Introduction

This document was created to illustrate the building of an environmental sensing module.  Whenever a manufacturer, such as Schneider Electric for example, stores, ships, or repairs a product for a customer, the manufacturer needs to know exactly what happened to the product at all times.  Obviously it would be inefficient to place an employee there to watch a product, so a device would be necessary.  This device would need to monitor the temperature of the product, the humidity within the product and the external forces applied to the product.

Statement of problem

Design of an embedded system for monitoring the temperature, humidity and the external shocks to electronic product during the shipment at Schneider Electric Company is needed.

Scope of the study

The scope of this project will be development of an electronic module that meets the functional requirements.  These requirements are the ability of the sensors to monitor temperature and humidity inside a piece of equipment.  This is necessary to determine if a piece of equipment was shipped inappropriately or if it is being used in an environment that is harmful to the equipment.  The second major requirement is to monitor acceleration to the equipment.  This is necessary to determine if a piece of equipment was dropped, shook, or had excessive forces applied to it.  This is a product that would be useful for shipping goods and monitoring equipment in the field.  

Statement of hypothesis

We believe a field programmable gate array (FPGA) connected to a temperature, humidity (SHT21), and shock sensors (ADXL345) with a USB and serial interface can be achieved using the Altera DE2 board.  The Altera DE2 should be able to fulfill all the specifications to include monitoring all sensors, interfacing with a remote terminal for limited control and troubleshooting.

Definition of terms

Environmental Sensing Module (ESM): The module created in this project

Local Host: A processor based assembly located in the same box as the

Remote Terminal: A remote computer that can connect to the ESM via the

                             intranet or internet.

Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA): An integrated circuit designed to

                                                               be configured by the user.

General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO): Connections to the FPGA that can be

                                                              either an input or an output.

Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (SDRAM): High speed

                                                                                          memory

Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART): A piece of

                                                                                     computer hardware that

                                                                                     translates between parallel

                                                                                     and serial forms.