Difference between revisions of "F13: Line Following Robot"

Revision as of 03:20, 18 November 2013

Grading Criteria

How well is Software & Hardware Design described?
How well can this report be used to reproduce this project?
Code Quality
Overall Report Quality:
- Software Block Diagrams
- Hardware Block Diagrams
  Schematic Quality
- Quality of technical challenges and solutions adopted.

Line Following Robot

Abstract

The Line Following Robot detects a black line on a white surface and moves forward following the line. If a black line is not detected, the Line Following Robot moves forward searching for a black line to follow. Once the Line Following Robot detects a black line, it will begin following the black line.

Objectives & Introduction

Show list of your objectives. This section includes the high level details of your project. You can write about the various sensors or peripherals you used to get your project completed.

Team Members & Responsibilities

Kurt Breault II
- Hardware Design
- Driver Development
- Software Design
- Integration and Test
- Project Documentation

Schedule

Show a simple table or figures that show your scheduled as planned before you started working on the project. Then in another table column, write down the actual schedule so that readers can see the planned vs. actual goals. The point of the schedule is for readers to assess how to pace themselves if they are doing a similar project.

The proposed schedule lists the tasks to be completed each week. The time frame for each task spans from a Wednesday to the following Tuesday. This time frame format was selected to facilitate project progress discussions with the professor at the end of each weekly lecture held on Tuesday.

Week	Date	Proposed Schedule	Actual Schedule
1	10/02 to 10/08	Write project proposal. Begin ordering components.	Project proposal written, submitted and approved. Placed order #1 with Sparkfun. Placed order #2 with Pololu.
2	10/09 to 10/15	Finish ordering components.	Placed order #3 with Pololu.
3	10/16 to 10/22	Generate proposed schedule. Begin physical layout of components. Begin electrical layout of componets.	Generated proposed schedule. Began physical and electrical layout of components. After beginning the physical and electrical layout of components, realized another order was required to obtain additional mounting components. Placed order #4 with Pololu.
4	10/23 to 10/29	Complete physical layout of components. Complete electrical layout of components.	Continued physical and electrical layout of components. Encountered issues routing wires from the IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array to the SJ One Board due to physical limitations. Reprioritized the physical and electrical layout of components to be an ongoing task throughout the duration of the project.
5	10/30 to 11/05	Interface SJ One Board with IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array.	Resolved issues related to routing wires from the IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array to the SJ One Board. Continued physical and electrical layout of components. Completed initial driver revision for the IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array and interfaced it with the SJ One Board. Tested the IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array driver by passing the array over a black line on a white background and verifying the individual sensors of the array reported the correct readings.
6	11/06 to 11/12	Interface SJ One Board with Dual Serial Motor Controller.	Continued physical and electrical layout of components. Completed initial driver revision for the Dual Serial Motor Controller; however, the Dual Serial Motor Controller was not interfaced with the SJ One Board because the required physical and electrical infrastructure has not yet been completed. Tested the generation and transfer of motor controller commands by looping back the UART2 TXD2 pin to the UART3 RXD3 pin. The UART2 TXD2 pin will be used to connect to the Dual Serial Motor Controller serial receive input pin. The UART3 RXD3 pin was configured to support motor controller command generation debug efforts. Motor controller commands transmitted on the UART2 TXD2 pin and received on the UART3 RXD3 pin were read from the UART3 receive FIFO and printed to the Hercules serial console to verify their validity. The proper initialization of the UART2 TXD2 pin for serial communication with a 9600 baud rate, 8-bit data, no parity bit, and one stop bit was also verified. Began integrating and testing the IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array driver with the Dual Serial Motor Controller driver by passing the array over a black line on a white background, generating the appropriate motor controller command to steer the center of the array over the black line, transmitting the generated command on the UART2 TXD2 pin, receiving the transmitted command on the UART3 RXD3 pin, printing the received command to the Hercules serial console, and verifying the printed command indicates the expected action based on the sensor array reading.
7	11/13 to 11/19	Begin integration and test of SJ One Board, IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array, and Dual Serial Motor Controller.	Completed physical and electrical layout of components. Began integration and test of SJ One Board, IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array, and Dual Serial Motor Controller. The Dual Serial Motor Controller had to be reconfigured to its default configuration of two-motor control with motor numbers two and three. It is unknown whether the Dual Serial Motor Controller was delivered in a non-default state or if initial integration and test efforts corrupted the default configuration. The pull-down resistor value for the Dual Serial Motor Controller reset input pin was changed from 4.7 kOhms to 1.0 kOhms in order to produce an appropriate low voltage value. The GPIO pin used for reset control to the Dual Serial Motor Controller was changed from pin P2.9 (RXD2 on the SJ One Board) to pin P1.22 due to the pull-up resistors and LED connected to the RXD2 signal line of the SJ One Board. The Dual Serial Motor Controller was stuck in reset prior to the change of pins used. The “move forward” function for the Dual Serial Motor Controller had to be modified to send separate control commands for the left and right motors with the same speed setting. The original version of the function sent one control command intended for both the left and right motors; however, a single command sent for both motors was not functioning as described in the Dual Serial Motor Controller User’s Guide.
8	11/20 to 11/26	Complete integration and test of SJ One Board, IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array, and Dual Serial Motor Controller.	row 8, cell 3
9	11/27 to 12/03	Write project report. Demonstrate project.	row 9, cell 3

Parts List & Cost

Give a simple list of the cost of your project broken down by components. Do not write long stories here.

Design & Implementation

The design section can go over your hardware and software design. Organize this section using sub-sections that go over your design and implementation.

Hardware Design

Discuss your hardware design here. Show detailed schematics, and the interface here.

Chassis, Assembled Gearbox with Tires, and Ball Caster

Assembled Chassis with Gearbox, Tires, and Ball Caster

Battery Holder (4-AA with Switch) and Breadboard (170-point)

Assembled Chassis with Battery Holder, Breadboard, Headers, and Jumpers

Assembled Chassis and Brushed DC Motors with Capacitors and Wires

Assembled Chasses with Brushed DC Motors

Modified USB Mini-B Cable

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

Show your software design. For example, if you are designing an MP3 Player, show the tasks that you are using, and what they are doing at a high level. Do not show the details of the code. For example, do not show exact code, but you may show psuedocode and fragments of code. Keep in mind that you are showing DESIGN of your software, not the inner workings of it.

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.

Debug of the IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array and Dual Serial Motor Controller Drivers with the SJ One Board (LPC1758)

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

Wifi Connection Issues

Many wifi connection issues were encountered. To solve this problem, a dedicated task was created to re-connect to wifi if the connection was ever lost.

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

Send me your zipped source code and I will upload this to SourceForge and link it for you.

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.

@@ Line 92: / Line 92: @@
 | Begin integration and test of SJ One Board, IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array, and Dual Serial Motor Controller.
 |
-* row 7, cell 3
+* Completed physical and electrical layout of components.
+* Began integration and test of SJ One Board, IR LED Reflectance Sensor Array, and Dual Serial Motor Controller.
+* The Dual Serial Motor Controller had to be reconfigured to its default configuration of two-motor control with motor numbers two and three.  It is unknown whether the Dual Serial Motor Controller was delivered in a non-default state or if initial integration and test efforts corrupted the default configuration.
+* The pull-down resistor value for the Dual Serial Motor Controller reset input pin was changed from 4.7 kOhms to 1.0 kOhms in order to produce an appropriate low voltage value.
+* The GPIO pin used for reset control to the Dual Serial Motor Controller was changed from pin P2.9 (RXD2 on the SJ One Board) to pin P1.22 due to the pull-up resistors and LED connected to the RXD2 signal line of the SJ One Board.  The Dual Serial Motor Controller was stuck in reset prior to the change of pins used.
+* The “move forward” function for the Dual Serial Motor Controller had to be modified to send separate control commands for the left and right motors with the same speed setting.  The original version of the function sent one control command intended for both the left and right motors; however, a single command sent for both motors was not functioning as described in the Dual Serial Motor Controller User’s Guide.
 |-
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