Short Term Objectives

The initial project needs to be defined in terms of completion of a number of short time goals. The following is an example of some of the earlier goals:

• Create a support website.
• Get enough people involved so that all initial short term goal tasks have people allocated to them.
• The objectives for all modules for the initial project are defined.
• All interfaces between modules in the initial project are defined.
• An initial Framework is obtained or defined.

Framework

  Either a current framework is specified or we define and create a framework for these modules.  The framework allows a user/implementor to quickly and easily assembly and change the actual module implementations being used for each module. It also may be able to do any or all of the following:

• Specify which sound card or cards are being used and any special properties of it or them.  This is done such that is is easy to change sound cards.
• Note that associated with change of sound card is change of sound card driver.  Since this is likely to be a Unix based software project, the drivers are likely those supplied by the Alsa Project.  These have a Gnu license.
• Specify which sound card/channels will be used to provide audio indications to the user.
• Specify how many Transmit coils we are outputting to.
• Specify how many frequencies we are outputting to each transmit coil and what frequencies and amplitudes these are.
• Specify how many input channels are being monitored.
• Specify the configuration of the coils.
• Specify various parameters of the software that determine how many A/D readings are done per second and how many loops of particular software algorithms are done for each (as determined by how powerful a CPU we have).
• Setup any logging
• Allow it to run in Test mode.  See Discussion on Baudline software in the Questions section for more information on Test mode.
• We need as part of this to define which utility packages or software stacks we are going to use for our Graphical User Interface(GUI) and our access to other hardware such as access to the sound card.  See the Questions Section for a fuller discussion on this.
• Allow the user to interpret data previously recorded as if it were interpreting real time input data.  This is important as it allows the following:
  1. Developers that don't have the external electronics and coils to develop and test their software on their own systems.
  2. Allow different DSP and Analysis software module implementations to be compared against common data.
• Allow Waveforms generated by an internally created waveform synthesiser to be used as if these waveforms were initially input. This should be very helpful in the early stages of software development and testing. Unfortunately, the waveform synthesisor needs to be specifically created for this application as the main waveforms created will need specific frequency and phase relationships to the waveform being created for the Transmit coil.

To be completed…

Initial Project

The Objectives for the project have been designed as long term goals. These objectives look forward to a time when we have multiple versions of the project and are able to fill many needs.

It is important that a more achievable project is specified as a medium term goal. The people working on the project in the early period need to focus on a more specific target.

Once one fully working detector has been designed then the expansion of this to meet the long term goals will be a lot easier. New modules can be added or current modules replaced with better modules, with testing being done on a complete instrument.

The initial project will be a relatively straight forward discriminating Very Low Frequency (VLF) metal detector. It will have two coils, one for outputting a small number of VLF frequencies and one for receiving those frequencies and their harmonics.

This detector will maintain a display on the monitor showing deviation from normal of the phases and amplitudes of the frequencies as well as producing a sound output similar to current metal detectors.