Difference between revisions of "F20: Space Invaders"

Latest revision as of 09:09, 11 February 2021

SPACE INVADERS

ABSTRACT

Space Invaders is a fixed one person shooter style video game. The player controls a laser cannon by moving it horizontally across the bottom of the screen and firing at the aliens descending toward the cannon from the top of the screen. There are aliens descending towards the cannon and the player's main goal is to defeat an alien and earn points by shooting it with the laser cannon and destroying it. As more aliens are defeated, the aliens' movement speeds up. The alien invasion is declared successful and the game ends when the aliens have successfully reached the bottom. The final score of total kills is projected after the game ends. The mp3 decoder connected to the speaker will play the sound effects required.

Space Invaders High Level Architecture

INTRODUCTION & OBJECTIVES

About the Game

The object of the game is, basically, to shoot the invaders with your laser cannon while avoiding their shots and preventing an invasion. Amassing a high score is a further objective and one that must be prioritized against your continued survival. Each game screen starts with 3 rows of 4 invaders. The enemies will be shooting at the laser cannon seeking to destroy it in order to invade the earth. The person controlling the laser cannon must avoid getting blown out by the enemies. As more enemies are destroyed the difficulty increases with the speed of the enemies increasing towards the earth. The laser cannon can survive 6 enemy bullets.

Objective

• Interface the 64x64 RGB LED Matrix with SJ-Two Microcontroller.
• Interface the VS1053 MP3 Decoder with another SJ-Two Microcontroller.
• Interface MAX98357A Mono Amplifier via I2S.
• Establish UART communications between the two SJ-Two Microcontrollers.
• Create simple coding logic for displaying required characters and game objects.
• Have required sound effects at different functions of the game.
• Have multiple display screens at different stages of the game.

Team Members

Technical Responsibilities

Administrative Responsibilities

SCHEDULE

BILL OF MATERIALS

PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD

Design And Architecture

The complete printed circuit board was designed using EasyEDA online software. Implemented both SJ-Two board connectors along with required connections to buttons, led matrix, touch sensors, joystick, VS1053 MP3 Decoder, and MAX98357A I2S Amplifier.

PIN Configuration

Fabrication

• PCB was sent to fabrication to JLCPCB China which provided PCB with an order of 5 and 2 layers of PCB and common grounded the rest of the copper area.

DRC elements (in mm)

• Track Width = 0.254
• Clearance = 0.152
• Via Diameter = 0.61
• Via Drill Diameter = 0.305

LED MATRIX

Hardware Interface

This project utilizes as a display a 64x64 RGB LED Matrix Panel with a scan rate of 1:32. The LED matrix panel has 4096 RGB LEDs which can be controlled and addressed individually. Because 4069 LEDs would be impossible to connect to the sjtwo board since it does not have sufficient GPIOs, this LED Matrix utilizes only 13 digital GPIOs to provide full control of each individual LED. To achieve this, the LED matrix uses a decoder to select the rows and a 64-bit shift register which enables the desired color on the selected column. When the row selection is low the columns are selected by clocking in data into the shift register. This 64x64 LED matrix has 6 64-bit shift registers for R1, G1, B1 R2, G2, B2 where each color of the LED is controlled by one bit of the shift register. Since this display uses shift registers which are daisy chained, there is no capability to control each LED using PWM and therefore the display only supports 8 colors. Shown below is a diagram of the LED matrix showing the top half (Rows 0-31) and bottom half (Rows 32-63) which are controlled by 5:32 decoders. These decoders have a 5-bit input for each line A, B, C, D, E and are used for row selection. The diagram also shows six shift registers R1,G1,B1 for the top half, and R2, G2, B2 and for bottom half which are used for column selection and selecting the appropriate LED color. The data is clocked into these shift registers which hold all 64 bits for every single row. The LAT (Latch) signal is used to latch the data after each color has been clocked into the shift registers so that it can reach the output driver when set to high. The latch is then closed so that the next row of data can be clocked in. The OE (Output Enable) signal is used to enable the output when this pin is low so that the LEDs are turned on showing the data previous latched. Before switching rows the OE signal is then pulled high so that no LEDs are on during this transition.

LED Matrix

The LED matrix was interfaced with the SJTwo board using 13 GPIO pins connected to data in connector as shown in the diagram below. The LED matrix is powered by an external 5V 18amp power supply which is used for the overall system in addition to the LED matrix. The GPIO pins were chosen in such a way that they are close to each other for simplicity and wire organization.

Below are the technical specifications of the Sparkfun RGB LED Matrix Panel 64x64:

LED Matrix Schematic

LED Matrix Driver

The LED matrix driver was designed based on the basic mechanism described below:

For each row of leds we repeat these steps:

1. Set the latch and output enable pins to low to clock in the next row of data and enabling the output so that the leds are turned on
2. For each column, clock in the data for the current row one bit at a time into the shift registers (R1, G1, B1, R2, G2, B2)
3. Set the latch and output enable pins high to allow the row of data to reach the output driver while disabling the output so that no LEDs are on while switching rows
4. Select the row by driving the appropriate row select lines (A,B,C,D,E)

Below is a snippet of code showing how the LED matrix displays the pixels based on the mechanism described before.

void led_matrix__display_pixels(void) {
  for (uint8_t row = 0; row < 32; row++) {
    led_matrix__private_disable_display();
    led_matrix__private_disable_latch();
    for (uint8_t column = 0; column < 64; column++) {
      (matrix_buffer[row][column] & 0x1) ? gpio__set(B1) : gpio__reset(B1);
      (matrix_buffer[row][column] & 0x2) ? gpio__set(G1) : gpio__reset(G1);
      (matrix_buffer[row][column] & 0x4) ? gpio__set(R1) : gpio__reset(R1);
      (matrix_buffer[row][column] & 0x8) ? gpio__set(B2) : gpio__reset(B2);
      (matrix_buffer[row][column] & 0x10) ? gpio__set(G2) : gpio__reset(G2);
      (matrix_buffer[row][column] & 0x20) ? gpio__set(R2) : gpio__reset(R2);

      led_matrix__private_clock_in_current_row_data();
    }
    led_matrix__private_enable_latch();
    led_matrix__private_enable_display();
    led_matrix__private_select_row(row);
  }
}

The LED matrix driver was written for a 64x64 display but can be easily re-adapted for other display sizes. This driver was kept as simple as possible and includes the following APIs which are available to the programmer to fully control each individual pixel. Only 8 colors are available in this driver since the LED matrix uses shift registers.

void led_matrix__clear_display(void);
void led_matrix__set_pixel(uint8_t row, uint8_t column, led_color_e color);
void led_matrix__clear_pixel(uint8_t row, uint8_t column);

The data is stored into a 32x64 buffer and in order to correctly display the colors the top and bottom half of the display use the following mask values:

static uint8_t bottom_half_of_display_mask = 0x07;
static uint8_t upper_half_of_display_mask = 0x38;

Software Design

A high priority task is used to consistently refresh the LED matrix display which simply calls the led_matrix__display_pixels() API. All the game graphics and basic graphics such as numbers and letters were implemented in separate modules to keep the code base portable. The splash screen and game over screen were implemented using lookup tables and both are controlled by two separate tasks which check the status of the game and display the right screen accordingly. The victory screen was implemented by using the same graphics components used in the game logic and it also controlled by a task which checks for winning status of the game. In the images below are shown all the graphics components of the game as wells as all the different screens based on the status of the game. The graphics components of the game include, the explosion, laser cannon, enemies (octopus, crab, and squid), ufo, laser cannon bullet, enemies bullet, as well as the score board and lives. These graphics were designed by using the set_pixel() API of the LED matrix driver and it allows the user to pass in just the column position, row position, and color to display the object in the desired space of the display.