S15: Motion-Controlled RC Car

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.

Motion-Controlled RC Car

Abstract

The Motion-Controlled RC Car will allow inexperienced users to drive a high-performance RC vehicle. This is accomplished with a tilt controller, which is more intuitive than a traditional RC transmitter, and a speed-limiting system that will reduce the potential for crashes.

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

Shangming Wang - Mesh Communication, Report writing,

Daniel Khawaja - Wheel speed capture, RC car maintenance

Schedule

Week#	Date	Task	Actual	Problems
0	4/10	Obtain hardware	Completed 4/5, excluding purchase of wheel speed sensors.	The base car (purchased used) required quite a few replacement parts
1	4/20	Find PWM parameters, Test mesh communication	PWM: 4/15 Mesh: pending	The servo and speed controller use pulse length instead of duty cycle
2	4/27	Implement PWM control, Finalize mesh communication, Test code for wheel speed capture	PWM: Mesh: Capture:	Problems Encountered?
3	5/4	Implement motion control, Modify RC for 2wd and mount wheel speed sensors	Motion: Modification:	Problems Encountered?
3	5/11	Finish wheel speed capture, Test and polish traction control parameters	Capture: T.C.:	Problems Encountered?
3	5/18	Study for finals, Implement extra features	Completed? hopefully.	Problems Encountered?

Parts List & Cost

Qty	Description	Total Cost
50	Jumper Wires	$3.00
1	Prototype Board	$1.00
1	Turnigy 500mAh Battery	$40.00
2	Wireless Antenna	$6.00
1	Remote Control Car	$150.00
2	SJOne Board	$160.00
2	Motorola MOC7821 Photo Interrupter	$4.00
	Total Cost	$364

Design & Implementation

Hardware Design

A high-level schematic of the electronics involved in this project

Our hardware design began with connecting the Sj-One board with the servo and motor controller controller that were built into the model car. The motor controller included a 5v regulated output, so that was used to power all the electronics on the vehicle.

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

Nordic Wireless sensor (nRF24L01).

The Nordic wireless sensor is built-in on SJOne Board. It used to send and receive data from one SJOne to other.

Step 1: Configure the wireless node address and wireless channel number in sys_config.h file. (Make sure both boards have the same channel)

Step 2: Used mesh_set_node_address() function to set both sending and receiving address. In our project, the car address is set to 300.

Step 3: On the sending side, it used wireless_send(addr, protocol, data, size of data, max_hops) function to send the data from SJOne board.

Step 4: On the receiving side, it used wireless_get_rx_pkt() function to catch the data coming from the wireless.

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:

My Issue #1

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?