Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
25 Hands-Free Support for the Visually Impaired
Arrian Movahedi
Napat Sutthasinwong
Yash Agrawal
Kexin Hui design_document0.pdf
final_paper0.pdf
presentation0.pptx
proposal0.pdf
According to the World Health Organization, there are roughly 253 million people in the world who are visually impaired, of which 36 million are blind. The most commonly used aid is the walking cane, but it has its limitations.

We propose to make daily life easier for the visually impaired by creating a device that enables them to sense their environment via ultrasonic sensors. In order to make the project appropriate for ECE 445, we think that it should be hands-free, allow 360 degree obstacle detection, and be as non-invasive as possible.

We will use thru-beam ultrasonic sensors mounted on a vest in order to detect nearby objects. Typically such sensors have to be triggered with an on-signal to send out a pulse. We’d set up a state machine through a microcontroller such that it sends the trigger pulses at the right time and duration. Once the pulse bounces back, the microcontroller would then calculate the distance from the object and output a signal that could trigger an audio circuit.

The audio circuit would alert the user of obstacles based on the direction in which they are detected. One solution would be to use comparators for the microcontroller output and see what range of voltage it lies in and output an audio signal with its amplitude inversely proportional to the echo pulse (a shorter echo pulse means that the object is closer). The output of the audio circuit would drive an open-ear headphone to alert the user and remain as non-invasive as possible.

Air temperature and wind speed would be the main sources of detection error. Our criterion for success are that the device should detect objects and people all around the user, and the detection error should not exceed 5 inches.

- Arrian Movahedi (net ID: mm13)
- Napat Sutthasinwong (net ID: sutthas2)
- Yash Agrawal (net ID: yagrawl2)

Link to the original idea post : https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=27344

Recovery-Monitoring Knee Brace

Dong Hyun Lee, Jong Yoon Lee, Dennis Ryu

Featured Project

Problem:

Thanks to modern technology, it is easy to encounter a wide variety of wearable fitness devices such as Fitbit and Apple Watch in the market. Such devices are designed for average consumers who wish to track their lifestyle by counting steps or measuring heartbeats. However, it is rare to find a product for the actual patients who require both the real-time monitoring of a wearable device and the hard protection of a brace.

Personally, one of our teammates ruptured his front knee ACL and received reconstruction surgery a few years ago. After ACL surgery, it is common to wear a knee brace for about two to three months for protection from outside impacts, fast recovery, and restriction of movement. For a patient who is situated in rehabilitation after surgery, knee protection is an imperative recovery stage, but is often overlooked. One cannot deny that such a brace is also cumbersome to put on in the first place.

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Solution:

Our group aims to make a wearable device for people who require a knee brace by adding a health monitoring system onto an existing knee brace. The fundamental purpose is to protect the knee, but by adding a monitoring system we want to provide data and a platform for both doctor and patients so they can easily check the current status/progress of the injury.

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Audience:

1) Average person with leg problems

2) Athletes with leg injuries

3) Elderly people with discomforts

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Equipment:

Temperature sensors : perhaps in the form of electrodes, they will be used to measure the temperature of the swelling of the knee, which will indicate if recovery is going smoothly.

Pressure sensors : they will be calibrated such that a certain threshold of force must be applied by the brace to the leg. A snug fit is required for the brace to fulfill its job.

EMG circuit : we plan on constructing an EMG circuit based on op-amps, resistors, and capacitors. This will be the circuit that is intended for doctors, as it will detect muscle movement.

Development board: our main board will transmit the data from each of the sensors to a mobile interface via. Bluetooth. The user will be notified when the pressure sensors are not tight enough. For our purposes, the battery on the development will suffice, and we will not need additional dry cells.

The data will be transmitted to a mobile system, where it would also remind the user to wear the brace if taken off. To make sure the brace has a secure enough fit, pressure sensors will be calibrated to determine accordingly. We want to emphasize the hardware circuits that will be supplemented onto the leg brace.

We want to emphasize on the hardware circuit portion this brace contains. We have tested the temperature and pressure resistors on a breadboard by soldering them to resistors, and confirmed they work as intended by checking with a multimeter.

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