3/30/2005 - Testing phase

  
Last week (03/23/05 – 03/30/05) we were involved in a very important testing procedure trying to make the access point and the tag communicate to one another. We used the test circuit for the RF transceiver and used the mechanical lab as our test environment. By using an oscilloscope we measured the output of the transceiver pin in the access point to see the data transmission. The RSSI on the RF transceiver proved to be very efficient. But the range of communication was limited to about 30 m due to high disturbance caused by the electromagnetic systems that were available in the lab. Also the antenna we had was 3 inches in height which resulted in 80% power loss. Since the data goes high and low in the transmission the RSS out put also fluctuates. We decided to look for a peak detector IC or change the code in a way which would not be affected by this problem. Next week we hope to purchase more stuff and produce 3 more access points and start testing the entire system.


Omar Elsahy:
• Involved in testing
• Worked on the Billing material
• Worked on the validation review

Fernando Souto:
• Helped the test process
• Altered the schematics
• Looked into validation review
• Tested the circuit for communication
• Worked on the RS232 C++ code

Aldwin Saugere:
• Worked on serial port communication between the PC and the Access Points
• Worked on WRNS computation engine
• Worked on the Graphical User Interface

Ajit Gaddam:
• Worked on the software implementation

Anand Mehta:
• Worked on the communication code
• Tested the system for performance

Milinda Wathugala:
• Built the prototype
• Helped the test process

Thanujan Ratnarajah:
• Tested the system
• Researched on the peak detection IC
• Talked to Dr.Kostanic about improving the range
• Looked into antennas with higher gain