Embedded Lab

Nathan Spallone and Zhiyuan Teo from Cornell University designed a wireless storage with biometric protection as their final project for Bruce Land‘s ECE 4760 course. Their design uses a fingerprint scanner for authorization and an induction coil for wireless charging. The user can authenticate into the storage system by simply placing a thumb on the fingerprint sensor and can sync the drive to a home station wirelessly using an nRF24l01+ transceiver module. The home station also usesan nRF24l01+ transceiver module along with an Arduino board, which is connected to a PC over USB. They also wrote a PC application to allow the user to read and store data on the device over the RF link.

Wireless storage with biometric authentication

The base station also has an inductive charger that the user can place the device on to charge wirelessly, without the hassle of plugging anything in. 20 fingerprints can be stored on the device, and each fingerprint has a separate logical volume that the corresponding user can utilize as their own private storage space.

The device has a 1 inch OLED screen that gives the user feedback and information, such as which current user is logged in, and how much storage is being used.
he device is extremely usable. It does not require the nimble action of plugging in a device every time a user wants to manipulate a file, rather it can be activated wirelessly. As well, there are no buttons on the device except for a power switch, and the only actuation needed for operation is touching a finger to a fingerprint scanner. The OLED is monochromatic, thus anyone with any sort of colorblindness will be able to use the device.