Portable,
PC-based data acquisition and wireless transmission system for use in chemical
analysis applications
by Natthanant
Pon Skulkaew and Prem Nainani
Senior
Design Project, Spring 2001
Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The
University of Texas at Austin
Project Description
The
objective of our senior design project was to design and realize a system
capable of capturing images from an input video stream and then transmitting
them via wireless technology to a host server.
Our system is PC-based and must allow a user to control image capture
settings. Along with captured images, the system transmits its
geographical location. To implement
this system we used a CCD camera, IMAQ card, wireless LAN, and GPS receiver.
We also used LabVIEW 5.0 software to control all hardware and design a
simple user interface. Our project is fully functional and meets all design
specifications. We hope that in the
future our system will be implemented on a ruggedized, portable-PC for
field-testing purposes. The
ultimate use of our system will be to remotely acquire and transmit images from
the sensors known as the “Electric Tongue.”
These sensors are micro-machined beads which change color when exposed to
certain chemicals. After an image
of the sensors is acquired, data is extracted and the image is compared to a
database of previously recorded images. By
comparison, the identity of an unknown chemical can be deduced.
Used in a military setting, these sensors could facilitate early
detection of hostile chemicals.
Documents: