Difference between revisions of "S18: Traffic Menace Video Game"

Revision as of 10:08, 23 May 2018

Traffic Menace

Abstract

The project focuses on developing a game on a 64*64 RGB LED. The game is all about controlling a car on a road having traffic. The LED would be displaying a user-controlled car and road with many different cars on it. The user needs to tilt the LED screen to avoid traffic and safely drive the car. An accelerometer is used to detect the tilt of the LED screen and move the car accordingly. As the level increases, the car speed and frequency of traffic would increase. The user starts the game with 3 lives. Any collision with oncoming traffic results in losing one life, and the game ends after losing all 3 lives. A switch is provided in case the player wants to restart the game anytime. User lives and score are displayed on the LED.

Objectives & Introduction

Our primary goal of this project is to write drivers for the LED and develop a game with FreeRTOS. The position of the car is controlled by the accelerometer. We use the onboard accelerometer in the SJ one board which is connected via I2C. Random traffic is generated at random speed. The speed of the traffic also increases as the level increases. The level can be manually increased by pressing the push button which gives user less time to react. When the game ends after loosing all 3 lives it can restarted by pressing the push button.

The objectives are as follows:

1. Write drivers to control pixels in LED.
2. Implement algorithm for controlling car.
3. Implement algorithms for Traffic and Obstacles.
4. Continuously update the position of car and traffic.
5. Continuously update scores.

Team Members & Responsibilities

• Danny Santoso
  • Hardware and PCB Design
• Dheemanth Bangalore Vishwanatha
  • LED Display Driver
  • Integrating Display code to Accelerometer
  • Game Algorithm Development
• Monica Parmanand
  • UI Design and Animations
• Pratap Kishore Desai
  • LED Display Driver
  • Game Algorithm Development
• Pratap Ramachandran
  • Game Algorithm Development
  • Testing

Schedule

Parts List & Cost

Design & Implementation

Hardware Design

The system block diagram shows the design of our project with the interface for the sensors

Accelerometer sensor

Accelerometer on board

An accelerometer is an electromechanical device used to measure acceleration forces. Forces may be static, like the continuous force of gravity. Accelerometers are used to detect the orientation of the phone. The gyroscope adds an additional dimension to the information supplied by the accelerometer by tracking rotation or twist. SJOne board has an on-board accelerometer which is interfaced on the I2C2 bus. Based on these values we can control the steering of the car.

Push Button

Push Button are interfaced with the SJOne board via GPIO pins which are interrupt capable. Two push button's are used for restarting and for boost. Once the player looses all 3 lives the player can restart the game with push button. The player can use the other push button for using boost.

RGB LED Matrix

A 64x64 RGB LED Matrix Panel is used as a display. It has 4096 full-color RGB LEDs. Each LED can be independently addressed and controlled. It requires at 13 digital GPIOs to control the LED matrix. The led matrix has 2 IDC connectors DATA_IN and DATA_OUT on the back, you can cascade multiple panels and make a huge screen together. The LED display is constructed using a decoder to decode address rows. A 64 bit Shift register should be clocked for enabling the colour. The RGB matrix has a 5:32 decoder. This decoder takes ABCDE as input and decodes the corresponding row to be kept low. Now when the row is low we need to select which all pixels in the column is to be configured with the required colour. This is done by clocking the 64Bit shift register. There are 6 64Bit registers each for R1 R2 B1 B2 G1 G2. A single clock is interfaced to all these 6 64bit shift registers. So at once we shift and fill the required colour for the column display. R1 G1 B1 is used for configuring colour for the top half of the display and R2 G2 B2 for bottom half of the display. Once the clocking and shifting the register is completed we need to latch this data to the register. The register data is sent out to all the row lines and that Row line which is pulled low by the decoder will receive this data and corresponding pixels are turned on.

RGB LED matrix pins:

RGB LED matrix power pins:

Specifications:

The LED display used in our project is a 64*64 pixel panel with a pixel pitch of 3mm. More specifications are tabulated.

• Operating voltage: DC 5V
• Average power consumption: <500W/㎡
• Maxim Power Consumption: <1000w/㎡
• Pixel: 64x64=4096
• Level of viewing Angle: ≧160°
• Control mode: Synchronous control
• Drive mode: 1/16 scan rate
• Repetition frequency: ≧60Hz
• White Balance Brightness: ≧1200cd/㎡
• Refresh frequency : ≧300Hz
• MTTF: ≧5000 hours
• Service Life: 75000~100000 hours
• Pixel pitch: 3mm
• Thickness: 11mm

Printed Circuit Board

The PCB layout was designed using free version of Eagle v8.7.1. We imported and used sparkfun libraries. We used the through hole schematic connections for the PCB design. We designed a 2 layer PCB. The LED is powered by a 5V adapter which is connected via the PCB. SJ-One Board is also powered by the adapter. And a master switch to turn off the power supply along with 2x17 SJ-One Board connector. All connections are verified properly with Design Rule Check before printing.

EAGLE Schematic

EAGLE Connector List

After the schematics is created the parts are placed in locations such that it is easy for mounting on top the SJ-One Board. Before soldering the components on the PCB the connectivity of the PCB is checked using multimeter.

Hardware Interface Diagram

Hardware Interface

In this section, you can describe how your hardware communicates, such as which BUSes used. You can discuss your driver implementation here, such that the Software Design section is isolated to talk about high-level workings rather than inner working of your project.

Software Design

The software design can be mainly split into 2 parts
• The driver for LED
• The game algorithm

Driver For LED

To design the driver for the LED Display it is required to have a clear-cut understanding of working LED. So it is recommended to read the hardware part before trying to understand the driver.

Game Algorithm

The main objective of the game algorithm is to provide the player with randomized gameplay. No part of the gameplay should be predictable.

We began by creating a 4-lane road on the display as shown below. Each lane would contain one vehicle at any given time. Current Level would be displayed at the left of the display along with lives remaining and the current score at the right

4- Lane Road Layout

Road Layout with Score and Level

We then began by creating different types of vehicles, which varied by size, shape, and colors. To create a vehicle, we used a lookup table for each vehicle which contained the color values in hex for each pixel that would make up the vehicle. Using draw pixel within customized for-loops, vehicles were rendered.

Single Vehicle on Display

Different vehicles on different lanes

The traffic class contained functions to randomize the vehicle selection, speed and location of each vehicle within a lane. The speed of the oncoming traffic increased with the change in levels. Initially, the speed was restricted between 1 – 3. As levels progressed this range was increased 2-5, 3-6 and so on. The scoring system was directly related to level. Initial levels meant the increment in scores was slow and as levels progressed the increment gradually increased. The position of the used car is at the bottom of the display during earlier levels and this position gradually increases to the middle of the display in later stages

In-order improve game-play experience each player is provided with 3 lives after which the game ends. A game restart button was added to restart the game. This button only works when the player loses all 3 lives. The car jump button to the left makes the user car jump over oncoming small traffic. This can be used to jump and avoid oncoming traffic, but this is effective only if used on smaller traffic.

Implementation

This section includes implementation, but again, not the details, just the high level. For example, you can list the steps it takes to communicate over a sensor, or the steps needed to write a page of memory onto SPI Flash. You can include sub-sections for each of your component implementation.

Testing & Technical Challenges

Describe the challenges of your project. What advise would you give yourself or someone else if your project can be started from scratch again? Make a smooth transition to testing section and described what it took to test your project.

Include sub-sections that list out a problem and solution, such as:

<Bug/issue name>

Discuss the issue and resolution.

Conclusion

Conclude your project here. You can recap your testing and problems. You should address the "so what" part here to indicate what you ultimately learnt from this project. How has this project increased your knowledge?

Project Video

Upload a video of your project and post the link here.

Project Source Code

• Sourceforge Source Code Link

References

Acknowledgement

Any acknowledgement that you may wish to provide can be included here.

References Used

List any references used in project.

Appendix

You can list the references you used.