Sean Lanigan

EV Load Balancing Prototype

This was a big lockdown project for me while at BP Pulse. During some quieter periods at work I devised a peer-to-peer mesh system for EV chargers to communicate and cooperate in order to fairly share the available electric current. This is an emerging problem with EVs – a typical house will only have around 60 amps of incoming current, but a single EV can often charge at 32 amps. This means that in a household with two or more EVs there will need to be some sort of limiting to avoid tripping any circuit breakers. A static limit could be used, but then if only one EV is charging it won’t be drawing as much power as it could. The system I devised uses a simple algorithm running on each charger in a system and direct network connections between all chargers, so that there’s no reliance on a central master or any external server.

Programmed in Python, I first created numerous unit tests for my code to push the boundaries of the algorithm in various cases. I created a UNIX socket interface to abstract the load balancing application from any integration with the actual charging control application, and then finally set up some Raspberry Pis to run the code as a real-world demo.

IoT Power Meter

This was the largest project I worked on at Extel — the brief was to design an IoT power monitor and controller for an electric utility client. Over about 16 months the project went from prototype to small-run production.

My role on this project was to develop embedded C code for the two MSP430 processors, used for power measurement; as well as Python code and various Linux shell script and configuration files for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module, used for communications. I also helped to develop two test jigs, for hardware testing and calibration of the units coming off the production line.

X-Ray Scanner

This is one of the most interesting projects I’ve worked on — the client was undertaking research into a new kind of x-ray scanning for baggage security checks, and the brief for Extel was to further develop this prototype. The system uses an array of detector cards with FPGAs, which perform initial processing, before sending the data for collation and presentation by an application on a Linux PC.

My role on this project was to develop C++ code for a Qt-based desktop Linux application, which received the data from the detector cards over a TCP stream and assembled it into an image to be displayed on the monitor.

WiLED

gitlab.com/WiLED-Project

WiLED is one of my personal projects. Initially aiming to build a simple dimmable LED lamp, I’ve subsequently expanded my plans to include Wi-Fi and BLE connections. In its current state, the WiLED design retrofits onto an IKEA Hektar lamp stand, transforming a relatively cheap and simple lamp into a smart IoT device.

On this project I have covered a broad range of disciplines, including schematic and PCB design and assembly, 3D CAD modelling and 3D printing, as well as MicroPython firmware development.

ErgoDox Keyboard

gitlab.com/ErgoSL

I once had a colleague who built his own keyboards, which I was intrigued by but never tried myself. However, while I was in the UK and struggling with the ever so slightly different key layout I figured I should have a go at my own custom keyboard.

The design I went with was an ErgoDox, which features two split halves and linear columns rather than the standard QWERTY stagger. After building a vanilla version, I started making some slight modifications to the PCB to make it an even better fit and to use a more modern USB-C socket.