Jaipur leg Improvements

In developing countries where people can't afford artificial legs,Jaipur foot is just like a miracle. I hope you have heard about Jaipur Foot.If not you can read about it here.The Jaipur Leg is a rubber-based prosthetic leg for people with below-knee amputations, produced under the guidance of Dr. P. K . Sethi by Masterji Ram Chander in 1969.The Jaipur Foot is an easy to manufacture prosthetic foot that gives patients the ability to do many things that they could do with an actual foot (running, climbing, etc). It has been extraordinary achievement for country like India where more than 30 Percent of population still earns less than 1 dollar a day.It costs around $45 and more than 17000 get this leg every year.

Our Objective:

Though NGO who build Jaipur foot is doing extraordinary research work to improve Jaipur foot but still their is large scope for improvement.


Number of things on which we can work on:

1. It Lacks Toe Support
2. It is heavy(Around 800 g)
3. Material used is not long lasting.

This project idea is for mechanical engineering students.Moreover, many researchers around the world has been already working on it since many years. I will discuss some projects related to it with you:

1. SHAPE and ROLL: COSMETIC SHELL (By Parhys L. Napier and Nicholas Torgerson) :This project objective was to create cosmetic cover to coat the Shape & Roll prosthetic foot
2. History of Jaipur foot
3.Accessing the impact of Jaipur foot organization in India

Project Video:

Related Video:

Waste Management Machine

As every year passes, the concern over waste increases steadily.Based on incomplete reports from its parties, the Basel Convention estimated 338 million tonnes of waste was generated in 2001.Though, above mentioned estimate is not officially correct but it gives us idea that how much waste we produce each year.

We all know about conditions near the waste sites and dumps, due to these difficult conditions,it is not always possible for humans to do all tasks(collection, transport, processing or disposal, managing and monitoring of waste materials ) involved in Waste Management.


Our Objective:

To build an autonomous robot who can navigate himself through a messy environment, avoid obstacles, search for various kinds of recyclables, sort the recyclable, and store the recyclable by its classification.

Hardware Requirements:

• Atmel AVR ATMega 128 general-purpose microprocessor:It is a low-power CMOS 8-bit microcontroller based on the AVR enhanced RISC architecture.
• We will need 6 pieces of switches, 8-bit port headers and special servo headers. 
• 1 LCD header, an RS232 header
• An ADC header and 
•  JTAG port for programming: Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) is the common name for what was later standardized as the IEEE 1149.1 Standard Test Access Port and Boundary-Scan Architecture. 

We will also need to build a system so that our robot can move, recognize important things from junk and able to collect them. You will find complete details of this project in a report given below useful links.

Useful Links:
Tony Soprano "Waste Managment"


Related Video:


Related Projects:

Waste Management Systems
Tiny Bio Gas Generator
Robotics

Joystick control car drive mechanism for physically challenged people

We often see that, persons with disability needs to use mobility car.Mobility Car is a vehicle issued to a disabled person, to allow them to travel without burden of their disability. Mobility cars are obtained from a scheme called "Motability". But this car too not come with some preconditions and these conditions are difficult to met for severely disabled person.Moreover, driving a car is always difficult for a person with having control distributed all over.

This project is for engineering students and would be extremely useful for people who are impair the physical abilities

Our objective:
We want to build a car which can be operated by using joystick. If we can build that, it would be great help for disabled persons.

Why we need this type of system?

Existing system in the market are modified to allow the physically disabled to drive but it still needs lots of improvements.


How to build one?

The Vehicle works in two modes:
1) Joystick:- A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. We will take input from user through a joystick and then process it to produce servo commands via a Arduino Board.
2) Autonomous driving in constrained environment: Using input from Kinect sensor.Kinect is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console and Windows PCs to obtain depth image and process the frames in real-time.To perform depth based blob detection combining it with vision based blob tracking to perform a robust obstacle detection. The technique involves using a slice of depth image for detecting obstacles and then finding path taking in view the maximum steering angle, width of the vehicle, turning radius etc.

System Requirements:
Languages Used: python 2.5,autonomous module is built in c# and uses emgucv
Softwares: Aforge image processing libraries and Microsoft Kinect SDK 1.0
Hardware includes - Standard Laptop (Intel core i5-2410M @ 2.30 GHZ, 4GB RAM), Joystick, Kinect Sensor, Arduino Uno Microcontroller, Servo, UPS, Battery, servo motors, h-bridges and wireless transmitter and receiver(Fail safe) .
The vehicle also has a fail-safe mechanism that is used to control vehicle in emergency using a wireless remote.

Related PDF:
Joystick controlled Cars

Related Video:

Produce Fuel using Solar Energy

Scientists around the world are working towards the goal of developing technologies to harness energy from the sun to produce fuels for transport, industry and electricity generation. Fuels produced using solar energy would transform our future energy options by providing an alternative to fossil fuels.Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar energy technologies include solar heating, solar photovoltaics, solar thermal electricity and solar architecture, which can make considerable contributions to solving some of the most urgent problems the world now faces.We all know about the ever growing energy needs of our world.

 If we can use it to produce fuel , it would be milestone for us and for our future generation. Many researches around the world are working on this project.


Our Objective:

To produce synthetic gas which can be used with our currently available infrastructure.This project should have the potential not only to be completely renewable, but to produce a minimal carbon footprint.

Concept:
It can be done using process known as a two-step solar thermochemical cycle, which involves using concentrated sunlight to heat a metal oxide and split it into metal and oxygen.  The resulting metal is then reacted with carbon dioxide and water, producing carbon monoxide and hydrogen, or synthesis gas, which can be used to make diesel fuel and other synthetic fuels.

Procedure:


The process begins with a solar simulator in the form of seven mirrored, 6,500-watt lamps that concentrate the light on a 10-centimeter spot with an irradiance of 3,000 suns. With this concentrated radiant energy, one can generate temperatures of more than 3,600 F in a chemical reactor. There, carbon dioxide and water are split to form carbon monoxide and hydrogen, the two components of synthetic gas.The key to the technology rests with oxides of two metals: zinc and cerium which allow us to split water and carbon dioxide at temperatures achievable with modern solar concentrating devices.

Useful Link:

University of Minnesota 

Related Video:

Solar Powered automatic rain operated wiper

We have discussed many projects related to solar energy and we are going to discuss many more in next few months.In this post we will see how we can use sun light in automobile.  

Though this project has been implemented by many companies, it would be great to build one for yourself in a lab or as your final year project.When I was thinking about this project , I thought it would be great if we can build it as a extension of rain sensor wipers project idea. 

It is very easy to build and needs very few components. Rain Operated Motor consists of conduction sensor(Tough Sensor) circuit, Control Unit, Wiper Motor and Glass Frame.

Concept:

We all know that wipers need electricity to move and this electricity has been supplied by battery inside a car. So, to move wiper using solar power, you just need to supply electricity to this battery or some smaller battery(if you want independent system) using solar panels.

Older System

Wipers <-----Battery<-----Car Engine

Solar Powered Wipers

Wipers<-----Battery<-------Solar Panels<-----Sun Light

To optimize performance , you can use rain sensor wiper as shown in this video:

Related Projects:
Mechanical
Physics
Solar Energy