Here at http://automaticcoveringsystem.blogspot.co.uk/ is the blog for the second year project ‘Automatic Covering System’ done by Ahmad Esmaeel - Fangqi Chen – Ziqin Xu – Minglun Wang – Yunxi Li. And supervised by Professor Yi Huang
The idea of the system is to automatically cover a certain area when raining. The cover will also automatically shrink itself when not raining. Other similar systems usually manual and depend on a human presence to operate. This system could work by its own, or be a sub-component for larger system like in cars. Thus it could be used in football stadiums, shops, convertible cars and gardens. Furthermore, improvement of such system could make it covering many far separated areas when sensing rain at one point.
The system contains mainly 3 parts. Firstly, a sensor that detects the rain and give a digital signal as a result. Secondly, a H-bridge circuit that will receive that signal and process it to operate a motor. Finally, the motor will operate a linear actuator according to the signal received. If it is a positive voltage, the cover will open. If it is a negative voltage, the cover will shrink.