Self-driving Toycar

Soon you will find here a step by step guide towards a self-driving toycar!

Workshop manual

Deconstuct the car

• Remove the screws on the bottom and remove the top.
• Cut of all the wires going to the BCP, as close as possible to the PCB. (make sure the power switch keeps working and that it is off)

Connect the Motor driver

• IMPORTANT! disconnect the (green) jumper marked PWR right next to the screw terminal marked EXT_PWR
• Connect the motors to driver/h-bridge.
  (Add diagram with pin names. Dependent of which driverboard we're going to use.)
• Connect the cars' battery to the driver
• Connect (solder) the driver ground to Arduino ground

Test > Sample code to test motors over serial connection.

Connect the line sensor

Module  ->    Arduino   
- - - - - - - - - - -
VCC     ->    5V
GND     ->    GND
A0      ->    A0

Enhance the software

Ideas:

• Add ultrasonic sensor to avoid collisions
• The car now always steers either left or right. Can we add straight ahead?
• Try to make the steering proportional to the error in the line sensor
• Make the light sensor trainable. (Maybe add a button to switch between training / driving mode?)

Connect the line sensor analogue output to A0. GND -> GND VCC -> 5V

Notes

• We need spare batteries!

External links

• HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor library. https://bitbucket.org/teckel12/arduino-new-ping/downloads
• L293D https://github.com/sudar/DCMotorBot

Used modules:

• https://www.hobbyelectronica.nl/product/l293d-motor-shield/
• https://opencircuit.nl/Product/10540/TCRT5000-Infrarood-lijn-detectie-module-met-instelbare-gevoeligheid
• https://opencircuit.nl/Product/10037/Ultrasonische-afstands-detectie-module

Stuff that might need explaining?

• What is an h-bridge?