You are on page 1of 13

Final Lab: Optical Signaling Device

Andrew Wilkey

FINAL LAB

Minh Nguyen

WILKEY NGUYEN

1 of 13

Introduction

The goal of this design project was to make an optical signaling device that lights a red LED when one
button is pressed, a green LED when another button is pressed, and to have no light when neither button
is pressed. Design and implementation was left open, provided it met the wireless optical link specification.
For this group, another underlying principle for the design was that of simplicity. Due to the open-ended
nature of this design laboratory, it would be easy to over-indulge and make a highly complex circuit. Instead,
the end results here were chosen in order to make it easier to maintain and test.

Overview

This system can be broken down into two main components, the signal generator and the receiver. The
signal generator provides a control frequency that is transmitted to the receiver. The receiver, then, takes
the signal and filters it, lighting the appropriate LED. It can be likened to a very, very simple version of a
remote control for modern electronic devices.

(a) The Transmitter

(b) The Receiver

Figure 1: Planned Block Diagrams for the Laboratory System


The individual components of this device will now be explained in detail.

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

2 of 13

The Transmitter

The transmitter is a simple circuit. Two oscillators on sufficiently different frequencies are interrupted by
switches. When a switch is depressed, the signal is then transmitted via an IR LED. All op-amps used in
the transmitter are supplied by 9.0 V rail voltages.

3.a

Oscillators
C2

R2

Vfo

R1

R3

C1

R4

Figure 2: Wein-Bridge Oscillator


The Wein-Bridge Oscillator was chosen here due to the simplicity of the design and the overall compactness
of the design, which over-weighed the potential downside of a lack of smoothness in the oscillations, as the
important aspect is the frequency. After some thought, the oscillators were chosen to be set with one at
1kHz and one at 10kHz, as these were sufficient different to be easy distinguish later, but would also make
the maths easier, as it is just a matter of shifting the decimal of the required resistances from one oscillator

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

3 of 13

to get the other.


Oscillator Calculations:
Assumptions:
R = R1

= R2

C = C1 = C2
1kHz:
1
2RC
C.047F

f1k =

1
2R (0.047 108 F
R = 3.386k

1kHz =

letting R = 3.3k
f1k = 1026.14Hz
10kHz:
1
2RC
C = C1 = C2 = .047F
1
10kHz =
2R (0.047 108 F
R = 338.6
f10k =

letting R = 330
f10k = 10261.4Hz

In order to get the Wein-Bridge Oscillator to Oscillate, Gain has to be 3.


Oscillator Gain:
Vout
R3
=1+
Vin
R4
R3
31+
R4
1
R4 R3
2

As any value that satisfies this condition will be valid, we chose R4 to be 1k and R3 to be 2.2k satisfying
the relationship and allowing the circuit to oscillate.

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

4 of 13

3.b

Transmitter

V1k

V10k
Figure 3: Transmitter
If you look at the picture and diagram of the circuit, you will notice that there is an Op-Amp situated near
the transmitter. This was setup in case of a weak signal from the oscillators. It proved to not be needed
for the purposes of this project, so it was set aside during the final stages of the project. The amplifier was
configured as a non-inverting amplifier with a gain of 2.

The Receiver

The receiving section of the device acts as a filter, taking the signal from the receiving photodiode and
filtering it into a DC signal to light an LED. Again, the rail voltages supplied to the op-amps was 9V.
INSERT PICTURE OF FINAL RECEIVER HERE

4.a

Receiver
Vdd

1 M

Vrec
+

Figure 4: Receiver
A fairly self-explanatory circuit, this takes the signal from the photodiode and is positioned to amplify it if
required, A it was undesirable to amplify at this stage if possible, the default configuration at this stage was
to use the opamp as a buffer. Of the various portions of this laboratory, this was by far the hardest to test,
as there was no certainty if all the pieces involved were working properly through cursory inspection. Even
the IR LED of the transmitter could be confirmed visually through a camera.
FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

5 of 13

4.b

Active Band-pass Filters


C2

R2
R1

C1

Vrec

Vff
+

Figure 5: Active Band-pass Filter


A band-pass filter was chosen as it would allow for the most selectivity when it came to determining the
input signal. As there was no specification in general that the circuit have an off state, it would have been
possible to design things so that the signal was fed through a 1 kHz low pass filter and a 10 kHz high pass
filter. Instead, here using a band-pass filter serves two roles. The first creating a unification of design, making
troubleshooting the filters easier, the second making it so that if wanted, a sufficiently narrow bandwidth
could be chosen to allow for additional pass-frequencies, or to allow the state of the system to have both
LEDs off if the received signal wasnt close enough to the desired frequency. For the purposes of determining
the circuit the gain was assumed to be 1. This would provide a small Q value, which in turn would mean
a reasonably wide band-width. This choice was mainly due to the receiver stage and the transmitter stage
being built separately, so a wide band-width made integrating the final assembly easier, as it wasnt too
specialized. The values of the resistors and capacitors were chosen as follows.
Filter Calculations:
assumptions:
C = C1 = C2
1kHz:
AV = 1 = 2Q2
r
r
1
1 R2
fc
Q=
=
=
2
2 R1
BW3dB
Q .70701
R2
=2
R1
1

fc = 1000 =
2 R1 R2 C

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

6 of 13

Solve for R1 , R2 and C:


R1 10k
R2 22k
C = .01F
C = C1 = C2
10kHz:
AV = 1 = 2Q2
r
r
1
1 R2
fc
Q=
=
=
2
2 R1
BW3dB
Q .70701
R2
=2
R1
1

fc = 1000 =
2 R1 R2 C

Solve for R1 , R2 and C:


R1 10k
R2 22k
C = .001F
It is obvious that selection of capacitors and resistors was rounded up to the closets approximation based
on parts on hand, that being said, the filter frequencies used provided to work well with the signals received.

4.c

Emitter
Vff
R

Figure 6: Rectifier and LED


The emitter was required to turn the AC signal coming from the filter into a DC signal the LED can use to
stay lit. In order to light an LED, the signal from the filter has to be a least 2V, though in practice worked
best if the signal was stronger. This circuit had the design requirement that RC > the frequency coming

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

7 of 13

from the filter.


Rectifier Calculations:
1kHz:
R = 10k
C = 1F
10kHz:
R = 10k
C = 100F

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

8 of 13

Schematics
0.047 F

330

330

0.047 F
+

2.2 k

1 k

0.047 F

3.3 k

1 k

3.3 k

0.047 F

2.2 k

1 k

Figure 7: Completed Transmitter

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

9 of 13

0.01 F

22 k
10 k

0.01 F

Vdd

1 M

10 k

1 F

10 k

100 F

0.001 F

22 k
10 k

0.001 F

Figure 8: Completed Receiver

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

10 of 13

Operation

After building and calculating the required values for the components, the device was tested. Following
are the oscilloscope images acquired from testing. If an image has more than one input, channel 1 is the
incoming signal and channel 2 is the outgoing signal.

Figure 9: The Completed Device

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

11 of 13

(a) 10K Oscillator

(b) 1k Oscillator

Figure 10: Testing the Transmitter


The first test was the oscillators, this was a simple test of pressing the switch and observing the output.
As you can see, both oscillators were well near their target frequencies.

(a) 10 kHz Inbound Frequency

(b) 1 kHz Inbound Frequency

Figure 11: Testing the 10kHz Bandpass Filter

(a) 10 kHz Inbound Frequency

(b) 1 kHz Inbound Frequency

Figure 12: Testing the 1kHz Bandpass Filter


The filters were tested next. As you can see, when the frequency is in the range of one filter to pass, the
other one is low enough to not cause an issue with lighting.
FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

12 of 13

Conclusion

The device, after some work, ended up working amazingly well. Unsurprisingly, a large amount of the
design decisions allowed by this project were limited by the components and space available. Yet again, the
photodiode proved to be a temperamental piece, but it was able to be worked around in the end, with the
rest of the system performing well within expected boundaries.

FINAL LAB

WILKEY NGUYEN

13 of 13

You might also like