Week 8

We did not have any class during Week 8 and the following two weeks as week 8 had a good Friday public holiday followed with two weeks mid-semester break. However we basically just revised on what we had done up till now including our initial demonstration, stage one demonstration, Gantt Chart to see where we are on the timeline and read the books we had loaned from Simon to read about our processing and outputs.

We decided to read up on logic gates and made up our own basic logic table as to how the system will react to each different scenario shown below.

So, using this table, we are able to get the results we desire.

Week 7

Week 6 included of a lot of research of our inputs and we decided to finally choose, Seat Occupancy Sensor, Seat Belt Sensor and Vehicle Speed Sensor for our project.

1) Seat Belt Sensor - the seat belt sensor works using a Reed Switch which is triggered when the metal tongue side of the buckle is inserted into the main buckle housing, then the sensor and the magnet on the tongue become magnetically isolated by changing the state of contact. This in turn transports the switching or the sensing function. Where as during the disengagement of the seat belt tongue and the buckle housing, the interference no longer exists and the reed sensor contact returns to the reset mode. A .gif format image is shown below of how it works

2) Vehicle Speed Sensor - A Vehicle Speed Sensor is used in many performance enhancing electronic systems in the car such as ABS, Cruise Control and traction control to name a few. More systems in which this used was explained in our demonstration. They're usually gear driven, found on the transmission case or differential assembly and measures transmission output speed. A Vehicle Speed sensor uses components such as 2 hall effect sensors, a rare earth magnet and appropriate evaluation electronics.

Image shown below.

3) Seat Occupancy Sensor - A Seat occupancy sensor consists of a flexible sensor mat which is inserted into the vehicle seat. The mat consists of two sandwiched carrier sheets held together. An increase in pressure on the mat will cause change in electrical resistance which informs the system whether the seat is occupied or not. The occupancy on the seat is only detected for weights higher than the 40kgs, this depends on manufacturer's specifications.

Week 6

This week was all about research, we had to research our inputs and find out more about them. So we had decided to meet up on Monday which is our day off and do that. We found out how the Seat occupancy sensor, vehicle speed sensor and Seat belt sensor all work electrically.

We decided to put it all together in a presentation to demonstrate next week for our stage 1 demonstration. Nothing more than this happened this week as we had to also do our first assignment for Automotive Professional Practice. However, we did meet with Simon and loaned a few books from him to read for home work.

We also made a Gantt Chart to timeline our progress and schedule so we don't miss our deadline as shown below.