Piezo Harvester Based

Automatic Fall Detector

System

Need for Automatic Fall

Detectors
Falls are widespread domestic accidents
among elderly
Serious physical and psychological effects
Statistics show that the majority of serious
consequences are not the direct result of
falling, but rather are due to a delay in
assistance and treatment.
Post-fall consequences can be greatly
reduced if relief personnel can be alerted in
time.

Features of Our system

Comfortable and Non-Obtrusive
device
Can be worn for long durations- User
friendly
Detects falls with greater sensitivity
False alarms are minimized

Power supply module design

Requires a 5V and a 3.3V supplies
5V to power ADXL345 chip
3.3V to power ATmega32 Chip
Both are derived using 9V battery
5V is obtained using 7805 regulator
3.3V is obtained using LM317

Modules Integrated
The iMEMS Accelerometer(ADXL345)
MCU (ATmega328)
Audio Buzzer
Piezoelectric Energy Source (Demo
Grid)

Programmer and programming

software
Programmer is chosen to be Arduino Uno
Cheapest programmer
Communication-USB
Freeware AVR GCC C compiler
Programming Software
Arduino IDE

Configuring ADXL345
(ADXL345 Features A brief Recap)
3-axis accelerometer with digital output
Selectable measurement range 2-g,4g,8-g or 16-g
Resolution up to 13 bits
Fixed sensitivity 4mg/LSB
Programmable interrupt pins
INT1 and INT2 with 8 interrupt
functions
(simplifies algorithm)

Configuring ADXL345
(Interface build up and Interrupt enabling)
Setting up 4-wire SPI communication
Writing appropriate control words into
registers to enable interrupts which can
detect
Free fall
Activity
Inactivity

Configuring ADXL345
(4-wire SPI communication)
The device that controls the system
is called master (Atmega32)
Any peripheral device that
communicates with MCU is slave
(ADXL345)
4-wire SPI operates as full duplex
synchronous link
SCLK should be supplied by master

Configuring ADXL345
(Data and control lines of SPI)
Out of 4 lines
2 are data lines(MOSI,MISO)
1 is a control line(CS)
1 is clock(SCLK)

Proteus Simulation of SPI

Configuring ADXL345
(I2C Communication)

Configuring ADXL345
Setting up SPI(4-wire)
Pin to pin connection for setting up SPI
After physical connection, SPI is enabled in
ADXL345 by writing 0x08 in DATA_FORMAT

Configuring ADXL345
(Setting up I2C)
CS is tied to 5V
Supports standard 100KHz and fast
400KHz data transfer modes
With ALT ADDRESS pin high, 7 bit I2C
address is 0x1D,followed by R/W bit
With ALT ADDRESS pin low, 7 bit I2C
address
is 0x53,followed by R/W bit

Configuring ADXL345
(Writing Appropriate control worlds)
List of registers to be modified to configure
accelerometer to detect fall:
1.THRESH_ACT (Activity Threshold)
2.THRESH_INACT(Inactivity Threshold)
3.TIME_INACT(Inactivity Time)
4.ACT_INACT_CTL (Activity control register)
5.THRESH_FF (Free fall Threshold)
6.TIME_FF (Free fall Time)
7.INT_ENABLE
8.INT_MAP
9.INT_SOURCE

Configuring ADXL345
(Writing Appropriate control worlds)

Fall Detection Algorithm

(Acceleration Change Characteristics
While Falling)

Acceleration change characteristics

for different types of motions

Fall Detection Algorithm

(Acceleration Change Characteristics
While Falling)

Acceleration change characteristics

for accidental fall

Fall Detection Algorithm

(Acceleration Change Characteristics
While Falling)
Four critical characteristics that has to be met for an
event to be asserted as fall
1.Start of fall
Weightlessness (FREE_FALL_INTERRUPT)
2.Impact
Large shock (ACTIVITY INTERRUPT)
3.Aftermath
Motionless(INACTIVITY INTERRUPT)
4.Comparing before and after
Change in orientation
(Difference between Sampling data)

Algorithm Flowchart

Problem that impeded project

progress
Mismatch of rail-to-rail swings between
ADXL345 and ATmega32
ATmega32 and ADXL345 are biased
with 5V power supply designed using
9V battery and IC7805(5V regulator)
Further,ADXL345 chip has on board
3.3V regulator
This Caused rail-to-rail mismatch
which took long time to spot

Energy Harvesting Module

PZT patches arent available for
developing
in-sole energy harvesting module
As proof of concept , using the
available piezo crystals, 1ft*1ft array
is developed.
It has total of about 16 piezo crystals
In each row, the sensors are in series
and each row itself is connected in
parallel with other rows

Energy Harvesting Module

Piezo Harvester Testing

Overall AFD System