Assistance with an Arduino project

I am about to undertake a year 12 major project that will take about 9 months. I have thought of the idea of having an RC car that can be controlled remotely, be sent to a location using a GPS and a return to home function, take pictures with a mounted camera the camera will also be used to control the RC car remotely and manual driving with a controller.

Since I am new to Arduino I am unsure on what board to use and what addons I will need to complete my task. I currently have an RC car which I am thinking to use for the project (traxxas RC buggy).

If anyone has an suggestions on how to go about this project that would be much appreciated.

GPS is unlikely to have enough accuracy for an RC car. The basic off-the-shelf stuff gets +/-10 metres, which is not enough to get the car to stay on a full-size road. You can get to +/-1 metre without too much extra money spent. Getting down to centimetres is possible, but not in a package that fits into a regular RC car.

Have a look at the Sparkfun autonomous vehicle competition. There's probably some ideas there that you can use.

Thanks for the suggestion I'll check it out.

I'm just a bit unsure on what type of arduino to use as I have seen many out there and not sure about which one I would need for my project.

Arduinos are not powerful enough to take pictures (still or video) but an Arduino could be used to control a camera (aim it and press the shutter-button).

From your first Post it sounds like this is your first Arduino project. If so it is very ambitious. Get an Uno and learn how to program an Arduino. That will put you in a much better position for figuring out the rest of the project.

...R