Smart Lock: Assembly Programming, Product Realization, Marketing

The objective of this project is to gain experience in designing and launching a brand new product into a market. Our product is the 'Smart Door Lock', a safe door lock with IOT features.

I am the Group Leader for the group of 10. Apart from management and coordination responsibilities, I was the main mechanical designer in version 1.0 and the person responsible for micro-controller programming in version 2.0

Version 1.0

We designed the version 1.0 of this product in 2016. Having limited knowledge of design theory, we ran into a few problems. Key product goals were:

• A device that can be fixed on top of any manual lock to make it smart.
• Can be locked and unlocked through an encrypted platform from anywhere in the world
• Fully manually overridable from both inside and outside using a key.As we went through multiple design cycles, we were facing a major design crisis. The problem was a combination of the following
• High torque forces required to turn the shaft of the lock
• Servo torque limitations,
• Servo angle limitations
• Necessity to override it completely from inside and outside
• Infeasibility to keep the torque connection from the manual override and the actual lock permanently connected (since this would result in externally turning the servo during manual override, which can destroy the servo)
• As the lead designer in the group, I came up with a neat solution that included multiple gear wheels and a gear shift system which can solve all the above problems. However, it resulted in increased design and manufacturing complexity to the level such that we cannot produce it easily in Sri Lanka.

Version 1.5

Hence, we have currently redesigned the lock by eliminating a minor requirement (goal) to result in an excellent design that is far simpler and cheaper to manufacture. Our prototype in that semester was based on this new design and we have decided to proceed with that design.