Autonomous RC10B4
 

I am trying to make my car autonomous using an Arduino microprocessor. You can see my progress on my blog at swift-rc.blogspot.com

I would love to be able to make it drive itself around a track at some point, but my living room is challenging enough for now.

Any comment or suggestions are welcome.

Swifty

Interesting - I'd have thought such projects better suited things like crawlers and tanks (can turn on the spot)....nevertheless, a neat idea.

I was having a dig through the code there - it's quite easy to read.

I suppose the next step for you is to get the car to steer while still moving - that may need more IR sensors up front. Ultimately, you'd want an array of fixed ones covering the front 90 degree arc instead of a single moving one for more rapid response. This would allow variable steering values too - atm, it is either full left, centre, or full right. I envisage a calculation for degree of steering lock depending on distance to the next obstacle and motor speed.

I actually think it might manage a race track as it is - there's more space to turn and the barriers are pronounced and obvious (as long as the pipes are high enough!)

would you program it to shout out 'MARSHALL' when it crashes lol

Just out of curiosity, right at the bottom of the blog the pictures of the track. What track is it? It looks familiar to me.

They where taken at the North West Regional Series in 2007 at Bury Metro.

This is a really exciting project! Please keep it updated regularly

Thanks, I have just added some videos from the car's perceptive to my blog and I'm working on my next post. I am working on calibrating the infra red sensor and reducing the noise in the readings. I'll post that later today or early tomorrow.

Swifty

Dude you got to much time on your hands but good luck

what about controlling it from your iPhone etc with inboard view o. The screen !!!!!

i made a simple ' vehicle' based on passive infa red sensors that would follow you around wherever you went, later became a camera that followed you when i got bored, was good fun at the time. i think you have a great project there. how are you measuring distance from objects to allow you clear track markers etc?? are you just relying on the ir sensor?

At the moment all I have is an ir sensor. In the future I want to have more longer range ir sensors and I would like to try ultrasound. I would also love to have a camera on board, but processing the data produced would be impossible without using a computer.

As always I am open to suggestions and comments.

Thanks

Swifty

Hello All,

I just update the blog, I have calibrated the infra red sensor. Next up is checking for timing errors.

Swifty