Electronic Pet Door with RFID sensing - 7 - ECE342-W22
Electronic Pet Door with RFID sensing - 7 - ECE342-W22 We created a system designed to allow or restrict access through a medium (e.g. a wall or door) operable by non-human, animate objects. It functions as a secure interface into our out of a household for pets to use at times determined by their owner while also logging the activity of the various pets given access. The system integrates communication between an RFID sensor and an SD card reader over an SPI interface while also connecting to an RTC module over an I2C interface with a microcontroller. A motor controller receives power from a 12v wall-wart and provides power to the entirety of the system. Finally, the system outputs physical indicators with RGB LEDs and a motor lifting the door. The two main areas of improvement in future iterations of this design include the overall size / opening capabilities of the door and the PCB implementation. The physical size of the door was determined before all of the design details were fully defined (and there was not enough time to re-fabricate) so it did not have as much opening capability as was initially intended. In addition, the PCB had some inefficiencies (specifically size for unnecessary components) and errors that were clear once the order arrived, but again there was not enough time to create a second draft and implement it in time.