PIC32 | Embedded Lab

Category Archives: PIC32

Wireless storage with biometric protection

Posted on February 10, 2016 by R-B 2 comments

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

Electronic Snellen eye tester

Posted on January 12, 2016 by R-B Leave a comment

Snellen chart is the most widely used visual chart across the globe for testing visual acuity. It contains multiple rows of letters that are progressively smaller and is used by an eye doctor to judge patient’s eyesight. Joel Llewelyn, Margot Haas, and Yuchen Liu (three Cornell students) attempted to make an electronic version of Snellen chart that is portable and self-capable of performing the full Snellen eye test at home. The project uses PIC32 microcontroller and a TFT display for showing the letters from the Snellen chart in a progressively smaller font size and the user has to speak over

PIC32 Project: Piano gloves

Posted on January 11, 2016 by R-B Leave a comment

Piano gloves is another interesting project accomplished by three Cornell students, Sean Carroll, Natalie Moore, and James Talmage, who just passed Bruce Land’s ECE 4670 course on microcontrollers. They created a pair of gloves that can play a grand piano sound with the bending of fingers. A flex sensor attached to each finger on the gloves senses when the user bends a finger. The sensor output goes to a PIC32 processor via a Schimitt trigger circuit. The PIC32 processor, on detecting finger motions, synthesizes and plays appropriate notes on a speaker through a 12-bit DAC. They write, The genesis of this design

PIC32 smart watch

Posted on January 10, 2016 by R-B Leave a comment

Matthew Filipek‘s DIY smart watch is PIC32-powered and features a 1.7 inch touch screen, SD card, Bluetooth module, and other apps with total cost of build less than $100. Matthew writes, The watch currently has 3 apps: a settings app where the user can set screen brightness, change the time and date, and change the theme of the user interface; a game app, where the user controls a small paddle with the touch screen and attempts to deflect balls into goals; and a paint app, where the user touches to draw one of 8 selectable colors to the screen. The

PIC32 project: Wake-U-Up system

Posted on January 10, 2016 by R-B One comment

Zhiyong Hao and Zhuo Chen from Cornell University designed a new type of ‘Wake-up Assistant’ for their ECE 4760 course’s final project. Powered by a PIC32 processor, it is designed to wake up a person in a more comfortable and effective way, compared to a normal noisy alarm clock. Their system includes an LED light that works as a reading light before going to bed and brightens gradually in the morning time to simulate the sunrise. An accelerometer placed under the pillow monitors and analyzes the motion of the sleeper to detect when he/she is in a light sleep phase