ICOM 5047

Project: Biometric Access for Electronic Medical Records (BAEMeR)

Description:

Biometric Access for Electronic Medical Records “BAEMeR” is designed to improve medical records by providing a digitized way to retrieve medical records with the simple use of the patients’ fingerprint. Patient identification with fingerprint provides an effective way to pick up and retrieve medical records instantly, even if the person is unconscious. Having both, the patient’s personal medical history in a database and the ability to retrieve this information, enables effective communication and immediate action in cases of emergency. The information is strictly confidential and can only be accessed by a licensed medical examiner, thus ensuring the protection of the reports.

Project: Surf Zone Drifter System (SZDS)

Description:

This project proposes the implementation of a simple and cost-effective surf zone drifter system. By using IEEE® 802.15.4/ZigBee® Technology and triangulation, the drifter’s position will be calculated using RSSI algorithms in order to study alongshore and rip currents. The main goal is to build a working prototype solution that can be more or as effective than the original drifters that were built in the 1990’s by providing a substantial enhancement in functionality, precision and efficiency. In addition to the network and in order to enhance the system attributes and to give better efficiency in power consumption is important to study and calculate how the new components will affect the total power consumption of the system and if there are any chances in terms of the batteries used to run the entire system. In terms of the mesh network, research shows that XBee Positioning Systems are cost-effective and better in power consumption than commercial GPS, since a commercial GPS by itself can only be accurate within 3 m and with XBees Mesh Network positioning a device in the network can be as accurate as 1m. Furthermore, the XBees are a fraction of the cost of GPS and consume less power than GPS.

Project: Ultra-Deep Oceanic Free Vehicle

Description:

The Puerto Rican Trench is a zone that has not been studied by many oceanographers despite it is the deepest trench in the Atlantic Ocean. The current devices that oceanographers use in Puerto Rico for the collection and studies of the ocean floors can be improved in many ways. For this reason, it is desirable to improve the project called Ultra Deep Sea Water Buoy to obtain a better performance when it submerges to the ocean floor evolving in what we called Ultra-Deep-Oceanic-Free-Vehicle. The new improvements will include a more accurate data analysis, a Bluetooth module for communication at surface, solar panels to gain extra power for the communication and retrieval, underwater camera systems for precise analysis of the ocean floor environment and others. With the Ultra-Deep-Oceanic-Free-Vehicle oceanographers will obtain important data that can be used to predict disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis that could affect our island and it will help in the development and research of our ocean floors.

Project: Virtual Infrared Remote Control (VIRC)

Description:

People with tetraplegia or similar severe motor disabilities are not able to use many of the current user interfaces available in the market such as remote controls. Therefore, they need assistive technology interfaces that adapt to their particular situation such as gaze and head trackers, sip and puff interfaces, speech recognition systems, and chin, mount and hand joysticks. In addition, they need a computer that interprets the commands of their respective assistive technology interface. The Virtual Infrared Remote Control provides this common interface where people with different assistive technologies can connect to and have access to the functionality of a universal remote control and a personal computer. Thus, providing a solution that will help people with disabilities regain some autonomy in their daily life and overcome their disabilities.

Project: Boardcaster

Description:

Chess tournaments seldom broadcast chess matches. Although video recording is common, they are not broadcast live; it is easy to find and watch these matches on websites like YouTube.com. Some current electronic chess boards have some capability to transmit a live chess match over the Internet, but they require the installation of hardware drivers and specific applications for a Microsoft’s Windows based computer. We present a proposal for an electronic chess board that is capable of transmitting live chess matches over the Internet without the need for any drivers or platform specific software. Those interested in watching the live chess match only need a modern web-browser and an Internet connection. To achieve this, a server connected to the Internet will be used as a middle-man. The electronic chess board will send the chess moves to a database in the server, and the website will read from that database to graphically display the chess match on an Internet browser.Our open-hardware and free and open source software design allows it to be hackable/customizable, opening opportunities for more board games, like checkers. More importantly, it democratizes the game of chess; it allows smalled organizations to reach out to the audience big tournaments have.The result will be a chess board that is portable, wireless, low cost, real-time, easy to use, and hackable.

Project: SmartTSPS

Description:

In highly populated urban areas where traffic congestion is a common problem there arise certain situations where emergency vehicles such as police cruisers, ambulances and fire trucks get caught in these traffic jams and cannot get to where they need to be. This means that these vehicles will not arrive on time and citizens in need of assistance may not receive it. The concept of traffic light preemption was introduced as a solution to this problem. The main objective of traffic light preemption systems is to enable certain vehicle types, mainly emergency response vehicles, to interact with traffic intersections and increase traffic flow in the direction in which they are going by toggling a green light, thus minimizing their response time. There exist several different implementations of this system, some solutions use acoustics to determine if a vehicle’ s siren is on, others use line-of-sight, infrared sensors, GPS, etc. The proposed system, named Smart Traffic Preemption System (SmartTSPS) is not only a preemption system, it also plays the role of dispatching emergencies and remotely controlling traffic lights for preemption, all from one centralized server. It will use GPS technology and Google maps to keep track of the position of the vehicle and the traffic light intersections the vehicle will encounter from its initial position up to its destination. The driver of the emergency vehicle will have a smartphone with the system’s custom application installed through which interaction with the centralized server is accomplished. The server will dispatch an emergency location to the smartphone’s operator through a GSM Network, as the vehicle approaches an intersection it will notify the server and preemption will be accomplished.

Project: Octo-Controller

Description:

The Octo-Controller is a system that will enable handicapped patients with mobility issues and patients with low cognitive levels to control up to eight dry contacts (four wired relays and four wireless relays), which will allow turning on up to eight electronic appliances, through the use of a GUI or mono phone jack input. The system will be divided in two: the controller module and a computer GUI. The first will allow the control of the eight relays using the patient’s input, which will be interpreted as one of four possible choices depending on the length of the input signal. This module will also allow the patient’s caretaker to configure several options for easier use. The computer graphical interface will help patients with low cognitive levels to perform Augmentative and Alternate Communication controlling the outputs through wireless methods in an easy and intuitive manner. Whenever the patient chooses one of the options in the GUI, the corresponding output will be activated as well as a LED indicating its activation. To achieve higher compatibility between computers and patients, executable files will be created to control each of the outputs.s

Project: Signals

Description:

A system that will aid deep deafness patients with a way of knowing when an alarm is activated is proposed. Signals™, as the project has been named, will consist of an event notifier module capable of listening and notifying that an audio event of interest has occurred. When the event of interest occurs, the event notifier module (G.E.N.) will notify a communication box (C-Box) module via Bluetooth that such event has occurred. The G.E.N. consists of a DSP module in order to process audio signals from the environment to identify the signal of interest. DSP techniques, such as Fast Fourier Transform and Match Filtering will be used to identify the signal of interest. The C-Box will serve as the central point for all communication processes in Signals™. A bracelet module will get notified by the C-box when an event occurs. The bracelet will be able of alerting a deep deafness patient that an event has occurred by using a vibration signal. Optional monitoring services can be requested by the client in which event details will be sent to a Web Server via GSM. The Web Server will then notify caregivers and, if necessary, authorities such as the Fire and Emergency departments that an event has occurred. Caregivers will be notified via GSM to their respective mobile device and authorities will be notified via a VoIP call.

Project: Universal Remote for Disabled People (URDP)

Description:

The Universal Remote for Disabled People will be able to record and reproduce infrared codes from multiple devices, while providing an user interface designed specifically for disabled people with limited movement. The device will allow users to communicate their needs using GSM SMS messaging functionality and will have an accelerometer to detect when the device falls.The URDP provides a customizable user interface specially designed for people with disabilities. This user interface, by sweeping the screen horizontally and vertically, will allow the user to use the device by performing only one action, like blowing air into a tube or pressing a button. The needs covered by the Universal Remote for Disabled People are not found in the market and the user interface it provides helps differentiate it from other options.