Safe&Sound: Wearable Tracking Device for Miners - 07: Project Proposal Update

Title: Wearable Tracking Device for Miners

By: sunnyiut                                      

Design Challenge: Safe and Sound Wearables

Blog number: 07

Intro:

I have already posted 4 blogs on review of the kits I was intended to use for my proposal.

Why did I go through these reviews extensively???

The cause was to figure out what would be the optimum solution for my design. Can I utilize all of the kits effectively to prepare a final work?

To figure it out a detail background study was needed and I have tried to post it in terms of 'review of kits'.

After going through this study, I figured out that I should go for alternate solution in some cases. Like, previously I intended to use the SHARP96LCD module. But I need a display which is visible at low light. So, I have to look out for alternate solutions.

Therefore, I have prepared this blog to present the modifications I have made in my project proposal. Specifically, what are the components I am going to use replacing the kits I have received earlier.

Major Modifications:

The major modifications in my project are -

• 320x240 TFT color display instead of SHARP96LCD
• RC522 RFID reader instead of TRF7970

Updated System Diagram:

The proposed system has three components -

1. Wearable device mounted on miner's wrist which contains sensors and displays information on surrounding environment.
2. RFID reader to locate the working zone of the miner.
3. A central monitor to communicate with the zonal RFID readers [using I2C] and log the data received.

1. Wrist mounted wearable device [sensors + TFT display] -

    Sensors:

• pressure
• ambient temperature
• humidity
• ambient light
• infrared thermometer

optional - there are two modules implemented in the hardware but the firmware is not integrated yet. MAX30100 module for HEARTBEAT rate and BLOOD OXYGEN SATURATION detection and RN4020 BLE module to send beacons to alert other miners in case of an emergency.

A TFT [320x240 pixel] display will show the information collected by the sensors.

2. RFID Reader -

A system based on RFID to locate the working zone of the Miner.

In my review of DLP7970ABP NFC transceiver, I found this module pretty cool. But the kit includes only one T5T [NFC-V technology] tag and this type of tag is not available in my locality. Also, I'll need another MSP432 launchpad or need to import the library for another MCU. So I went for an alternate solution RC522 module, which is handy right now. This module is a 13.56MHz RFID reader and writer and works fine with mifare one S50/70 cards and tags.

To control this module I am using the "Mikromedia for STM32F4" board [it's also handy to me].

This board contains an STM32F404VG MCU and TFT display.

It will be used to -

• read the miner ID
• track the time of entry of the miner in that zone
• display the miner profile with image on successful card/tag punch
• send this data to the 'Central Monitor' using I2C communication

This board also has integrated battery charger, so it will work in case of power failure too.

**however, this RFID based system cannot read the cards/tags from distance more than 40mm. so, the miners have to punch their tags onto the device while entering into a working zone.

3. Central Monitor -

A central Monitor based on MSP432P401r is used to receive data from all the RFID readers placed at different zones.

It will continuously display the miners' locations with time and also keep a log for future manual inspection.

## IDE for this project -

There is no bindings to use a particular IDE for this design challenge.

So, I thought of using something else [other than CCS or Energia] -

I am a big fan of MikroElektronika MikroC compilers. They have launched their new MSP432 series support for the MikroC for ARM compiler.

I was interested to try out this new tool chain and using their compiler to develop my system for "Safe and Sound" design challenge.