Networking Cars
Overview
The goal of this project is to build a remote controlled car which can be toggled to home to a stationary base. This project is a first step in to creating a network of remote controlled vehicles which can also autonomously move and do specific work. The base car of this project is a PiCar, an open source remote controlled car project developed by Prof. Xuan Zhang and her lab. On the base PiCar platform, which is essentially a remote controlled car which can be connected to an Arduino/Raspberry Pi, we installed an Arduino Uno and an IR beacon to, and wrote code to enable the homing functionality. Near the end of the project, we decided to add an additional feature of having the car be able to follow black lines on the floor using IR obstacle sensors.
Team Members
Curtis Hoffman
Deep Jyoti
Andrew O'Sullivan (TA)
Objectives
- Design sensor system to communicate relative location between two objects.
- Integrate sensors in order to allow Pi Car to interpret signals into usable commands.
- Assemble Pi Car Chassis with Arduino and all required sensors mounted.
- Build install killswitch mechanisms for safety.
- Add code to enable the car to toggle back and forth from being remote controlled to autonomously run.
Challenges
- Getting the car to reliably find, move to and stop near an IR beacon
- Writing Arduino code to toggle between remote control and autonomous driving
- Mounting all sensors securely on the car
- Ensuring transition between driving modes are quick and reliable
- Learning how the PiCar ESC and remote functions
Budget
- Pi Car Hardware - Provided by Dpt.
- Pololu IR Beacon Transceivers - $49.95
- Osoyoo IR Infrared Obstacle Avoidance Module - $9.99
