The System overweight a high market demand in content marketing Apple introduced seemingly safe function in its new operating system Isis called the beacon.
Now Developers and marketers over the world are starting to realize its true significance. This new technology will change the world. Beacon is essentially a technology that allows smart phones and tablets to take on a whole new level of location awareness. With a low cost transmitter a business can broadcast tiny low energy radio signals to a device that features the beacon in it, therefore allowing the two to talk to each other. L] The Smart Beacon design documented in this report is a prototype of the apple beacon only difference is that this type of beacon uses readily available resources in shops such as the light sources meaning instead of using proximity sensing to detect the shoppers smart phone this prototype uses light detection to detect the beacon it is after then that the communication between the two devices commences.
This is how the Smart Beacon operates: Inside different locations in a shop will be a stationary device called the smart beacon.This device is Just a light source flashing at a specified frequency and that particular frequency is actually the identifier for that beacon, this device also has embedded in it a Bluetooth transmitting module that will be used to establish communication between the user and the beacon itself. When a shopper approaches the vicinity of the beacon a Bluetooth connection is established automatically meaning that for this case the user doesn't have to accept a Bluetooth device plea to communicate because the shopper gives access to the shop for the smart beacon to access his/her phone at the beginning of all shopping agreements.Once the Bluetooth connection has been established the Shoppers smart phone will start detecting for a frequency, an android app that detects frequency will pop up on the screen scanning for a certain frequencies. Once the a beacon frequency has been detected the second screen will pop up welcoming the user to the shop then directing him/her to the shop online website to view more offers and specials. This is demonstrated in figure 1 below.
Figure 1 . Schematic of the system layout for the Android Part[2] 1. . The Problem Statement following is a statement of the project specification: The Smart Beacon Project involves designing and implementing a vice that will be able to communicate with smart phones to send out radio signals to advertise retails shops merchandise to consumers with smart phones. The Smart Beacon has two major parts that is the smart beacon device itself ( A device comprising of a frequency generating circuit and a Bluetooth transmitter) this is in the transmitter side.On the receiving side is an android smart phone any android enabled smart phone with an accessible light detecting sensor embedded in it will suffice to operate as the receiver for this project.
The light detector sensor senses the intensity of the light from the ERG LED from there light information will then be converted to frequency by the frequency detection app developed on android. 1. 3. Project Objectives objectives of this project are to design, develop and implement the following: The Beacon device comprising of a frequency generating circuit and a Bluetooth transmitting circuit .This circuits lights an ERG Led a declared frequency An android application that detects the transmitted frequency then enables the user to go too shop website to view further more offers and specials.
1. 4. The Project Deliverables the end of the project timeline the above mentioned specifications will be delivered all complete and working. 1.
5. Project Breakdown Structure Smart Beacon Project was broken down into multiple minor sections to simplify the research, design and implementation of the project.At the current moment each sections paper design is complete with a few subsection of the project completed . By the deadline of phase 3 all subsections will be integrated to give one completely working prototype. Figure 2.
The Smart Beacon Project Major Breakdown The above block diagram is further broken down into simpler modules consisting of the hardware section and software section as shown in figure 3 below. Figure 3. System Layout in Modular Format 1. 5. 1 System Hardware . 5.
1 a. The Power Supply order to power up the microelectronic a pushily is needed.A simple V Battery regulated down to V by an LM7805CT voltage regulator will be used. The capacitor values used are within the regulators' specification ranges. The capacitor at the input of the regulator supplies current in the event of voltage drop. The capacitors at the outputs supply current to he regulated voltage when there is an urgent demand from the external (supplied) circuit [3].
The schematic of the power supply is shown in Figure 4 below. Figure 4. The Smart Beacon Power Supply 1. 5.
1 b.The Frequency generating circuit. The Smart Beacon Project requires a circuit to transmit an identifier frequency. The frequency chosen should be within the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio frequency bands.
Meaning the Smart Beacon's identifier frequency should be in within 6. 765 MUCH and 246 GHz. For simplicity sake and in order for me to be able to detect the light of an ERG LED, a urgency of 2 kHz was chosen . The circuit below illustrates the basic schematic of the frequency generator circuit designed. Figure 5.Frequency Generating The ERG LED was chosen instead of a normal LED because it will be simpler to detect light if at different intervals of the PAM the ERG LED gives a different light.
The microelectronic chosen for the Smart Beacon Project is the Teammate 8. This microelectronic was chosen because it has Just the adequate number pins needed for the project, Just enough memory lastly the designer is of the Smart Beacon is familiar in programming with Oatmeal microelectronics. At the moment for testing purposes an Arduous programmer is used but will later be removed on the following phase.Figure 6.
2 KHz Pulse width generating circuit to light the ERG LED : 2 KHZ SQUARE WAVE PULSE WIDTH GENERATED 1. 5. 1 c. The Bluetooth Module. The Bluetooth module's sole purpose is to be able to access the shoppers smart phone Smart Beacon Android application without the user granting us access. So as soon as the Bluetooth connection has been established the Frequency Detecting App starts to function immediately.
The schematic of the Bluetooth module connected to the Teammate 8 is shown in Figure 7 below. He LED is Just to show whether a connection has been established between the Bluetooth module and the external device in this case, that is an android phone. When the connection is established the LED blinks. This circuit has been tested and confirmed to work adequately. Figure 7. The Bluetooth Transmitter Circuit.
1. 5. 2 System Software Smart Beacon Software Section is made up of three android sections those are the light detection, frequency conversion which then leads to the welcome screen as shown in Figure 1 of this document.Android devices ere preferred to other devices because they support applications such 1. 5.
2. A. The Frequency Detection Apple order to detect the light an android phone with ambient light sensor is required. Firstly an android application that shows how many sensors in your phone you have has to be downloaded once that app has been installed you can then start detecting light with the light sensor.
The light sensor gives you the intensity of the light and gives the results in Lexes. The intensity of the light will then be converted to frequency So far this section has not yet been done and may be changed.Figure 8. The Light Detection App So far the only completed part of the application is the welcome screen. So the GUI is shown in the figure below. When the link is clicked the store website will pop up and shows the specials of the day.
Figure 9. Screen Shot of the Welcome Screen 2. The Overall Budget The Overall Budget obtained thus far from the purchased modules is tabulated in Table 1 below. Table 1. The Budget for the Smart Beacon Project Modules/Components Estimated Price ( Rand ) microelectronic unit RI 05.
00 xx LCD unit ROUX A Bluetooth module RARE.O casing ROUX Other Minor components ROR Total Total- RARE As estimated in phase 1 the entire system is still financially feasible as it is still in within the given budget constraint of RARE. 3. Conclusion The aim of the project is to design, develop and implement a Smart Beacon . This has to be implemented in more than one device to show that the device can identify different frequencies.
So far the paper design of the smart beacon has been completed and tested, few modules have not yet been tested such as the frequency detection of the Smart Beacon.
