Project Proposal

Description

The proposal outlines your project's motivation, design, requirements, ethics, and safety. The project proposal is an expansion on the information provided in the RFA. Use the following format:

  1. Introduction

    • Problem: One to two paragraphs detailing the problem statement. Include any relevant references to justify the existence or importance of the problem.
    • Solution: One to two paragraphs describing the solution. Give a high-level idea of what your solution is, then delve into detail as to how it is implemented. You do not have to commit to a particular implementation at this point, but your description should be explicit and concrete.
    • Visual Aid: A pictorial representation of your project that puts your solution in context. Include other external systems relevant to your project (e.g. if your solution connects to a phone via Bluetooth, draw a dotted line between your device and the phone). Note that this is not a block diagram and should explain how the solution is used, not a breakdown of inner components.

      Sample visual aid for project which remaps GameCube buttons on the fly.

    • High-level requirements list: A list of three quantitative characteristics that this project must exhibit in order to solve the problem. Each high-level requirement must be stated in complete sentences and displayed as a bulleted list. Avoid mentioning "cost" as a high level requirement.
  2. Design
    • Block Diagram: Break your design down into blocks and assign these blocks into subsystems. Label voltages and data connections. Your microcontroller can live in multiple subsystems if you wish, as in the example below.

      Sample block diagram for electric longboard + remote

    • Subsystem Overview: A brief description of the function of each subsystem in the block diagram and explain how it connects with the other subsystems. Every subsystem in the block diagram should have its own paragraph.
    • Subsystem Requirements: For each subsystem in your block diagram, you should include a highly detailed block description. Each description must include a statement indicating how the block contributes to the overall design dictated by the high-level requirements. Any interfaces with other blocks must be defined clearly and quantitatively. Include a list of requirements where if any of these requirements were removed, the subsystem would fail to function. Good example: Power Subsystem must be able to supply at least 500mA to the rest of the system continuously at 5V +/- 0.1V.
    • Tolerance Analysis: Identify an aspect of your design that poses a risk to successful completion of the project. Demonstrate the feasibility of this component through mathematical analysis or simulation.
  3. Ethics and Safety
    Assess the ethical and safety issues relevant to your project. Consider both issues arising during the development of your project and those which could arise from the accidental or intentional misuse of your project. Specific ethical issues should be discussed in the context of the IEEE and/or ACM Code of Ethics. Cite, but do not copy the Codes. Explain how you will avoid ethical breaches. Cite and discuss relevant safety and regulatory standards as they apply to your project. Review state and federal regulations, industry standards, and campus policy. Identify potential safety concerns in your project.

Formatting Guidelines

The formatting and writing style should be the same as that of the final report. Please see the Final Report Guidelines for details, or check out the Lecture slides on the topic. We recommend using a LaTeX template. You can find that on the Final Report page or here.

Submission and Deadlines

The Project Proposal document should be uploaded to My Project on PACE in PDF format before the deadline listed on the Calendar.

There are two deadlines on the Calendar. If you submit before the Early Deadline, your team will get 3 additional points of credit to be applied to your Proposal. This means that if your proposal would normally score an 18/25, you will instead receive a 21/25. It is highly recommended to complete your proposal by the early deadline for maximum points!

Wireless Charging Table Supporting Multiple Devices with Arbitrary Placement

Kaiwen Cao, Tianyi Han, Tingkai Liu, Zikai Liu

Featured Project

# Wireless Charging Table Supporting Multiple Devices with Arbitrary Placement

# Problem

While more and more device manufacturers adopt wireless charging into their smartphones and headphones, most currently available wireless charging pads only support a single device and require strict alignment between the device and the coil. Misalignment can negatively influence both user experience and charging efficiency. In certain scenarios such as cafeterias, a table that can simultaneously charge multiple devices with arbitrary placement can be useful and COOL, allowing the users to sit wherever they like and to arbitrarily place their devices.

# Solution Overview

We intend to design and manufacture a table with multiple mobile coils placed in an intermediate layer below. Driven by step motors, a tool grabber attaches the coils using electromagnets and drop them in the right place. Computer vision will be used to recognize devices (phones, AirPods, etc.) and guide the chargers to corresponding locations. Once the coil is in place, it will first communicate with the device (Qi protocol) to verify whether the device can be charged wirelessly. If yes, the charging process will start. Otherwise, the coil will be moved back to its original location. The scheduling algorithm ensures the wires get separated and neat.

# Solution Components

* Mechanical subsystem. The main moving component of the system is a large-scale X-Y moving mechanism under the table. The coils will be placed between two panels above the moving mechanism and will be caught and dropped to the right place by the moving tool head. The tool head will be developed with electromagnets or magnets with Z-axis moving capability.

![sketch](https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece445zjui/pace/getfile/18618)

* Vision detection subsystem. This includes a camera and a processing unit. It detects the locations of phones and other chargeable devices and send their positions to the control unit. In real-world settings, pre-installed surveillance cameras may be used as the video source so that no additional camera is required. Embedded GPU (NVIDIA Jetson Nano as a candidate) or cloud service can be used for image processing.

* Power supply control. It is used to control wireless chargers and supply power to devices if and only if the handshake between charger and device is successful. Status will be reported to the central control unit.

* Central control unit and embedded software. According to the output given by the vision detection system or the feedback from the power supply system, the central control unit should move the chargers with proper scheduling algorithm to pair chargers with devices and keep wires of coil separated and neat.

# Criterion for Success

* The vision detection system can localize chargeable device at an accuracy of over 80% and response within 2s.

* The power system can supply powers when a chargeable device is present, and not supply power when the misdetection happens. Correct feedback can be sent to the central control system.

* The mechanical system moves correctly according to the commands given by the central control system.

* The central control system can send correct commands to the mechanical system given the position information from the vision system and the feedback from the power supply system. It should be able to keep wires of charging coil separated.

# Evaluations on Alternative Solutions

The technology of wireless charging emerged some time ago, but its inclusion in commercial devices doesn’t take off until recent years. Intuitively, wireless charging doesn’t bring much additional convenience compared to the wired charging, but its adoption by major manufacturers has proven its value. Similarly, in certain settings such as the cafeteria, charging without alignment may significantly increase user experience, comparing to having only a few fixed charging locations.

An alternative solution to enable table-scale wireless charging is to deploy multiple coils covering the whole table. But it doesn’t solve the alignment problem unless the coils are heavily overlapped, which has been proven to be difficult by already canceled Apple AirPower.