Help needed for an Electronic Counter

[Din1]

Dear all,

I am new to this forum. Im a undergraduate in Computer Systems and Networking. We must present a project in this semester. We have decided to do a People counting System. The features I will explain below. Please help us on how to go about this type of design using Microcontrollers, and connect this system to a computer database through a parallel port.

Features:

-The counter will be made by using 2 lasers and 2 sensors.
-It'll be able to increment as people go in one direction, and decrement when gone in the opposite direction.
-We want to be able to set a limit, say ex: we want only 10 people in a room, when the counter counts 10, an Alarm will be sounded to indicate that the limit of 10 that we have initially set is counted.
-We want to connect this device to the computer using a parallel port and get counting numbers into a database for statistical purposes.


This is basically what we want to do. Please let us know how to at least begin this project. We are familiar with PIC programming, desiging Circuits. but we just need some food for thought. Please help us.

Thanks in advance.

 

[MikeMl]

By "laser", do you mean LED?
Can't you do everything with some VB code that talks to the Parallel Port in the PC? Why do you need a PIC?

 

[Din1]

thats a good suggestion. Thank you. I was planning on doing that aswell. But we want to innovate. I mean theres nothing new about it. Can you tell me if it is possible to make the sensor wireless. So that we can just attach it to a wall, while the laser is running on battery.

 

[Chippie]

thats a good suggestion. Can you tell me if it is possible to make the sensor wireless. So that we can just attach it to a wall, while the laser is running on battery.

There are wireless rf modules available to the home constructor...check out RF Solutions website on the net...