Using the Website

Project Page

The Project Pages were created in an effort to help promote student projects. The Project Pages provide a showcase where employers, other students, and friends can see what UIUC students are capable of. Many employers, in particular, consider a good Senior Design Project to be just as valuable as internship experience. The Project Pages will develop over time into a valuable library of practical engineering knowledge. Some of the best projects will be identified each semester and placed in the Senior Design "Hall of Fame," while the rest will be accessible by semester and search engine.

Updating Project Information

Once your project has been approved on the discussion board by the Instructor, you should promptly update your project information. In order to do so, find your project on the Project page, and click its title. When a frame expands, click on "Edit." Next, enter your UIUC netid and password. The system will lookup your project and prompt you for information such as your project's title. Please fill in the information that you wish to have appear for your project, and then click on the submit button. The required fields are marked so. You can update this information at any time. We strongly urge you to keep a backup of all of the information, and we would like to caution you of one scenario in particular. If multiple people attempt to edit this information at the same time, the second person to submit the changes will overwrite the first person's changes. Also, be sure to logout when you are done by closing the web browser. It is important that you provide a project desciption. It should be a brief overview of your project and explanation of why it is worth doing. Please provide this information as soon as possible and try to limit the length to about 250 words.

Submit Schedule

After updating your project information, you should proceed to the Submit Schedule page. Here each student should submit his/her schedule so that your TA can schedule a weekly meeting time. We know that there are a lot of boxes to check, but we need this detailed information because of how difficult it is to match schedules. The information is displayed in a convenient way for TAs when it is time for them to schedule meeting times. The system is very intuitive so instructions are not needed. NOTE: Please be sure that the schedule you submit is as accurate as possible, since you won't be able to edit it later!

After submitting your schedule, you should familiarize yourself with the "Upload Files" page.

Uploading Files

This area is used to upload files such as the Proposal, the Final Paper, Images, and additional files. When a file is uploaded, it is renamed and limited to a specified size. Special documents such as Proposals and Final Papers should be uploaded into the appropriate slot and will automatically be added to your Project Page. Images and other files can be uploaded into any other slot such as "file1." To upload a file, simply select which slot to place it in, and then select the file from your computer using the "Browse" button.

Covert Communication Device

Ahmad Abuisneineh, Srivardhan Sajja, Braeden Smith

Covert Communication Device

Featured Project

**Partners (seeking one additional partner)**: Braeden Smith (braeden2), Srivardhan Sajja (sajja3)

**Problem**: We imagine this product would have a primary use in military/law enforcement application -- especially in dangerous, high risk missions. During a house raid or other sensitive mission, maintaining a quiet profile and also having good situational awareness is essential. That mean's that normal two way radios can't work. And alternatives, like in-ear radios act as outside->in communication only and also reduce the ability to hear your surroundings.

**Solution**: We would provide a series of small pocketable devices with long battery that would use LoRa radios to provide a range of 1-5 miles. They would be rechargeable and have a single recessed soft-touch button that would allow someone to find it inside of pockets and tap it easily. The taps would be sent in real-time to all other devices, where they would be translated into silent but noticeable vibrations. (Every device can obviously TX/RX).

Essentially a team could use a set of predetermined signals or even morse code, to quickly and without loss of situational awareness communicate movements/instructions to others who are not within line-of-sight.

The following we would not consider part of the basic requirements for success, but additional goals if we are ahead of schedule:

We could also imagine a base-station which would allow someone using a computer to type simple text that would be sent out as morse code or other predetermined patterns. Additionally this base station would be able to record and monitor the traffic over the LoRa channels (including sender).

**Solutions Components**:

- **Charging and power systems**: the device would have a single USB-C/Microusb port that would connect to charging circuitry for the small Lithium-ion battery (150-500mAh). This USB port would also connect to the MCU. The subsystem would also be responsible to dropping the lion (3.7-4.2V to a stable 3.3V logic level). and providing power to the vibration motor.

- **RF Communications**: we would rely on externally produced RF transceivers that we would integrate into our PCB -- DLP-RFS1280, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16871, https://www.adafruit.com/product/3073, .

-**Vibration**: We would have to research and source durable quiet, vibration motors that might even be adjustable in intensity

- **MCU**: We are likely to use the STM32 series of MCU's. We need it to communicate with the transceiver (probably SPI) and also control the vibration motor (by driving some transistor). The packets that we send would need to be encrypted (probably with AES). We would also need it to communicate to a host computer for programming via the same port.

- **Structural**: For this prototype, we'd imagine that a simple 3d printed case would be appropriate. We'd have to design something small and relatively ergonomic. We would have a single recessed location for the soft-touch button, that'd be easy to find by feel.

**Basic criterion for success:** We have at least two wireless devices that can reliably and quickly transfer button-presses to vibrations on the other device. It should operate at at *least* 1km LOS. It should be programmable + chargeable via USB. It should also be relatively compact in size and quiet to use.

**Additional Success Criterion:** we would have a separate, 3rd device that can stay permanently connected to a computer. It would provide some software that would be able to send and receive from the LoRa radio, especially ASCII -> morse code.