S14: Power efficient security door system for light-rail using CAN bus

Grading Criteria

• How well is Software & Hardware Design described?
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• Code Quality
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  • Software Block Diagrams
  • Hardware Block Diagrams

    Schematic Quality

  • Quality of technical challenges and solutions adopted.

Abstract

This project is about controlling the operations of doors and sensors in a light rail train, such that they are operated only when required, thus reducing power consumption. Currently, when a light rail halts at a station the driver opens all the doors of all the coaches. However, except for peak hours and especially during weekends and holidays, the number of people entering and exiting a train at a particular station is comparatively very low. Sometimes, only 2-3 people enter or exit a train and that too they use only 1 or 2 doors of the train. In such cases, operating all the doors is simply a waste of power. Our project provides a solution to this problem by allowing the driver to operate only selected doors as per the requirement. It senses from which coach the stop request was pressed or in front of which door the passengers are standing on a station to enter the train. Accordingly to these inputs it selectively operates only those particular doors. The rest are not operated and thus we not only save power but the reduced wear and tear of moving parts of doors enhances their lifetime. This project is based on the concept of CAN bus which is used for communication between sensors, switches and lights of different coaches of the train.

Objectives and Scope

The primary objective is to understand and implement CAN bus communication between two or more SJOne boards, such that any node can send message to any node and upon receiving a CAN message take a desired action immediately. Our secondary objective is to use CAN protocol in real time application such as to control doors, sensors and switches of different coaches of a light-rail train. This application aims at operating the doors of a train selectively as per the requirement, rather than operating all the doors. This will reduce the power consumption and increase the lifetime of the doors.

The scope of the project is:

• Successfully communicate between two or more nodes over CAN bus
• Interface a DC motor, stepper motor, smoke sensor, switches and LEDs as peripherals to SJOne board
• Develop and implement the logic to operate doors selectively as per requirement and be able to communicate between the above peripherals over three nodes

Team Members & Responsibilities

• Ashish
  • Concept and logic development, developing algorithm and hardware interface
• Anitha
  • FreeRTOS software design, code development, verifying test cases
• Hasan
  • Sensor, peripheral interface and testing of software code

Schedule

Show a simple table or figures that show your scheduled as planned before you started working on the project. Then in another table column, write down the actual schedule so that readers can see the planned vs. actual goals. The point of the schedule is for readers to assess how to pace themselves if they are doing a similar project.

Week#	Date	Task	Actual
1	02/27/2014	Finalized scope of the project and ordered CAN transceiver TJA1040	Completed. Deciding which tranceiver is compatible to SJone board
2	03/06/2014	Prepare complete block diagram with all components needed and draw the state diagram	Block diagram completed. State diagram finalization pending. Need to think more on different possibilities of event occurance when switching between states
3	03/13/2014	Complete state diagram and gather BOM of rest of the parts	Completed state diagram on book, but pending to draw in paint and upload on wikipage. BOM parts received.
4	03/20/2014	Prepare the hardware prototype boards for all three coaches	Task completed except for sensors, relays and motor interface (to be decided at the end after testing CAN functionality successfully)
5	03/27/2014	Read on CAN bus protocol and transceiver from datasheet	Task completed
6	04/03/2014	Check the transceiver along with SJone board and build basic driver to run CAN bus	Testing could not be completed successfully, understanding and testing of CAN code is in progress.
7	04/10/2014	Perform testing of CAN driver. Develop logic for the project and implement it on CAN bus.	Self test loop for CAN driver failed. Debugging it is in progress. (Running behind the schedule by 1 week, Need to work hard to cope-up and complete the project on time.)
8	04/17/2014	Testing the CAN protocol and verifying the logic.	Self test for CAN was successful, Tx and Rx between two CAN controllers was tested successfully.
9	04/24/2014	Interface sensors, motors and test with CAN bus protocol.	Interface of fire sensor, stepper motor was tested successfully, however DC motor is pending. CAN test for hardware level address filtering is still failing and its diagnosis is in progress
10	05/01/2014	Testing and debug of the prototype boards and code.	Completed DC motor interface. Successfully implemented CAN communication between all nodes using hardware level filtering
11	05/08/2014	Modifying the code and verifying for different test cases	Few test cases are failing. Need to fix them.
12	05/15/2014	Final touch-up on the design, code and prepare wikipage	Fixed the failing test cases and bugs in hardware board and the code. Wikipage is pending.
13	05/22/2014	Final demonstration

Parts List & Cost

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Design & Implementation

Hardware Design

The project uses three SJOne boards and three identical prototype boards connected to each other. The prototype boards are used to interface peripherals to SJOne board. A pair of SJOne board and prototype board is considered as one node and it resembles one coach of the train. Thus, we have a train that has three coaches and we control the operation of their doors, switches and sensors. Among these three coaches, one acts as a master or engine, which will be operated by the driver and the other two works as slaves or followers of the engine.

Hardware Interface

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Software Design

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Implementation

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Testing & Technical Challenges

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My Issue #1

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Conclusion

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Project Video

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Project Source Code

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References

Acknowledgement

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References Used

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Appendix

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