Preliminary Design Report 02/01/12. Project: Intelli-Shade. Team: Test Curtains Please Ignore

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1 EEL 4924 Electrical Engineering Design (Senior Design) Preliminary Design Report 02/01/12 Project: Team: Test Curtains Please Ignore Team Members: Abstract: Our project is the design of an intelligent motorized curtain system with a user-programmable remote control. The curtain system will be battery powered with an integrated solar cell recharging feature. The curtain will have several different modes of operation including lightsensing, motion-detection, temperature control, and timers. The light-sensing and motiondetection will be performed by the curtain itself, whereas the temperature control and timers will be controlled by the RF remote. Additionally, the user will be able to manually assign a position to the curtain, whether it be full open (or up), 25% down, 50% down, 75% down, and full down, by pressing a button on the remote control. This will be treated as a manual override of other automatic modes (other than timers). Each curtain will have its own microcontroller and RF receiver and the remote control will have an RF transmitter, microprocessor, and LCD screen.

2 Page 2/7 Table of Contents Abstract 1 Introduction 3 Technical Objectives 4 Division of Labor 6 List of Tables and Figures Figure 1: Block Diagram 5 Table 1: Division of Labor chart 6 Figure 2: Gantt chart 7

3 Page 3/7 Introduction: People purchase curtains for their homes and offices for a multitude of reasons, be it for aesthetics or for practical purposes such as blocking sunlight or regulating the temperature of a room. Many privileged business and individuals prefer the convenience of motorized curtains for their sophistication, elegance, and overall Wow factor. Several companies design and build these motorized shades, most notably Hunter Douglas, Somfy, and recently Qmotion. These companies shades often have optional automation features to further impress current clients and to attract new ones. What makes our shade unique is our combination of intelligent modes of operation and our ecofriendly solar-recharging batteries. No current company offers all of these features in a single curtain system. In addition, we would like to make our curtains as affordable as the competition while still offering this wide range of features, which include light-sensing, motion-detection, temperature control, and user-programmed timers.

4 Page 4/7 Technical Objectives: Our primary objective is to design and build the single most intelligent motorized curtain system on the market today. Our first problem is getting a functional RF transmitter and receiver network running. We plan to use Xbee RF transceivers to accomplish this. Next, we would implement a motorized system using our microcontroller (we intend to use Atmel microcontrollers) and a motor driver in conjunction with 6V Polyvolt DC motors (Note: motor may be subject to change). We then would need to integrate light sensors and motion detectors into the shade. After the final electrical and mechanical parts of the shade are assembled, we would integrate a solar panel to recharge the batteries while the motor is not running. With such a system in place, the battery life would be limited only by the number of times the batteries can be recharged (also called the cycle life ), as well as various operating conditions. Our goal is to virtually eliminate the need to change batteries during the life of the curtain. The remote control would be programmed to tell the curtain(s) which mode of operation to be in, as well as give the user the ability to move the curtains up or down in a manual override instruction. The user would also be able to set a timer for the curtain to move to a certain position at a certain time of day. Finally, if the user would like the curtains to help maintain the temperature in the room (such as to save on heating/cooling costs, for example), a temperature sensor would periodically determine if the shade should be moved up or down depending on whether the room needs to be warmer or cooler. We would like the remote to operate at a low enough power level to allow for at least one year of battery life. If we find that this is neither possible nor practical, we will implement a wall outlet recharging feature. A block diagram of our project is shown in Figure 1 below.

5 Page 5/7 Figure 1. Block Diagram

6 Page 6/7 Division of Labor: Our project can be divided into two main parts the curtain and the remote control. Both aspects of the project have analog, digital, and software components. In general, will work on the curtain components and will work on the remote components. A detailed table describing this is shown in Table 1. Curtain Tasks Division of Labor Motor Control Sensor Integration up Code RF Reciever PCB Solar Recharging System Remote Tasks RF Transmitter Sensor Integration up Code User Interface PCB Recharging System (if necessary) Table 1. Division of Labor chart.

7 Page 7/7 Gantt Chart: Below is a Gantt chart which shows the projected development timeline of our project. Figure 2: Gantt chart