Project Details
Battelle Laboratories assigned Team 4 the task of using an Android based smart-phone to wirelessly control the Resource Effective Bio-Identification sensor, a product of Battelle. This sensor uses Raman Spectroscopy to determine the chemical composition of the air, sending out an alarm when a potentially harmful chemical is detected. To control this sensor, the smart-phone controller must be able to wirelessly send commands, monitor sensor status, and alert the operator if the sensor detects a problem. Team 4’s approach to this problem is to use an external Radio Frequency transmission technology controlled through the Universal Serial Bus (USB) port on the smart-phone. Currently, there exists no such application of the USB port. This is most likely due to the smart-phone’s plethora of embedded wireless communication technologies, including cellular and Wi-Fi. To understand why Team 4 would want to create yet another form of wireless communication in a smart-phone, one must understand the limitations of the current forms of smart-phone wireless communication.
