Project Description
The Close to Home project is, at its core, an effort to provide home users a way to not only monitor their house to ensure its security, but also control several aspects of the house to save on their monthly power bills, and to provide them with peace of mind. The Close to Home system is one that will be able to be integrated seamlessly into a user's home, and provide them with all of the features of the system in a non-invasive and non-obstructive way. Having complete control over your home will be simple and easy with the Close to Home system using the Android Application that accompanies the system. Paired with the central hub somewhere close to the home's internet router, and a few modules installed throughout the home to communicate with, a user will be able to be the master of their own domain. Our objectives for Close to Home are essentially to provide a system for the home that saves money on a user's power bill every month, while providing them with security and monitoring features at their fingertips. Ultimately, the system will provide more saving benefits than the cost of using the service, as well as providing at least 40% more power savings than upon a housing system that does not have Close to Home installed. We will be providing evidence of this with a scaled-down version of a home and its power uses. We are creating an automated, smart house that will include convenient user control through an Android application. We hope to bring you a better home experience with improved security and energy savings. A central hub will control the smart house, which is still currently in the design process. It will receive commands from both an Android app via a web server, and through an in-house tablet loaded with the app, which can be detached and carried around. The biggest advantage with this design, is being able to fall asleep knowing everything is locked up tight. Each room will be equipped with a break-beam eye system that will monitor the rooms to keep track of which rooms are occupied and which rooms are vacant. From here, user defined settings will determine what, if anything, should be on in the room. This is where we plan to see a majority of our cost savings.
EEL 4914 Description
Our group wanted to have a project that would incorporate a large piece of software with at least two different kinds of hardware and an android application. An automated smart house would allow us to implement multiple kinds of hardware (motors, sensors, etc.), design an underlying software to control it all, and implement the whole thing with an android application. We will never have to be individually responsible for one portion of the project, we all know how to incorporate the parts as a whole, and we all have something unique to gain.
We are creating an automated, smart house that will include convenient user control through an Android application. We hope to bring you a better home experience with improved security and energy savings. A central hub will control the smart house, which is still currently in the design process. It will receive commands from both an Android app via a web server, and through an in-house tablet loaded with the app, which can be detached and carried around. The biggest advantage with this design, is being able to fall asleep knowing everything is locked up tight. Each room will be equipped with a break-beam eye system that will monitor the rooms to keep track of which rooms are occupied and which rooms are vacant. From here, user defined settings will determine what, if anything, should be on in the room. This is where we plan to see a majority of our cost savings.
We also know that you are not always at your house, and peace of mind is hard to get when you’re away on vacation, or even gone for the day for work, this is where the phone app comes in. The Android app will give you the same control the in-house control panel would give you, including the ability to lock/unlock doors, monitor your appliances, or even program timers. This will deliver convenient home control to anyone with an Android phone. Various levels of control can be set for each user allowing for a more hierarchical control system.
Imagine the day when you go on vacation and the only thing on is your security system, but you can remotely access your door lock to let your house sitter in. Never worry about forgetting to lock the front door or shut off the lights when you leave the room, because the automated house will handle that for you. Never worry about your home being hot when you get home from work, you can turn the A/C on just before you head home. The possibilities are as limitless as the sensors and controls we can put on your home. Everyone makes a big deal about checking your a/c, remotely logging into their desktop, or keylessly unlocking their doors, but imagine controlling everything with just one app.
EEL 4914 Documentaion
In Senior Design 1 (EEL 4914), we drafted our initial project documentation. It describes what we want our project to be, how we can do it, and our plan for completing it. Some of the specifics that are mentioned in this documentation were not able to be done. However, the changes are reflected in our final documentation. To view our documentation please follow the link below.
EEL 4914 Documentation
EEL 4915 CDR
In Senior Design 2 (EEL 4915), we started to work on our project. Once we had some time to order parts and begin to piece them together, we were tasked with creating a powerpoint presentation to explain our project. This initial presentation was presented to our senior design class. It does not represent the final project. Since we had not put all everything together yet, we changed a few things along the way again. Our final presentation represents the changes we made to the project. To view our CDR that we presented to our senior design class please follow the link below.
Conference Paper
In Senior Design 2 (EEL 4915), we finished the work on our project. Once we had a prototype ready, we were tasked with giving a final presentation. Our final presentation was graded by 3 UCF faculty members and we were required to give them a reference document for our project. The conference paper is our 8 page reference document that we gave to the professors during our final presentation in order to guarantee they understood our project. To view our conference paper please follow the link below.
Final Presentation
In Senior Design 2 (EEL 4915), we finished the work on our project. Once we had a prototype ready, we were tasked with giving a final presentation. Our final presentation was graded by 3 UCF faculty members. We gave each faculty member a conference paper in order to guarantee that they would understand our project. We went over our final presentation in powerpoint form and then demoed our working protoype. To view our final presentation please follow the first link below. To view a demonstration of our working prototype please use the web address..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaUbJskz5xQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
EEL 4915 Documentation
In Senior Design 2 (EEL 4915), we drafted our final project documentation. It describes what we want our project to be, how we can do it, our plan for it, and how we put it all together. This is the best representation of our project. It goes into very specific detail. If you wanted to read this large documentation please follow the link below. If you just wanted to get a short summary of our project please refer to our CDR.
Biographies
Joshua Early is currently pursuing a bachelors in Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida. He is a hard worker with an affinity for mobile and object-oriented software development, so he decided to devote his work-hours, alongside Marc Garcia, to the development of the Android Application that would be the control system for the end-user in the Close to Home system. Getting the Android Application to interface directly with the Close to Home Hub, and then to interface with a Server Application of Marc's design, was no easy task. Ensuring that all devices were speaking the same language, and working in unison was something that took hours of labored testing as well as heavy trial and error. However, the final product will yield an Android Application that will be convenient to use, and will provide full control and vision over your home while you're in it, or if you're away.
Marc Garcia is pursuing a bachelors in Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida. Given Marc's expertise with Object-Oriented and higher level programming, he and Josh worked together to create the most aesthetically appealing Android Application for the end user, as well as making sure that, along the way, the application always had the goal of being user-friendly in mind. Marc had a great eye for design, and was the specialist when any of the project needed a professional polish on it. For instance, the GUI of the Android Application was the product of Marc's design, and making sure that it ran smoothly on nearly all Android platforms was another of Marc's goals.
Daniel Krummen is pursuing a bachelors in Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida. Daniel expressed an interest early on into the field of microcontrollers and lower-level programming, so he decided to work on the central Hub of the Close to Home system. These system resources will prove invaluable when computing the various kinds of calculations necessary to schedule the Close to Home mainframe. The Close to Home system will feature a fully customizable method of automating your house's appliances to ensure that there are rarely lights on in an unoccupied room, or a television running with no one watching. Daniel plans to incorporate either built-in profiles for recommended house monitoring settings, or providing the client with a way to customize their own configuration via the Android Application.
Nicholas Godfrey is currently pursuing a bachelors in Electrical Engineering at the University of Central Florida. He is a devoted member of the Theta Tau fraternity, and is highly skilled with electrical circuits. Given his unique expertise with circuits, at least among a group of Computer Engineers, he chose to take on the role of developing the in-house wall modules. He designed simple circuits that would receive power from the house's grid, convert it accordingly, and then use them on a small board equipped with an MSP430 Microprocessor. From there, the data pertaining to the observed module would be transmitted via ZigBee to the central Hub of communications for the Close to Home system. Since Nicholas had to develop the circuit from scratch, his expertise in step-down circuits, and breadboard prototyping was a brilliant asset to the Senior Design team, and we could not have done it without him.