New Kickstarter Campaign Launched to Create IVR Response Shield for Arduino
April 18, 2013
By Rajani Baburajan, TMCnet Contributor
Igor S. Ramos, an electrical engineer who designs electrical systems for heavy construction equipment, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce interactive voice response (IVR) system shield for Arduino, a popular open-source electronics prototyping platform that allows creating interactive objects for environments.
Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors and other actuators. Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software running on a computer.
Shields are boards that can be plugged on top of the Arduino board extending its capabilities. These shields are open-source too, and are easy to use.
Ramos is fond of creating electronics projects that involves circuit board design and microcontroller software, such as MICO – the acronym for “Mobile Interactive voice response & COntrol.”
MICO connects to a cell phone via audio jack and it has circuits to detect and answer calls. It can be used to pre-record voice prompts to present information and options to callers, and touch-tone telephone keypad entry to gather responses.
Responses from MICO are used to control lights, motors and other actuators, and get readings of temperature, wind speed, proximity and other sensors. The caller can be just a few feet or hundreds of miles away.
Ramos realized that it can be frustrating for non-experts to have Arduino interfacing to a cell phone. He developed the IVR system shield to provide them with a development platform that takes away the complexity of cell phone interfacing so that Arduino users can focus on their project.
The Kickstarter project fund will be used for developing, prototyping, and manufacturing MICO, Ramos said. Printed Circuit Boards will be manufactured by OSH Park. If the Kickstarter Project fund exceeds the target, PCB manufacturing may move to a higher volume supplier and assembly may be outsourced.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey