SunSPec 5 - Telemetry System

We managed to get the design working at first, however it comes with a big problem. The data received by the chase vehicle is in chunks of 5-7 rows of data at a time, and once every minute or so. After spending some time of trial & errors and testing, we thought that the 9600 baud rate of the LoRa may be the cause, hence we re-setted the settings to higher baud rate transmission through air.  After further testings, we still found the rate to be similar. When we sent the data manually through the RX software of LoRa at different speeds, we discovered little or no delays, even at a large amount of data (Tested up to 10 columns). However, if we were to send at a faster rate (< 1s), the system starts to get sluggish and may even hang, which is how we found the fault in the system. We were handed Arduino Micro (uses Leonardo bootloader), and we use them instead of Arduino pro mini, as Micro eliminates the use of a FTDI serial adapter module, hence savi...

We have finalized on the plan of integrating the system as shown in Figure 1 , and we will start working on it this week and the following weeks till completion. However, this is only a suggestion of our own design which may not be the actual design used for SunSPec 5, as we have yet to carry out further tests on practicality. Figure 1: Telemetry System Overview The main problem of interfacing wireless communication with Arduino is that due to the way the Arduino receives it, it will receive char by char per loop. So any other parts of code in between the sending and receiving part will be sent along each time a char is sent. For example, the word "test" is being sent, and there is another program to send a voltage value, per say "50". The receiving end will receive in the following order: " t ", "50", " e ", "50", " s ", "50", " t ", "50". There is a way to get around this ...

We have finished up the mount display and also prepared for the presentation. For the actual system, we are still working on the speed-sensing part. Figure 1: Overview of Telemetry System (V1)  Figure 2: Mount display for illustration & demo

Voltage Transducer: Initial Testing We went to the workshop to experiment with the voltage transducer. The Voltage Transducer that is currently being experimented with is the CR5310 of the CR5300 Series. Figure 1: Voltage Transducer Figure 2: Set-up Configuration The voltage transducer receives a High Voltage input and scales it down, converting it to a Low Voltage output. The input range can take up to a range of 0 - 150V to return output from 0 - 5V for CR5310,  It isolates the LV output from the HV input. We proceeded to test it out to determine it's sensitivity. Ideally, the input of 150V would result in a 5V output and that the relationship between the input and output is linear. Thus we can calculate the gradient of the relationship between Vin and Vout to be y=30x. (where y=Vin, x= Vout). However, we weren't given the exact coefficient of the gradient for its' sensitivity, hence we need to test it out. ...

As we have trouble with setting the Arduino such that it will count the number of pulses every second ONLY , we spent the week reading up on timers, attachinterrupt, rising & falling edges, but to no avail, as we could not understand the timer features. We used a simple push switch to generate the pulses whereby each press will be recorded as one pulse. The code we have used is as shown below: *Note:  The code is inaccurate as the previous reading is added to the current and will keep accumulating, as we did not add in the timer feature to make the Arduino count the number of pulses of every second ONLY . Sensor Values                         Actual 1st reading: A                                 1st reading: A 2nd reading: B                         2nd readin...

WEMOS D1 Mini Pro December 8th, we received a WEMOS D1 Mini pro module from Mr. Joe to play around. We were tasked to replicate the simple task of controlling the LED using a web server  created when a program is run by the WEMOS. This is the same program done by STEM Education on their Internet of Things Blog. Figure 1: WEMOS  Unlike the ESP-01 like before, this WEMOS has no need for an FTDI power converter. Where the ESP01 requires different configuration for AT command mode/ serial monitor display/ downloading of program, the WEMOS is able to connect a COM PORT simply and have serial monitor display/ downloading of codes done without much hassle. Figure 2: Serial Monitor indicating connection to SSID The displayed serial monitor is able to indicate the WEMOS being connected to the Local WiFi network as well as showing the IP address of the WEMOS to connect to the web server. The web server is created by the program and a...

Introduction: As week 7 was used in preparation for MST, week 7 had no update on telemetry. After attempts on working with the RedBear Blend had been unsuccessful. Mr Joe assigned us to work with an ESP specifically an ESP01. An ESP functions as an Arduino with a wifi module and cost less than $3. However, it has only 2 IO ports and 1 built-in LED. We were tasked to connect an ESP01 with the DHT22 temperature-humidity sensor. The ESP01 would receive the data from the DHT22 connected to an Arduino and display it on a Serial monitor. The previous attempts had been unsuccessful due to firmware issues which resulted in failure even entering AT command mode. This was solved by Mr Joe uploading a firmware inside it but that ESP could only enter AT command very few often. As such, we focused on various other components such as HC-05/HC-06 as well as the Bluno beetle.  Up until recently, we started back with new ESP01 that Mr Joe had g...

CETI Exhibition We went for CETI Exhibition, displaying the Solar car. Figure 1: Group Picture From Left: Chee Yong, Matthew, Mr.Chua, Mr.Lam Figure 2: Assessors viewing other participants for competition Figure 3: Chee Yong talking to one of the guests Figure 4: Matthew talking to one of the guests Figure 5: Group Picture MST  Preparation The rest of the week was spent practicing for the MST.