Automatic Page Turner

Student: Anjulo Piyasena

Supervisor: Adam Postula

Category: Engineering Thesis Project - Computer Systems

The basis for this thesis is the design of an Automatic Book Page Turner, an appliance which is mostly designed to cater for the needs of the disabled person. The design allows the user to turn the pages of a book backwards, Forwards, and continuous flipping action (page search).

Previous work that has been done on this project accomplished the task of FLIPPING of the page. This phase of the project requires the development of the actual turning of the page across the book. As a further alteration to the previous development, it is designed to use DC motors instead of the servomotors used in the previous design. The new system is designed so that most of the processing is done on the PC: a microprocessor module is used for minor processes and data transfer between the PC and Turner module.

Detailed research on products available in the market was done in order to get a clear idea of the advantages, disadvantages and pricing of each. This research provided strong background information for the design phase of the project. A number of different designs for the page turner were taken into account from which the final design was chosen. Research and study of the PIC16F87A micro-controller was carried out in order to develop the firmware for the project. Software written to be run on a PC is used to serially communicate with the micro controller module to interface the user to the Page Turner unit – the turn functions will be implemented using specific keys on the keyboard.

This thesis will address all aspects of the design and will also provide suggestions on the future prospects to incorporate better technologies to the project. Finally, conclusions and evaluations of the final design will be provided.