Battery free Water Leak Sensor
Water leaks are the #1 insurance claim made by businesses because of issues such as property damage, mould, and displaced occupants. This project focuses on a water leak detection system that involves battery free BLE technology for the sensor nodes, Bluetooth mesh for relaying information wirelessly and remote monitoring using a Cloud database and mobile application.
The leak sensor nodes are made from low cost materials in a 3D printed enclosure. Using water to test, it was determined that the sensor has high sensitivity, requiring less than 10 mL of water to activate a Bluetooth signal.
Moisture sensor contact with water
DC/DC board
BLE custom board
The system uses a mesh network that passes the leak node ID from the leak sensor to the endpoint. The endpoint includes a gateway that passes the information to a Cloud database, which is connected to a mobile application for the user to access and manage information.
Software framework
Mobile application for remote monitoring
A full system test involving 5 leak nodes, 4 mesh nodes, and 1 gateway was run in November 2019. The system responded in a couple of minutes from when the water was applied to the sensor to when there was a phone alert. The test successfully demonstrated:
- Functional leak detection electronics
- Use of BLE and Mesh network
- Gateway, cloud and mobile possibilities
- Network scalability
IoT Sensors
The target of this project was to establish smart paring and identification using sensor data. The result allowed Bluetooth enabled devices to be identified based on sensor data.
Dialog Bluetooth smart sensor dongle
Remote Air Quality/Gas Monitor
Carbon nanotube (CNT) gas sensors have been the subject of extensive research due to their electrical sensitivity to small quantities of gases. In this work, we demonstrated a novel concept system of a low-cost gas sensor utilizing a compact millimeter-wave radar. Characterization of the mm-wave properties of CNTs on paper substrates is performed. When exposed to gas, significant changes in the magnitude of the backscattered signals from the CNT paper sensor can be observed. A compact mm-wave radar was used to interrogate the passive sensors and detect the changes in the backscattered signals, enabling real-time gas monitoring and air quality monitoring. Compared to prior art utilizing RF technologies, this new mm-wave enabled system promises to be of a much higher sensitivity with the potential of being realized at a much lower cost.
Measurement set up
System concept
Goal:
Create a portable, low-cost gas sensor for real-time gas monitoring by coupling a wireless sensor with a carbon nanotube-based chemical gas sensing film.
Awards: Hackster Top 10
Wearables without batteries
The project harvested piezoelectric energy up to 3000 micro Joules. As a result, this powered a heart rate sensor, microcontroller, and a BLE chipset on a single click.
Wireless System Design for wearables and the IoT
In quest for developing custom sensors for older adults, we often encounter the challenge of how to relay efficiently data from the sensors to a medical professional. Traditionally, hard-wires were used, but these have their known drawbacks. Using wireless technologies come with tremendous advantages and opportunities. Although there are many available chipsets in market that help with wireless communication, packaging the chipset with the sensors and antennas in small form-factor that does not affect system performance is a challenging endeavor. Our team has presented multiple packaging solutions for various wearables. Many of our solutions are witnessed in commercially available products.
Video Link: https://goo.gl/PZ1V8v
CAD simulation model of smart contact lens and testing of a smart hearing aid.
Goal:
wireless system design for wearables (smartphones, sensors, smart contact lenses, hearing aids, smart glasses, watches, etc….)
Prototype smart contact lens