Development of hardware and software for acquiring and processing environmental data using smartphones - DAPMED

• Grant number: 20/09684-3
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: June 01, 2021
• End date: February 28, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering - Electrical, Magnetic and Electronic Measurements, Instrumentation
• Principal Investigator: Fabiano Banhi
• Grantee: Fabiano Banhi
• CNAE: Fabricação de aparelhos e equipamentos de medida, teste e controle
• Associated researchers: Enelton Fagnani

Abstract

One of the objectives sought by technological evolution has always been to optimize human activities in order to achieve more, better and faster. In many situations, this movement ends up making a series of services and products more accessible to the general population. In the chemical analysis segment, such as water supply or effluent treatment, this is also a reality. Technology has evolved and greatly contributes to the optimization of these activities. However, what we find available today are, in general, expensive, large products, with expensive and complex operation and maintenance, and very specific: a product to perform each task. Another point is the fact that, many times, products of a certain type or manufacturer are not possible to be exchanged with other manufacturers, making the user feel "stuck" to a brand or product line, preventing the expansion of their product. range of work, for example. On the other hand, electronic technology has evolved remarkably in recent years, mainly towards the miniaturization of components and their optimization of energy consumption. This allowed, for example, to have in our pockets a device with a very powerful data processing capacity and long battery autonomy, not to mention its ability to connect to the internet: the smartphone. This project aims to put into practice and materialize the concept of "laboratory in the palm of the hand": allowing the user to carry out chemical analyzes in the field, in a simple and optimized way, with low cost and simplicity of operation, in addition to allowing its instantaneous transmission, adding complementary information important, such as georeferencing. The idealized solution consists of a portable electronic system (hardware + software) for acquiring chemical data from liquid samples, processing them and sending them to a smartphone, where an application running in the Android environment performs its processing and subsequent remote transmission. Unlike products already on the market, this one proposes to be compatible with different electrochemical sensors and spectro-chemical measurements, without fidelity to any manufacturer; likewise, information processing should be possible on any type of smartphone as long as it meets the minimum required settings. The project's innovation consists in the popularization and democratization of chemical analyzes, making it possible to obtain environmental data for different target audiences, from self-employed professionals and small companies to schools and research centers. Based on the principle that it is not intended to build sensors, nor smartphones, this facilitating device will allow the user to assemble the configuration he deems ideal for the demand presented, combining products from different manufacturers, considering the necessary cost-benefit ratio and the commitment to precision and accuracy suited to each situation. In the end, we want to present a first prototype, tested and validated on some of the most used chemical parameters in environmental analysis, such as pH, electrical conductivity, chemical oxygen demand, among others, with the possibility of processing information incorporated into georeferencing data and cloud storage. (AU)