The Occupancy Project

Opera Box Sensing Project

Goal: Detect when people are in the opera boxes.

Method 1: Detect how many people pass through the door**

Using: Ultrasonic Sensors

{MORE DETAILS NEEDED: SEE GEORGE & GABE}

Method 2: Detect when there are any number of humans in the room**

• Using: Passive infrared sensors??

• Normally, there are 3 main types of IR sensors that come up when you Google them:

  • Active: Active Reflective Obstacle Avoidance (sends IR and reads it back to get distance)
  • Break Beam Sensor (detects when someone passes through the door)

• Passive: Passive IR Motion Detector - Link to AdaFruit Datasheet

(detects motion by using two IR sensors, and seeing when the readings pass between them)

• All of these use basic IR sensors but then add more functionality.

• So, I don’t believe any of these could just sense how much IR is in a room.

Just the sensor:

• Pyroelectric Sensors

• IRA-E700ST0

• Mouse Datasheet

Experimentation Needed:

• I would be interested in seeing what would happen if we use the PIR sensor set to very sensitive with “retriggering mode”.

• Does it reliably detect human presence?

• Can we tap into the sensors directly?