Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
24 Directional Driver Hazard Advisory System
Benjamin Moore
Vasil Pendavinji
Yuchen He TA design_document0.pdf
final_paper0.docx
final_paper0.pdf
other0.pdf
presentation0.pptx
proposal0.pdf
btmoore4 - Benjamin Moore

pendavi2 - Vasil Pendavinji

Directional Driver Hazard Advisory System

Problem Statement:

Traffic hazards are often only visible to cars immediately around them, therefore it is important to react not only to cars directly in front of you but also several cars ahead. For example, in the event of an accident, cars unaware of the upcoming hazard can pile up causing an even bigger accident.

Our Project:

Our project aims to detect hazards and directionally communicate with drivers coming up on a hazard in order to keep drivers safe. Our system will propagate information, using IR transmitters and receivers, through several cars in order to keep drivers informed of potential advisories through audio cues. Some hazards, like rapid deceleration or hard swerves could be automatically detected and propagated backwards. In addition to those automatically detected, the passenger will be able to put up advisories for less immediate hazards, such as road obstructions, stopped cars, or accidents.

Our competitors would be CB radio and apps like Waze. Our system differentiates itself in that it will respond to hazards automatically, unlike Waze which is meant to be used by a passenger, and propagate directionally as to prioritize drivers behind the hazard rather than in front of it.

Descriptions of components:

Receiver/transmitter: we would like to use IR as our communication medium in order to limit communication to the car in front of or behind the sender. Each car would have an IR receiver in the front of the car with a transmitter mounted near the rear.

Display: a small (~1-2 inch) display will be mounted to display low priority advisories.

Controller: a low power microcontroller would be used to control the screen, send and receive messages, play audio cues, and interface with the IMU.

User input panel: we will have a strip of roughly 5 buttons, each with a message mapped to it, so that the user can put up less immediate advisories.

IMU: an IMU will be used to detect rapid deceleration in order to trigger automatic messages

Speaker: a speaker will be used to provide sound cues during a hazardous situation

Power: the device will be powered from the car’s 12v source, brought down to 5v or 3v (depending on our choice of microcontroller) using a linear voltage regulator.

Test of Functionality:

Sending and Receiving Messages at least 100ft.

Detect rapid deceleration of equal or more than 15 feet/second2*.

* (Ideal deceleration for car/truck under ideal conditions - http://nacto.org/docs/usdg/vehicle_stopping_distance_and_time_upenn.pdf)

Master Bus Processor

Clay Kaiser, Philip Macias, Richard Mannion

Master Bus Processor

Featured Project

General Description

We will design a Master Bus Processor (MBP) for music production in home studios. The MBP will use a hybrid analog/digital approach to provide both the desirable non-linearities of analog processing and the flexibility of digital control. Our design will be less costly than other audio bus processors so that it is more accessible to our target market of home studio owners. The MBP will be unique in its low cost as well as in its incorporation of a digital hardware control system. This allows for more flexibility and more intuitive controls when compared to other products on the market.

Design Proposal

Our design would contain a core functionality with scalability in added functionality. It would be designed to fit in a 2U rack mount enclosure with distinct boards for digital and analog circuits to allow for easier unit testings and account for digital/analog interference.

The audio processing signal chain would be composed of analog processing 'blocks’--like steps in the signal chain.

The basic analog blocks we would integrate are:

Compressor/limiter modes

EQ with shelf/bell modes

Saturation with symmetrical/asymmetrical modes

Each block’s multiple modes would be controlled by a digital circuit to allow for intuitive mode selection.

The digital circuit will be responsible for:

Mode selection

Analog block sequence

DSP feedback and monitoring of each analog block (REACH GOAL)

The digital circuit will entail a series of buttons to allow the user to easily select which analog block to control and another button to allow the user to scroll between different modes and presets. Another button will allow the user to control sequence of the analog blocks. An LCD display will be used to give the user feedback of the current state of the system when scrolling and selecting particular modes.

Reach Goals

added DSP functionality such as monitoring of the analog functions

Replace Arduino boards for DSP with custom digital control boards using ATmega328 microcontrollers (same as arduino board)

Rack mounted enclosure/marketable design

System Verification

We will qualify the success of the project by how closely its processing performance matches the design intent. Since audio 'quality’ can be highly subjective, we will rely on objective metrics such as Gain Reduction (GR [dB]), Total Harmonic Distortion (THD [%]), and Noise [V] to qualify the analog processing blocks. The digital controls will be qualified by their ability to actuate the correct analog blocks consistently without causing disruptions to the signal chain or interference. Additionally, the hardware user interface will be qualified by ease of use and intuitiveness.

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