Difference between revisions of "F12: Self-Driving GPS Following Car"

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=== Team Members and Responsibilities ===
 
=== Team Members and Responsibilities ===
*Elias Barboza
+
* '''Elias Barboza'''
 
** PWM driver, motor controllers, and obstacle avoidance
 
** PWM driver, motor controllers, and obstacle avoidance
*Caleb Chow
+
* '''Caleb Chow'''
 
** Read direction from compass, read GPS data, and move toward GPS coordinates
 
** Read direction from compass, read GPS data, and move toward GPS coordinates
*Stephen Lu
+
* '''Stephen Lu'''
 
** Read data from proximity sensors, develop curve-fit function, and move toward GPS coordinates
 
** Read data from proximity sensors, develop curve-fit function, and move toward GPS coordinates
  
 
== Schedule ==
 
== Schedule ==
 
<table class="wikitable">
 
<table class="wikitable">
<th>Week Number</th> <th>Scheduled Items</th> <th>Items Completed</th>
+
<th>Week Number</th> <th>Scheduled Items</th> <th>Actual</th>
  
 
<tr>
 
<tr>

Revision as of 02:52, 10 November 2012

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
(October 29)

  • Order Parts
  • Design proximity sensors placement
  • Design algorithm to avoid obstacles
  • Design algorithm to move toward GPS coordinate
    using compass
  • Parts all obtained
  • Proximity sensor and algorithm design completed

Week 2: Construction
(November 5)

  • Upgrade leading car with microcontroller, XBee, GPS,
    and a battery pack
  • Upgrade following car with microcontroller, XBee, GPS,
    compass, proximity sensors, motor controllers, and a
    battery pack
  • Read GPS information by connecting GPS to Xbee
  • Leading car upgrade completed
  • Following car upgrade in progress
  • GPS information sent to Xbee completed

Week 3: Drivers
(November 12)

  • Develop curve-fit function for proximity sensors
  • Read direction from compass
  • Enable car driving capabilities / motor controllers
  • Send / receive data using XBee modules
  • Proximity sensors in progress
  • Compass direction in progress
  • Motor controllers in progress
  • Send / receive data using XBee modules done

Week 4: Coding
(November 19)

  • Code obstacle avoidance

Week 5: Coding
(November 26)

  • Code moving toward GPS coordinate

Week 6: Testing
(December 3)

  • Testing

Week 7: Finalization
(December 10)

  • Make final changes for demo
  • Finalize content in Wiki article

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.

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.

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

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Project Source Code

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References

Acknowledgement

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References Used

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Appendix

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