F12: Self-Driving GPS Following Car
Contents
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.
Self-Driving GPS Following Car
Abstract
The objective of this project is for an autonomous vehicle to follow a lead car. The leading car is controlled manually using a remote and sends its GPS coordinates to the following car over ZigBee. The following car will move toward the received GPS coordinates while using proximity sensors to avoid obstacles.
Introduction and Features
- Read the GPS coordinates of the leading RC car and the following self-driving car
- Use XBee modules to send and receive GPS coordinates of the leading car to the following car
- Compute the bearing necessary for the following car to reach the leading car
- Read the bearing of the following car using a compass
- Navigate the following car to the received GPS coordinates while avoiding obstacles
Team Members and Responsibilities
- Elias Barboza
- PWM driver, motor controllers, and obstacle avoidance
- Caleb Chow
- Read direction from compass, read GPS data, and move toward GPS coordinates
- Stephen Lu
- Read data from proximity sensors, develop curve-fit function, and move toward GPS coordinates
Schedule
| Week Number | Scheduled Items | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1: Design
|
|
|
| Week 2: Construction
|
|
|
| Week 3: Drivers
|
|
|
| Week 4: Coding
|
|
|
| Week 5: Coding
|
|
|
| Week 6: Testing
|
|
|
| Week 7: Finalization
|
|
|
Parts List & Cost
Give a simple list of the cost of your project broken down by components. Do not write long stories here.
| Parts | Quantity | Cost | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| RC Car -
| 2 | $25 | Previously owned
|
| GPS -
| 2 | $37.21 | |
| XBee Module -
| 2 | $24.95 | |
| Motor Controller -
| 2 | $17.99 | |
| Compass -
| 1 | $14.95 | |
| Sonar Range Finder -
| 2 | $26.95 | |
| Ultrasonic Range Finder - SRF08
| 1 | ~$50 | |
| Microcontroller -
| 1 | ~$120 | |
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.
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.
Leading Car
- GPS – UART
- Outputs GPS data on Tx to XBee Rx
- XBee – UART
- Inputs data to send on Rx from GPS Tx
- Power Supply – 3.3V
- Supply power to GPS and XBee modules
- Add 3.3V voltage regulator with filtering capacitors to RC car’s battery pack
Following Car
File:Cmpe146 F12 T7 Following Car Block Diagram
- Microcontroller
- 2012 SJSU One Board (LPC1758)
- GPS – UART
- Use UART2
- P2.8 = Tx, P2.9 = Rx
- PINSEL4 = 10 for both
- Xbee – UART
- P4.28 = Tx, P4.29 = Rx
- PINSEL9 = 11 for both
- Compass – I2C
- Use I2C2 bus
Proximity sensor – I2C
Use I2C2 bus
Proximity Sensors (2) – ADC
P0.4, PINSEL = 11 for AD0.6
P0.5, PINSEL = 11 for AD0.7
P0.6, PINSEL = 11 for AD1.0
P0.10, PINSEL = 11 for AD1.2
P0.12, PINSEL = 11 for AD1.3
P0.13, PINSEL = 11 for AD1.4
Used for MP3 Decoder Reset
P0.15, PINSEL = 11 for AD1.5
Used for MP3 Decoder Data Request
P0.21, PINSEL = 10 for AD1.6
SD Card Write-Protect
P0.22, PINSEL = 01 for AD1.7
P0.25, PINSEL = 01 for AD0.4
P0.28, PINSEL = 01 for AD0.1
P0.29, PINSEL = 01 for AD0.2
P0.30, PINSEL = 01 for AD0.3
Motor Controllers (2) – PWM
P0.7, PINSEL = 10 for PWM2
P0.21, PINSEL = 01 for PWM5
SD Card Write-Protect
Power Supply – Original battery pack
Supply power to motor controllers for motors
Power Supply – 5.0V
Supply power microcontroller
Add 5.0V voltage regulator to external battery pack
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.
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.
