IR Safety Monitor

A safety device used for notifying operators when an object has entered a restricted area.

esp32 frequency reading

PURPOSE

As much of industry becomes more automated, heavy machinery and robotics can be found almost anywhere you go whether it be warehouses, manufacturing plants, or even your local grocery stores. This machinery is powerful by design and helps eliminate dangerous jobs previously done by humans. However, this machinery presents its own dangers, as they are typically very powerful and potentially hazardous to individuals nearby when it is operating. The goal of the safety monitoring tool is to allow for easy invisible security walls to be placed anywhere with the power of IR light. This solution allows machine operators to easily set up no-go zones for employees, and quickly alert them if anyone happens to enter the area so proper safety precautions can be taken. The IR safety monitor needs to be fast, reliable, and work in a wide variety of lighting environments to help protect individuals from a dangerous encounter.

Topics

esp32
platformio
signal processing
signal processing
fourier transform
arduino
infrared
hardware
Signal processing flow diagram

Signal Processing to the Rescue!

To achieve high range, stability, and precision, we decided to utilize our ESP32 to do some simple signal processing to analyze the frequency of the IR light our receiver was detecting. Based on the samples collected, we could leverage the fast Fourier transform to quickly detect the frequency and whether that frequency reflected the IR light transmitter frequency.

Connecting to the World!

Thanks to the ESP32’s onboard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module, we can connect to the internet directly from the device and access various APIs to sync the internal clock with the local time, and even send text messages with Twilio to notify operators when a safety event as occurred!

Signal processing flow diagram
View on Github

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