Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
70 DIY Plantify
Hongshang Fan
Joshmita Chintala
Maya Kurup
Raman Singh design_document1.pdf
design_document2.pdf
final_paper2.pdf
photo1.jpg
proposal1.pdf
video1.mp4
DIY Plantify

Team Members:
- Maya Kurup (mayaek2)
- Joshmita Chintala (jchint2)
- Hongshang Fan (hf7)

# **Problem**

At the root of every plant, it needs 5 different components for it to grow, survive, and thrive: light, air, water, nutrients, and space to grow. In people’s day-to-day lives, there aren’t many systems put in place to help those individuals understand how much sunlight a plant needs, when the plant needs it, and how much of it they need. As well, there aren’t many systems in place to understand how much water a plant needs, when it needs to be watered, and if you are adding enough. So, a solution to resolve these issues can be very beneficial in people’s day-to-day lives when growing plants (simple leaf plants, trees, fruits, or even vegetables) on a smaller scale, but can also be extended to a professional/advanced level that farmers and larger industries can use.

# **Solution**

A solution for this issue is to create a system in which a light and/or heating sensor is connected to a pot, and this can detect how much sunlight that plant is retaining. Once that sensor sees that the sunlight exposure is too low/high based on what the plant needs, it will alert the system. And in this system, we also want to implement a system with motors/moving robots beneath this pot, that can move this pot in a different location around a certain room (with a chassis - similar to a Rumba-vacuum moving system). With the combination of this heating/light sensor and a moving chassis, we can feasibly make a product that can be applied and used in people’s day-to-day life. As well, we can hopefully get a full implementation done by the end of this semester, as we can use our past experiences with motors and sensors, and the use of ECE technical elective class applications.

Based on the timeline of our project, we can foresee that maybe we will have time to make further implementations of this product. An example of an additional component would be a self-watering pot. This pot would use multiple sensors (depending on the route of how we would want to do it - weight measuring sensor, moisture control sensor, etc) to detect how much moisture is in the pot, or by using timing sensors to alert when the plant needs to be watered (depending on each plant’s needs). This would create a self-automated irrigation system for small plants and can further be extended to larger systems, which would help everyone at a local level and professional/worldwide level.


# **Solution Components**

## Subsystem 1 Light/Heat Sensor

The light (and/or heat) sensors are present on the pot and it will detect the amount of sunlight that it receives. We will have a certain level of light that it must maintain, and if it goes below that level, the light sensor will alert the system and then the robot wheels will be activated to move the pot. This is the next subsystem.

## Subsystem 2 Plant-carrying robot/chassis

The robot motor will be controlled by the microprocessor and the processor will give commands according to the data from light and heat sensors. The commands will include moving the plant to another location with comparatively more light and heat sensors.

_Parts Needed_: Photoresistor and Raspberry Pi
- Photoresistors: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7V536K/
- Raspberry Pi: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TC2BK1X/?th=1
- Capacitors: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MSQOX0Q/
- Chassis: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3244?gclid=Cj0KCQiA2-2eBhClARIsAGLQ2Rli0ig6Wgl3Ri489C1lW6eO7W3zSEXhPjSYvQRZ5P2SJ4LlMirFtNQaAlhJEALw_wcB

# **Criterion For Success**
## Main Goals:
1. Ensuring that light vs. dark is being detected by the light sensor
- To test that, we need a circuit setup with a photoresistor, capacitor, and the Raspberry Pi.
- When the light is present, the resistance is lower. When light is not present, the resistance is higher.
- When resistance is lower, the capacitor will charge faster. And when resistance is higher, it takes longer for the capacitor to charge.
- We need the Raspberry Pi to read the voltage values and to see how long it takes to charge the capacitor.
- Based on these values, we can detect whether light is present or not present
2. Next, we need to test that the outputs of light being detected vs. not detected are being recognized by the microprocessor.
3. Once that is done, and we have a way of informing the microprocessor of light vs. dark, it should send instructions to move the chassis if necessary
4. It needs to keep moving until it finds a place with more light
5. And then once again, we would have to make sure that light is being detected by the light sensor.
6. To test our entire project, we could have for example 4 locations in a room, and then change/dim the lighting at each of the spots consecutively and see the robot move from location to location.

## Criterion to consider throughout the project:

1. Light sensor:
- Where the plant should be located
- How much sunlight the plant needs
- When the sensor needs to be used (turned on/off) based on the time of day, or if it can be automated
- Where the sensor should be located for best results

2. Chassis/Moving motor system:
- Determine when the motor needs to be used
- Determine how fast it should move the pot
- Test and make sure it has a motion sensor so that it’s not running into walls (set a range of x, y, z directions to make a maximum and minimum distance of how far it should/can move in a certain room/location)

3. Water/Moisture Sensor/System:
- Test how much moisture is in the pot: Use a weighing sensor (implemented ourselves), or a moisture sensor (easily find/buy online)

Low Cost Distributed Battery Management System

Logan Rosenmayer, Daksh Saraf

Low Cost Distributed Battery Management System

Featured Project

Web Board Link: https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=27207

Block Diagram: https://imgur.com/GIzjG8R

Members: Logan Rosenmayer (Rosenma2), Anthony Chemaly(chemaly2)

The goal of this project is to design a low cost BMS (Battery Management System) system that is flexible and modular. The BMS must ensure safe operation of lithium ion batteries by protecting the batteries from: Over temperature, overcharge, overdischarge, and overcurrent all at the cell level. Additionally, the should provide cell balancing to maintain overall pack capacity. Last a BMS should be track SOC(state of charge) and SOH (state of health) of the overall pack.

To meet these goals, we plan to integrate a MCU into each module that will handle measurements and report to the module below it. This allows for reconfiguration of battery’s, module replacements. Currently major companies that offer stackable BMSs don’t offer single cell modularity, require software adjustments and require sense wires to be ran back to the centralized IC. Our proposed solution will be able to remain in the same price range as other centralized solutions by utilizing mass produced general purpose microcontrollers and opto-isolators. This project carries a mix of hardware and software challenges. The software side will consist of communication protocol design, interrupt/sleep cycles, and power management. Hardware will consist of communication level shifting, MCU selection, battery voltage and current monitoring circuits, DC/DC converter all with low power draws and cost. (uAs and ~$2.50 without mounting)