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Focused Dog Alarm — Parallax Forums

Focused Dog Alarm

Prophead100Prophead100 Posts: 192
edited 2013-05-04 08:56 in Robotics
This is minor project but useful. We were having problems with one dog sneaking around and leaving a mess is a specific spot. A ping sensor and BOE solved the problem with a little noise when something stepped into the exclusion zone. The ping worked better than a PIR because it could be refined to allow passage closer and further away to avoid false alarms or discourage them from areas that were ok. So if you problem with the dog jumping on the furniture but you don't want to spook them otherwise this might be a simple solution for you. Basically, one line to a ping and two to a speaker.
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DogAlarm.zip
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Comments

  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2013-04-08 23:42
    Nice project! I always have the problem of not being able to come up with simple but useful ideas like this. Thanks for sharing.
  • varnonvarnon Posts: 184
    edited 2013-04-09 13:02
    Awesome. Great idea.

    What size is the dog? How far away will it detect the dog?
    I'm asking because the smaller (and fluffier) the dog gets, the more difficulty the ping would have. It seems you are only detecting when the dog gets very very close, but I'm curious if you know what kind of reliable detection range you have. I'm sure for big dogs you have almost the maximum range, but I wondered about smaller dogs.
  • Prophead100Prophead100 Posts: 192
    edited 2013-04-09 19:17
    varnon wrote: »
    Awesome. Great idea.

    What size is the dog? How far away will it detect the dog?
    I'm asking because the smaller (and fluffier) the dog gets, the more difficulty the ping would have. It seems you are only detecting when the dog gets very very close, but I'm curious if you know what kind of reliable detection range you have. I'm sure for big dogs you have almost the maximum range, but I wondered about smaller dogs.[/QUOTE

    The secretive trouble maker was a small furry dog, about 10 pounds. I set the distance to 200 cm and it was able to pick up the dog and a cat within the range. You might be able to reach further to about 300 and reliably spot things but the 200 cm seemed to work well with a nice cone of detection within the space I was looking at. I dialed back the distance a little to avoid false hits caused by vertical blinds swinging in the wind. As you can see from the photo, I put the detector on the floor with a slight upward angle so the cone of detection which gets bigger over distance roughly parallels the floor on one side.
  • varnonvarnon Posts: 184
    edited 2013-04-16 19:54
    Cool. Thanks for the additional information.

    Apparently PIR sensors work pretty well too, if you constrain the sensor's detection range. (I haven't tried it yet, I have a PIR sensor in a bin somewhere, I'll get to it later.)

    See this cat deterrent apparatus:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbkLjjlMV8&feature=youtu.be
  • NikosGNikosG Posts: 705
    edited 2013-04-28 23:05
    Nice project Prophead100!

    I faced a similar challenge (to protect my property for an invador) and from my tests I realized that a very good choice of sensor (for focused and small distance detection) is the IR Transmitter Assembly Kit in conjunction with the Infrared Receiver
    This solution is efficient in order to detect a moving object with distance 1-70 cm from the sensor. In my opinion the best advantage of the IR comparing the PING sensor is the low power consuption, that is very important for a remote alarm system.

    However is my case I must detect a thief from a remore place on my parent's farm in a large area (more details are coming soon) so I used the PIR sensors.
  • Mike4421Mike4421 Posts: 131
    edited 2013-05-01 14:25
    Nice work, I'm also working on an remote data logger for wild animals too. I'm getting piece by piece the parts that I need... eventually I want a setup that can have two micros, one for monitoring, the other to receive the data wirelessly (Bluetooth; pass code) time chip, external dip eepromm.... Its getting there...
  • Mike4421Mike4421 Posts: 131
    edited 2013-05-02 12:17
    When I'm done with mine, I'm not going to sell or post the project. I believe society is still too imature for some devices and technology in our age....
  • Prophead100Prophead100 Posts: 192
    edited 2013-05-02 18:13
    Mike4421 wrote: »
    Nice work, I'm also working on an remote data logger for wild animals too. I'm getting piece by piece the parts that I need... eventually I want a setup that can have two micros, one for monitoring, the other to receive the data wirelessly (Bluetooth; pass code) time chip, external dip eepromm.... Its getting there...

    For wild animals, you may want to look at the frequencies they hear before choosing an ultrasonic. Some wildlife like bats can hear the 40K signal.
  • Prophead100Prophead100 Posts: 192
    edited 2013-05-02 18:13
    Mike4421 wrote: »
    Nice work, I'm also working on an remote data logger for wild animals too. I'm getting piece by piece the parts that I need... eventually I want a setup that can have two micros, one for monitoring, the other to receive the data wirelessly (Bluetooth; pass code) time chip, external dip eepromm.... Its getting there...

    For wild animals, you may want to look at the frequencies they hear before choosing an ultrasonic. Some wildlife like bats can hear the 40K signal.
  • KeithEKeithE Posts: 957
    edited 2013-05-04 08:56
    I made a dog alarm for my mom a while back out of a PIR sensor and Propeller Demo board. It just used Kye's software to play back a wav file from an SD card when the PIR triggered. It was very effective for keeping a black lab out of mischief in the kitchen when my mom was out or asleep. I'm not sure that it would work for all breeds. I wanted to get my demo board back, so substituted one of those Radio Shack recording modules for the prop, and put the thing in a plastic enclosure.
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