IP:03 My Evil Plan!!!

27 Mar 2014

First of all a big thank you to our sponsors TI, wurth and element14. I went on to browse the store with my alloted budget and I was astounded by what was in the store. I have been through almost every product in the catalog from screws to boxes to kits to smd parts, to hand tools to chemical supplies. Element14, you rock!

Now on to the design!

I have gotten around to making beautiful diagrams for the design challenge. So here is what I am going to be doing... hence My Evil Plan!

Wireless power is an excellent option for devices that regularly require charging AND are mobile i.e. phones! In addition to this, wireless charging also finds use where it is not convenient to connect a charger every time to a physical connector. In my case, this was the problem that I started with. This translates to an application where the electronics are sealed or are physically in accessible. This leads to a number of scenarios.

The electronic device is mobile but is sealed.
The electronic device is mobile for short spurts and comes back for a charge up
The electronic device is fixed and sealed.
The electronic device is neither sealed nor fixed but requires charging so use wireless charging because it is more convenient.

Scenario 3 is applicable for battery operated sensors, loggers and even beacons where wiring is difficult. You can use solar but... XYZ reasons. Scenario 4 is our cell phone example. Scenarios 1 and 2 are what my design encompass. My application has two parts.

A Slave container

with perishable materials which has the electronics sealed in the walls. Why? So that the container can contain anything from Flowers to fruits and even cryogenic-ally frozen body parts without the electronics being damaged or being tampered with. The box will house sensors, an MSP430 (yes the launch pad from the booster pack Roadtest) the fuel booster pack and the wurth charging coils. I am still unclear as to how they work since I was unable to track down the specs. It will talk to the user and the master via Zigbee(XBEE)

The Master controller

with an Arduino, a GPRS board to transmit data to a web server, a GPS module to find out where it is right now and an XBEE to talk to the slaves. The arduino will also have an SD card to log data if GPRS goes down or something. I was thinking of using an RTC as well but it seems that the GPRS systems usually provide time data. To power the master, I have a different battery solution that will power everything and the same wurth wireless power coils will be used to charge this station as well.

I am trying for an all TI solution here so most of my purchases will be TI parts and stuff. I'm not guaranteeing it TI but I am using your stuff and liking it.

The general block diagram is as follows: