ECE Day '08 - Team 4: HelioSource (Part 2)

Sunny Reaper Energy Harvesting Unit

Environmental Activists have long been interested in monitoring wildlife along the coastal areas of New England. This interest has spawned the desire to set up a digital video camera sensor network in coastal salt marshes on Nantucket Island. The Sunny Reaper uses solar panels to harvest energy from sunlight and delivers a DC current to the CPU in one of the network cameras. The end product will include a PCB and batteries enclosed in an aluminum enclosure as well as an external solar panel mount. The Sunny Reaper shall charge a battery pack of NiCd batteries with DC current harvested by solar panels and step the current up to 3.3V DC with a DC-DC converter before delivering one of three current values to the camera CPU.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Boston University
• ECE Day 2008
• engineering