboard ADC and DAC would be preferred to keep design complexity minimum. Otherwise, high MIPS performance isn’t critical.

## Frequency-Lock Circuitry:

Maintains a drive frequency that is equal to the resonant frequency. A series of op-amps will filter and form a control loop from output signals from the RF front end before sampling by the ADCs. 2 Op-Amps will be required for this task with no specific performance requirements.

## AC/DC Conversion & Regulation:

Takes an AC voltage(120V, 60Hz) from the wall and supplies a stable DC voltage to power MCU and motor driver. Ripple output must meet minimum specifications as stated in the selected MCU datasheet.

## Stepper Drive:

IC to control a stepper motor. There are many options available, for example, a Trinamic TMC2100. Any stepper driver with a decent resolution will work just fine. The stepper motor will not experience large loading, so the part choice can be very flexible.

## ADC/DAC:

Samples feedback signals from the RF front end and outputs the digital signal to MCU. This component may also be built into the MCU.

## Front Panel Indicator:

Displays the system's current state, most likely a couple of LEDs indicating progress/completion of tuning.

## USB Interface:

Establishes communication between the MCU and computer. This component may also be built into the MCU.

## Software:

Logs the data gathered by the MCU for future use over the USB connection. The position of the metal ball and phase shift will be recorded for analysis.

## Test Bed:

We will have a small (~ 1 foot) proof of concept accelerator for the purposes of testing. It will be supplied by Starfire with the required hardware for testing. This can be left in the lab for us to use as needed. The final demonstration will be with a full-size accelerator.

# Criterion For Success:

- Demonstrate successful field characterization within the resonant cavities on a full-sized accelerator.

- Data will be logged on a PC for later use.

- Characterization completion will be faster than current methods.

- The device would not need any input from an operator until completion.

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