Notes from the Phoenix IEEE lab, 2008/10/24
Our categories of work still fall into:
- Improving the sensors and amplifier/filter boards
- Investigating the Chen patent
- Building a prototype microcontroller/DAQ board
William
and I spent a little time getting a signal out of Wade's amplifier by
following a tighter protocol about wrapping up the arm with the sensor
and controlling breathing and movement. We didn't have time to
get a completely clean signal, but it was clear that this was a much
easier way to get a signal than the previous informal "playing around"
that we've done. It supports the statement that I made earlier,
which is that all the projects that have been done so far (Wade, Mary
Jo, Inanc/Ashok, Akhila) and the commercial products we've looked at
all put a lot of effort into the mechanics of the sensor to get a
usable signal.
The student branch created computer accounts for
me and William. We have not gotten "permanent" disk space yet,
however. (We need something that is not wiped clean at the end of
the semester.)
Chase is summarizing some of the commercial
product technology he's been reading about, considering buying another
NI DAQ device, and looking into whether we should get a second
piezoelectric film kit.
I'd like to get 2 or 3 more of Wade's
amplifier/filter boards made. Dr. Holte thinks we can make some
improvements to them at the same time. William is going to talk
to Dr. Holte about Dr. Holte's ideas for improvements, specifically
adding and removing a voltage bias on the sensors and changing the
amplifier characteristics (possibly by switching to an "instrumentation
amplifier" design).
We need to come up with some more test leads and connectors, and a battery tester.
I'll talk to the coordination team about doing some recruiting to get a few more people involved.
I
brought in a "junk box" of materials that might make good sensor
backing, a stethoscope, and a wrist-mount blood pressure monitor.
I brought in a surface-mount soldering "practice kit" for me and William to use.
William
is looking into the procedure for non-students to get access to Walter
Library, including online access to journals and ability to physically
check out books.
Dr. Holte is looking into how we can get access to the campus wireless network.
Ellis has requested a mailing list for us to use.
For the future:
We
need a little project to identify and mark the various piezo-electric
films. It seems likely that that we cannot trust any of the
packaging any more, because of the number of hands that have moved
things around.
I'd like to have a detailed description of Wade's
schematic, including details about each subcircuit, the test points,
the power supply, and the input impedence.
We need projects to
characterize AND DOCUMENT simple characteristics of the piezoelectric
films - specifically to understand whether thick backing vs. thin
backing is better, whether large surface areas vs. small surface areas
are better, etc.
-Larry
Volunteers Are Needed
Would you like to work on any part of this project? Envision a prototype, propose a way to implement it, and
send
your suggestion
to Larry. Or start out by just asking questions.
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