Is this a good idea for school project?

[LV2015]

Hello

This is my first message here, I`m feeling excited:)

I`m an electrical engineer student on the secound year of a bacheleour. 

We are starting a project in one week. It`s just a  friend and me on the project, so it shall not be to big, around 50 hours each. 

We came up with an idea of making a fire alarm system. 

We want to build a small scale room like 25 * 25 cm or (9,8 inch * 9,8 inch)

It shall have a smoke detector, lights, sprinkler/water system and a webcam. 

The idea is to connect thoose devices to a computer, and have another computer that we can log on to and over the internet check the webcam inside of that "room" 

We also want to get a message on the secound computer (the one "outside" the room) if a fire alarm have been triggered by smoke/fire. If the fire alarm is triggered

we want some water from a small pump to make it "rain" from the roof of this "room" like a sprinkler system.

We have learned somethings about Labview and arduino, and in my head it dosen`t sound to extreme, but since I don`t have that much experience with labview I wanted to ask here on this forum before we started.

Underneath I`ve made an illustration, to maybe get a better understanding. 

Sorry for my bad english. 

Best regards;)

[crossrulz]

Since it sounds like you want to use an Arduino, you should really consider using Lynx.  Otherwise, I'm not seeing anything really difficult.

You may need some extra circuitry to interface with your lights and sprinkler controller (digital buffer chips to increase your current capacity).

[Bob_Schor]

This sounds like a reasonable project for you and your friend to undertake as a way of learning LabVIEW.  Have you written LabVIEW code?  Are you familiar with how LabVIEW works?  If you are not, spend some time (both of you, work together) taking several of the LabVIEW Tutorials listed on the upper right of the Forum page.

Are you planning on having a "real" smoke detector, alarm, and sprinkler?  Have you thought about how you would interface with these physical devices?  What are the nature of the "Outside" and "Inside" computers?  How will they communicate (you mention the Web -- does this mean both are plugged into a campus network and communicate with each other using TCP/IP?  To what will the WebCam be connected?

What is the purpose of the Arduino?  What gets connected to it, and with what is it communicating (and by what means)?

Have you given any thought to how you want to handle time?  Do you want your monitoring system to run "as fast as it can", or is it reasonable for it to, say, sample the Smoke Detector once per second and make a decision?

What are the relative responsibilities of the Inside and Outside computers?

Have fun.  Feel free to come back here for feedback, but if you really want to get something out of this Project, you need to (mostly) Do Your Own Work.  If you do get stuck or need advice, post your code (attach the VI itself, not a JPeg picture of the code, as we can't execute such an image) and we'll chime in.

Bob Schor

[LV2015]

Thanks for answering and comments

I`m familiar with how labview works on the basic things. We have had some classes about the basic steps with labview.  I also spent some hours watching youtube videoes. 

I`m planning to have arduino components:

Smoke detector:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MQ-2-MQ2-Gas-Sensor-Module-Smoke-Methane-Butane-Detection-for-Arduino-/40098...

A 12V  water pump witch we will make to a sprinkler system. Have an idea about that, and I`m planning to just use a buzzer alarm from the arduino kit. 

Webcam will be connected right into the computer USB I think, and it will use TCP/IP. My teacher thought that was the challenge to send over picture from webcam via TCP/IP but I know it works. 

Everything gets connected to the arduino except the camera I think. 

Think The program can just go in a while loop  with a "Wait until next ms" that is for every 10 secound so the program takes it slow inside the loop. 

Thanks again;)

[Bob_Schor]

I'm assuming (since you say the Webcam will go into a PC's USB port) that there are two Windows PCs, one inside the room to which the Arduino and Camera are connected, and make up the "Detector" system, and one outside the room that is the "Monitoring" computer.

This is a fine design.  I'll leave it to you to do the research for how to make the Arduino "detect smoke" and "turn on a sprinkler" (you'll probably need to use some form of relay or circuit to handle the current that your valve will probably require).  I think the decision to have the Detector run at a "reasonable" rate (once every 10 seconds) makes sense -- once you get all the pieces in place and working, you can do an "extra credit" project to see the effect of changing the Detection Rate, including (a) how fast can you reasonably expect to go without problems, (b) the "unintended consequences" of a faster rate, and (c) how to decide on an "optimal" rate.  Note that you are acquiring images at a slow enough rate that it may make more sense to take successive images (what IMAQdx calls a "Snap") than a 'very slow Video" (or a "Grab").  A discussion of this could also be "Extra Credit".

There is a mechanism for sending data between two LabVIEW programs running on different PCs, called "Network Streams", that is reasonably easy to set up, reasonably quick, and something I'd recommend that you research (do a Web Search on LabVIEW Network Streams and you'll find several White Papers on it).  In addition to using TCP/IP to send images from the Detector to the Monitor, you could also use it to allow the Monitor to (in some ways) "control" the Detector, but that is probably beyond the scope of your Project.  [If you finish early and "want to play", think about this ...].

Bob Schor 

[LV2015]

Thanks Bob, 

yes the webcam will go into a PC`s USB port. One inside the room and one outside. 

The arduino programming components is not a big deal, I`ve programmed arduino before. 

Last project we did: (Only arduino NO labview)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsy55FVOyXM

[natasftw]

So I'm curious... what happens to your comp inside the room when the sprinkler goes off?

[LV2015]

haha, I think we will set a small bowl under the sprinkler. Remember it`s just a small scale room like 30 cm * 30 cm. 

The sprinkler will use a 12 v dc motor. 

Yesterday we did alot. Next up is the webcam;)

[billko]

I'm just along for the ride because I think this is a really neat project.  🙂

[CarlosOtiniano]

You can perform image acquisition only drivers from VAS , but for any treatment or handling or VDM VBAI you need , plus VAS . You can download the evaluation software from the following links :

Módulo NI Vision Development https://lumen.ni.com/nicif/us/evalvisiondevmodule/content.xhtml NI Vision Builder para Inspección Automatizada (AI) https://lumen.ni.com/nicif/us/machinevisionbrochure/content.xhtml NI Vision Acquisition Software http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/3818/lang/en

In this example, we will create a program in Labview to capture images from a USB camera to your application for further processing using the NI Vision module.

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-30531

7. RGB to 8_Bits.vi ‏50 KB

6. Webcam to RGB.vi ‏46 KB