EEL 4924 Electrical Engineering Design (Senior Design) Preliminary Design Report 2 February 2012 Remote Fencing Scoreboard Gator FenceBox Team Members: Adrian Montero Team Antero Alexander Quintero Project Abstract: The scope of this project is to build a sophisticated fencing scoring machine that can be remotely controlled using a Smartphone. In the sport of fencing, there are three main weapons: Épée, Foil, and Saber. Each weapon works differently and has unique timing rules for scoring that must be programmed into the microcontroller. Four sets of LED blocks will be designed to notify in realtime the sensing of electric contact between fencers. Additionally, the scoring machine will have seven 7-segment LEDs to implement a remotely controlled programmable clock and scoring board. A Bluetooth IC will be interfaced with the microcontroller to receive commands from a remote Smartphone application. Some of the commands will include the selection of weapons, speaker volume control, clock programming, and score keeping control.
Table of Contents: Project Features..3 Components 4-5 Technology Selection.7-8 Distribution of Labor..9 Projected Timeline..9 List of Figures: Figure 1 Scoreboard feature overview.3 Figure 2 Basic block diagram..4 Figure 3 Detailed block diagram.5 Figure 3 MSP430 and Bluetooth module.7 Figure 5 PAN1325 easy-to-use development board 7 Figure 6 Gantt chart.9 List of Tables: Table 1 Distribution of labor 9
Project Features Motivation for this project came from the lack of scoring equipment at the University of Florida Fencing Team as well as the desire to build a scoring system of such complexity at a price much lower than commercial prices, which range from $500-$1000. The goal of this project is to build a sophisticated, user-friendly scoring system from scratch that can be used in an actual fencing match to accurately take score and maintain order throughout the match. Features of this module include: Accurately keeping score of both competitors A total of four LED blocks to signal an event o Two LED blocks (Green/Red) will signify electrical contact between two fencers o Two LED blocks (Yellow) will signify (depending on weapon selection) a touch off target or unconnected weapons A buzzer to sound in conjunction with the lighting of a Green/Red LED block to notify that contact has been made Timer display to count down duration of the round 7-segment LED blocks to display score for each competitor Remote access from a Smartphone application for power ON/OFF, system reset, volume control, weapon select, clock manipulation, score control, etc Mobile application to provide an easy to use interface for Bluetooth remote control Figure 1 - Scoreboard feature overview
Components In this section, we present the components that will be used to put together our system. Figure 2 illustrates a simple block diagram of the system. Figure 2 Basic System Block Diagram Voltage Regulators (analog) The design requires three different voltage levels, 12V for powering LEDs, 5V for CPLDs, and 3.3V for MCU. The latter will require the use of two voltage regulators to provide the stable voltage levels of 5V and 3.3V from the 12V DC supply. LED Blocks (analog) This component will contain four LED blocks, each of which will be composed of four columns of 4 LEDs of the corresponding color connected in series. The LED blocks will be fed with a 12V power supply for optimal brightness. Additionally, NMOS transistors will be used as switches in order to allow for signals from the microcontroller to control the LED blocks. Buzzer (analog) The buzzer component will consist of a DAC that will interface to the microcontroller through SPI. An audio amplifier will then amplify the analog signal coming from the DAC and output this newly amplified signal to a speaker.
Score Display (digital/analog) This component will consist of a total of four large 7-segment LED displays. These displays will be updated by the microcontroller. CPLDs will be used to implement the logic required by the individual digits of each 7-segment LED. Clock Display (digital/analog) The clock display component consists of three 7-segment LED displays. These displays will either be controlled by the microcontroller timers or by timer ICs. Bluetooth Interface (digital) This component takes into account the interfacing of the microcontroller to a Smartphone for remote access to the scoreboard. Also included in this component is a user application that must be created on the Smartphone for option-selection of the scoreboard. CPLDs (digital) Several CPLDs are needed to support the number of I/O ports required by this design. The logic inside the CPLD will be composed of decoders and registers for 7-segments LEDs used as scoreboard and timer. Microcontroller (digital) During regular system operation, the microcontroller will operate autonomously by continuously polling for a signal that lets the microcontroller know that contact between competitors has been made. If alerted of contact, the microcontroller will control the LED blocks and buzzer. The microcontroller is also continuously updating the clock display. When the Smartphone sends a request via the Bluetooth interface, the microcontroller will process the request and, depending on the option selected, will either update the score display, update the clock display, increase or decrease the volume of the buzzer, reset all components, or shut the scoreboard down. Smartphone Application (software) A mobile application provides an easy to use interface that in conjunction with the Bluetooth interface is used to control various features of the remote fencing scoreboard. The mobile app will allow a referee to remotely keep the score of a particular bout, reset and program the timer, speaker volume control, weapon selection and timeout settings. Refer to Figure 3 in the next page for a more detailed block diagram of the overall design.
A total of 4 LED blocks Code Select 4 bits 3 bits Register Select MSP430BT5190 Weapon Select Volume Control Power On/Off 2x CPLDs SP I 28 pins UART T D/A Audio Amplifier PAN1325 Figure 3 Detailed block diagram
Technology Selection The main challenge in the design of this project is the selection of an MCU and Bluetooth interface that would allows us to communicate with a Smartphone. The TI MSP430 + CC2560 Bluetooth platform stands out as a perfect solution for our design. The CC2560-PAN1325 module offers a fully qualified Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR module with a data rate of up to 2.1 Mbps. The CC2560-PAN1325 integrates with TI s ultra-low power MSP430 microcontroller. The MSP430BT5190 comes pre-integrated with Bluetooth software stack. Figure 3 below shows hardware connections: Figure 4 MSP430 and CC2460-PAN1325 Bluetooth module The development of Bluetooth communication can be made easily using the MSP430F5438 Experimenter Boards along with the PAN1315 easy-to-use development board. Once the development stage is finalized, a customized PCB can be implemented to integrate the MSP430BT5190 microcontroller with the CC2560-PAN1325 Bluetooth module. Figure 5 PAN1315ETU A second major concern for our design is how we are going to accommodate the number of I/O ports required by all 7-segment LEDs. We have decided to use two CPLDs, each to control and
implement the logic for each fencer scoreboard (2x 7-segment LEDs). The timer, on the other hand, will be driven by the MCU using multiplexing of outputs which will require a minimum of 10 pins to drive 3x 7-segment LEDs. The use of CPLDs decreases the programming and performance burden of multiplexing all of the 7-segment LEDs.
Distribution of Labor Adrian Montero Alexander Quintero Preliminary Research 50 50 Scoreboard Design 70 30 Scoreboard PCB 30 70 Scoreboard Test and Debug 30 70 Bluetooth Integration 70 30 Bluetooth Test and Debug 30 70 Mobile Application 50 50 Table 1 Distribution of Labor Projected Timeline Figure 6 Gantt chart