Smart Safety Band
University of Central Florida Senior Design
Spring & Summer 2017
Overview.
The Smart Safety Band provides a non-subscription solution to people with a high risk of falling who want trusted family or friends come to their aid instead of strangers in the medical field.
Sometimes when people fall, they cannot get back up on their own. But that doesn't mean it is necessary to have an EMT or firefighter come to the rescue--services currently provided by similar devices. Instead, the Smart Safety Band gives the wearer the freedom to set their own trusted Emergency Contact using their smartphone, and they don't have to pay a subscription fee to use the system.
Peace of mind on your wrist. All while doubling as a watch and heart rate monitor.
Motivation.
Our project was inspired by Dr. Lei Wei, smart health and emergency devices already existing in the market, and personal events.
While the team was finalizing their design concept at the beginning of Senior Design I, team member Melissa Wetzel's grandfather fell at home and needed another family member to come to his home to help him get up off the floor. Luckily, his wife was home and was able to make the phone call. He did not need formal emergency services, like what LifeAlert offers, but he did need someone he knows and trusts to come help him. What could have happened if he was alone at home, on the floor, and could not reach a phone?
The team wanted their device to provide a solution to this scenario, specifically for elderly people who find it difficult to use complex technology. The team would design an easy-to-use Smart Safety Band that someone like Melissa's grandfather would remember how to use while in a panic after falling. For the device to be reliable it would have to provide the user the option to send an alert manually by their own choosing, but it would also need to have the ability to send alerts automatically when an impact is detected in case the person was knocked unconscious and they couldn't manually send the alert.
The Team.
We are Senior Design Group 15 from the Class of Summer 2017!
The Smart Safety Band was developed to demonstrate our ability to apply skills learned as undergraduate engineering students at the University of Central Florida. With two electrical engineers, one computer engineer, and one photonics engineer, it was imperative that the project include our own custom PCB design, as well as a demonstration of our hardware design, software design, and photonics design.
Our team of Senior Engineering Students consists of::
Melissa Wetzel
Computer Engineering
Melissa Wetzel is a Computer Engineering major at UCF. Melissa’s primary contributions to the Smart Safety Band include all of the software that was written specific to the function of the device and application, as well as performing general tests of the hardware related to the microcontroller and the various components that the program must be able to interact with. Additionally, Melissa was greatly inspired to build such a device as the Smart Safety Band by her grandfather. More can be read about this in the conference paper and final documentation.
This is Melissa’s first microcontroller-related project, as well as her first time being involved with designing a PCB for a microcontroller and other hardware components. Her only previous experience working directly with microcontrollers comes from the coursework she completed for her Embedded Systems labs at UCF. Melissa aspires to build her skills in hardware-related projects, enabling her to bring her ideas to life with programming.
Jack Fenton
Electrical Engineering
Jack Fenton is an Electrical engineering major, specializing in communications along with filter design. The main contribution to the project was the Bluetooth Module that provided the wireless communication needed for the smart band. Along with this, the contributions were helping troubleshoot all other modules when obstacles appeared such as helping with the analog filter for the heart rate monitor and helping with any other parts of the project. Most of the experience used on this project was gained through UCF labs assigned in the normal course path along with some extracurricular hobby pursuits with small electronics. Main hobbies include chess and electronics, where critical thinking is applied to solve problems of all sorts.
Jesus Marcano
Electrical Engineering
Jesus Marcano is an Electrical engineering major at UCF, originally from Venezuela. My main role in the project was to design the power systems for the smart safety band, while also designing and assembling the final PCB along with the rest of the modules my colleagues worked on. Finally, my last main task was to supervise the hardware specifications, as well as the final connections between the different components. Most of my electronics knowledge and experience (little as they are) I owe them to the electronics labs at UCF and to the extensive online resources that have helped me improve on my knowledge in order to advance my own personal projects. My main hobby is to design audio amplifiers and power supplies with cheap electronics. Also, I enjoy drawing models with various CAD tools in order to 3D print them.
Anthony Riggins
Photonics Engineeri
Anthony Riggins received the B.S. degree in physics and applied mathematics from University of New Mexico, in 2003 and is a B.P.S. degree candidate in optical engineering at University of Central Florida, in 2017. He has worked both in the condensed matter physics group at UNM and in the compressible fluid dynamics division at Sandia National Laboratories as an undergraduate researcher during his time at the University of New Mexico. He joined the US Army’s Military Intelligence group as a Cryptolinguistic Intelligence Analyst specializing in the Afghan national language, Pashto.
After the military, he joined CREOL as a 2nd Bachelor’s degree seeking student. He most recently worked as an undergraduate researcher at CREOL on a Lockheed Martin contract handling Chalcogenide fiber and has accepted a job with Harris Engineering.