CoopX

Enabling Smart Farms for Smart People

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IOT :: Internet of Turkeys?

Motivation

  • 7.53 Billion people share our Planet, and so do they share our resources. With a surge in population bringing an increasing demand on our constrained food resources. Our team decided to develop a solution which would help bring the benefits of IOT into the food industry.
  • Animal Husbandry and Farming was our subject of interest and through CoopX we have developed a solution which leverages the benefits of the Internet of Things and brings value to this industry by helping farmers take better care of the fowl, become more competitive and gain a higher return on investment.

Problem Statement

  • Animal Husbandry is a very competitive industry, with increasing demand and expectations always being ahead of the current state of the art. While animal farmers are always on the watch for newer and effective methods to enhance their yield, the sensitive nature of the animals is what always has been hung on the balance.
  • For Optimal Yield, the birds need to be kept at a well controlled environment through out their breeding and husbandry cycles. Birds require to be kept at a environment condition to be between 70°F to 79°F, and humidity maintained to below 55%.
  • If it gets higher than 80°F, or the humidity levels go up, it can lead to heat exhaustion. Increase in the temperature causes heat stress and disturbs the internal balance of bird’s heat which leads to digestion problems and therefore their health and growth is affected. A farm wide temperature fluctuation causes the whole flock to suffer and visible reduction is yield and increase in the time to market for farmers.

How we Solved it!

CoopX is a modular solution which monitors and conditions the ambiance of any animal coop or enclosure.

CoopX has built in high precision Temperature and Air Quality sensors which continuously monitors a deployed environment. A pre programmed SAMW25 micro-controller implanted on the board has the ability to assess the recorded data from the sensors in real time and decide on its own on when and how well to condition the deployed environment actuating a DC Fan.

The device also has a single band WINC 1500 2.4GHz network controller which enables communication over Wi-Fi for CoopX. Users can now view data from theri device in real time and control the device from an interactive GUI which is accessible from any hand held device or computer.

CoopX powered using a 2500mAh 2S rated Li-Po battery provides upto 139 hours of battery backup doing the job for you from Monday to Friday.

Killer Features

  • Sleek Design and Compact Form Factor
  • Operable from any Hand Held Device connected to the internet
  • Interactive GUI
  • Cloud Connectivity
  • 139 Hours of Battery Backup
  • Highly Portable & Easy to Install
  • Over the Air Firmware Update
  • Command Line Interface for device testing

CoopX TearDown

Logic, Connectivity & Power Train

ATSAMD21G18 : Low-power, high-performance Microchip's ARM® Cortex®-M0+ based flash microcontroller
WINC1500 : Single-band 2.4GHz b/g/n IoT Network Controller
BQ24075RGTRG4 : USB-Friendly Li-Ion Battery Charger and Power-Path Management IC
TPS62060DSGT : Buck Switching Regulator IC Output 1.6A 8WSON
TPS61230DRCR : Boost Switching Regulator IC Output 4A 10-VFDF
FT234XD-R : FT234XD USB to BASIC UART IC

Sensors

LMT84DCKR : Temperature Sensor Analog, Local -50°C ~ 150°C 5.5mV/°C SC-70-5
CCS811B-JOPD500 : Low Power Digital Air Quality Sensor

Actuators & Support

03010SS-05N-AT-00 : Fan Tubeaxial 5VDC Square - H Sleeve 4.2 CFM (0.118m³/min) 3 Wire Leads
DRV8838DSGR : IC Bridge 2 DC Motor Driver PAR 8WSON

Interaction with device

User interface created with NodeRed and hosted on IBM Bluemix cloud allows the user to monitor coop temperature and air quality where the device is placed and the ambient weather condition outside to get an idea of how deviant it is from optimal value. An informative graph lets the user know the datas over a range so that he can get an idea of the readings over a range of time. If necessary, the user can also turn on the fan by the press of a button on the dashboard.

Cloud connection

The device communicates to the cloud over MQTT protocol.
Data Sent to Cloud:

  • Temperature Data : The LMT84 temperature sensor sends temperature readings over time by publishing to a topic.
  • Air Quality Data :The CCS811 gas sensor sends gas readings over time by publishing to a different topic.
  • Firmware Update : Device subscribes to the firmware upgrade trigger from the NodeRed GUI.

What we learnt

  • Prototype board bring up & Product design process
  • Altium Designer as an ECAD tool to allow schematic capture, layout and prototyping for a 4-layer PCB design
  • Fundamentals concepts in hardware design and hardware safety
  • Hardware-software integration
  • Deployment of MQTT, NodeRed and how to interface this with offline firmware

Ooops!! Mishaps in Prototyping

  • Fabricated PCB had several manufacturing flaws
  • Debugger ports were connected incorrectly during schematic design
  • Ferrite bead was not soldered properly during PCB fabrication
  • Component layouts obtained from online publishers had incorrect pin labels

What's next?

  • Use of a much lower powered radio subsystem would be considerable for higher longevity. With commercial solutions to Low Power Wide Area Networks booming, the WINC 1500 controller could be replaced with a lower powered SX1261 LoRa WAN transceiver chipset.
  • Ability for multiple CoopX modules to communicate to the cloud enabling the cloud to actuate a DC motor depending on the data available from various modules can make the device operable on large scale hatcheries and farms.

Built With

  • altium-designer
  • c
  • ibmbluemix
  • mqtt
  • nodered
  • samw25
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