Tricorder
prof_braino
Posts: 4,313
Tricorder
In the Android phone bridge to microcontroller thread http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?130380-Android-Debug-Bridge-on-a-prop&p=1024086&viewfull=1#post1024086
The result is featured in a video from NASA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKszVbnOOb4
Scientific datalogging application for Photo density sensor, humidity sensor. Log to phone, or transmit on the fly over phone network.
The NASA scientists talk about using an Android phone as a "Tricorder" at time 2:00
OK, now I want one.
What are the requirements for a tricorder, and how much of this can we get?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorder "a tricorder is a multifunction handheld device used for sensor scanning, data analysis, and recording data."
The video shows how the propbridge+android phone can be used for sensor scanning and data recording. The prop and the android phone can also be used for some data analysis, but the Android phone can also permit communications to another computer in cases where heavy number crunching is required.
Android phone:
Display: Display, keyboard, storage, external communication and some data processing are supplied by a Standard Android phone.
Prop:
The prop provides interface to the sensors, some data processing, and interface to the Android phone.
Prop sensors
GPS:
- Lat, Long, elevation, time
- positional logging
Compass:
- Earth Orientation
- magnetic field orientation and strength?
Absolute Pressure sensor
- Barometer/Altimeter
Thermometer:
- ambient temperature
Hydrometer:
- relative humidity
Acceleromter:
- device orientation
Gyroscope:
- change in orientation
Realtime Clock:
- time when GPS data is not available
- calendar event trigger
- battery power monitor and charging control
- timestamps for data records
Any thoughts?
In the Android phone bridge to microcontroller thread http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?130380-Android-Debug-Bridge-on-a-prop&p=1024086&viewfull=1#post1024086
The result is featured in a video from NASA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKszVbnOOb4
Scientific datalogging application for Photo density sensor, humidity sensor. Log to phone, or transmit on the fly over phone network.
The NASA scientists talk about using an Android phone as a "Tricorder" at time 2:00
OK, now I want one.
What are the requirements for a tricorder, and how much of this can we get?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorder "a tricorder is a multifunction handheld device used for sensor scanning, data analysis, and recording data."
The video shows how the propbridge+android phone can be used for sensor scanning and data recording. The prop and the android phone can also be used for some data analysis, but the Android phone can also permit communications to another computer in cases where heavy number crunching is required.
Android phone:
Display: Display, keyboard, storage, external communication and some data processing are supplied by a Standard Android phone.
Prop:
The prop provides interface to the sensors, some data processing, and interface to the Android phone.
Prop sensors
GPS:
- Lat, Long, elevation, time
- positional logging
Compass:
- Earth Orientation
- magnetic field orientation and strength?
Absolute Pressure sensor
- Barometer/Altimeter
Thermometer:
- ambient temperature
Hydrometer:
- relative humidity
Acceleromter:
- device orientation
Gyroscope:
- change in orientation
Realtime Clock:
- time when GPS data is not available
- calendar event trigger
- battery power monitor and charging control
- timestamps for data records
Any thoughts?
Comments
Ability to survive multiple 5' drops to concrete surface and survive.
Ability to hookup a ruggedized pc keyboard, something that normal people could use in field conditions.
1) Gas Spectrometer like the HAZMAT people and those in industrial sites use.
Like:
http://www.photovac.com/Voyager.aspx
Though I don't think something like that is possible with a Prop and would be very expensive. But it would be neat.
2) EMF field detector - not the cheap kind either.
3) Temperature analyzer - can use up to J Thermocouple.(2282 degrees)
What about letting the phone carry the duties of battery/charging monitoring? With perhaps a additional/backup battery/solar as power in on the 5v USB for "charging".
Of course, to the general list of capabilities add:
- voltmeter
- ammeter
- capacitance meter
- simple o'scope
- logic analyzer
- frequency generator
- audio filtering
These Tricorders were around in the 1960's on Star Trek. It's nothing new. Like talking computers, black holes, matter - antimatter, phaser stun gun, robot androids, hypospray, tractor beams, torpedo space coffins, transparent aluminum, space travel, robotic probes, hospital bed scanners, communicators, language translators, Geordi's Visor, telepresence, and alien life, it's all come true.
You forgot to add the PING))) for invisible ranging and night vision.
Sensors: Acceleration, Gravity, Magnetometer, Acoustic, Geolocation, and a couple more I'm not sure of. Obviosly the accuracy is limited to the accuracy of the Android device sensors. The magnetometer is OK as a compass, but the Tricorder can just barely detect a nearby metallic plate (iron), for example, and I'm not sure about the Gravity part.. that may just be fake. Accellerometers are good, of course. Acoustic sensor looks great, lots of curves. Geolocation OK of course.
And most importantly, it's got great Tricorder sounds when doing its scanning&probing.
-Tor
How would you go about doing these? (the others just a matter of buying the parts so they do not seem to be a big deal)
Some phones could provide some of those functions, and of course the prop is always flexible via softare. My thought is that "GPS" on a phone is not usually "GPS" usig satelites, its often triangulation from the cell towers and is not necessarily as accurate as satelite. Of course, both together could be more accurate than either, if the ground points are used as additional references.
These are j very good suggestions. Initially, I'm thinking of the minimum modification to the phone, that is, a software app and a hardware cable. Any functions not avaiable on the phone are provided by the prop, and since I don't have anybody to program the phone as yet, I'll assume the prop provides functionality until otherwise.
Incidentally, I already have logic anayzer in softwareware, PhiPi has just posted audio filter, and frequency generator is well established, so we are well on our way with these.
Three primary variants of the tricorder are issued in Star Trek's Starfleet. The standard tricorder is a general-purpose device used primarily to scout unfamiliar areas, make detailed examination of living things, and record and review technical data. The medical tricorder is used by doctors to help diagnose diseases and collect bodily information about a patient; the key difference between this and a standard tricorder is a detachable hand-held high-resolution scanner stored in a compartment of the tricorder when not in use. The engineering tricorder is fine-tuned for starship engineering purposes. There are also many other lesser-used varieties of special use tricorders. The word "tricorder" is a portmanteau of "tri-" and "recorder", referring to the device's three default scanning functions: GEO (geological), MET (meteorological), and BIO (biological).[1]
I never new it was GEO, MET and BIO....I did know it was bad to be an unknown red shirted crewman with a tricorder on an away team!
Now that we have that settled, discussion can continue on a proper track!
Yes I had the tricorder software on my palm pilot. Of course a TV show prop is an option, but this is not the goal of this thread.
I am looking to see how much of a real tricorder function could be achieved with current technology.
This depends on what actual sensors exist, and establishing interfaces to the propellor chip.
This main difference with this idea is that the wireless phone allow immediate connection to a more powerful "Number Crumcher" PC or workstation, so the handheld portion only has to worry about handling the sensors and sending the data. The phone also provide display and user intface services.
This, I think, is a new idea that could have uses.
I don't particularly mind if XMOS and Arduino parts are involved, it is unwise to limit the hardware at this point. Presently I'm thinking about what FUNCTIONS are possible, these will determine the hardware. I have a gut feeling the prop might be used, but at this point hardware is not final.
On TV, they have three main types. But we don't have a base unit yet, so I'm thinking about what the base unit would be. Mostly I'm trying to get a list of sensors that would be candidates, and them try to determine what can be done with the set of data that would be collected. We have no sub-space detectors, so thats not on the list. We DO have absolute pressure sensor, temperature, and elevation, so we could do a meterological weather prediction like those home weather stations do. We don't have any sensor that can "scan for alien lifeforms" but we do have the Xband motion detector that can see through walls.
For example, the extreme case would be is we were to use the Xband motion detector to detect motion through walls, and use positional and orientation data to build an image of the moving object on the other side o the wall (maybe by crunching the data on a PC, and feeding the results into Autocad or such). However, I would do some of the simpler cases first.
You're heading down the right road. Provide hardware/firmware for attached local sensors to interface to your phone to handle the interface to the physical world. WIth that, you can truly go from inserting a groiund probe into the soil for example to measure moisture, etc. sense local air temperature and humidty and bundle it all together to send off to a remote location (via best available data link) for processing and posting.
Due to the difficulty Apple offers to developers (especially those wanting to attach hardware to an iSomething, the android based platforms (phones and tablets) are a better bet for the Hackerverse (Prophead) version of a tricorder. Android apps are more easily developed and distributed and there really aren't hardware police controlling what you connect (or heaven forbid try to market to connect) to your device.
Being a phoptographer, I can think of ambient light, light color and then related processing issues related to these as things (exposure, HDR setup, flash setup, etc.) I'd want my Tricorder to do for me.
(I wasn't serious about the hardware limitations/restirctions, I'm hardware agnostic!)
The android tricorder makes use of all of the phones abilities, and has solar activity updates, Wi-Fi sensor, cool stuff. I already think of my smartphone as a modern day tricorder though, with what it can do....only things left is materials sensor and biometrics data.
Do we need an android specialist fo join in, or is it straight forward enough for a hobbyist?
As always, I am more toward requirements and documentation, and prefer to leave coding to the experts.
Just take a hint from the iPhone enclosure and methods of manufacturing. Manufacturing by Apple has that part mastered.
I have a drawer with broken iPhones that says Apple more manufacturing to master. For example, the iPhone is designed to fix in a pocket. The components are necessarily tightly packed, and usually don't move around much. But the case is very hard, and without a protective cover (I have silicon) only a few short drops will provide enough shock to break something critical, rendering it useless.
In high school, we did an experiement in packaging, involving dropping raw eggs off a building. About 30% of the class was able to package their egg in a shoe box such that it withstood a drop off a 3 story building. A shoe box won't fix in your pocket; a tricorder cna be big and hang off your belt.
In order to survive multiple 5' drops, the item must be designed to survive multiple 50' drops. This is what I'm looking for. Something beyond bubble wrap in a shoebox (this is already the "fallback" design if we don't come up with something nice).
Also, I'd like more detail on EMF field detector cheap or otherwise. I thought a discrete detector was needed for each band on EMF radiation (radio, light, X-rays, gamma rays, etc) Is there a single detector that can respond to any EMF?