I am very new to arduino and electronics, but i have run through some of the starter projects like servo and motor control.
I am doing a project which requires a vehicle to follow exactly the vehicle in front. As far as the speed control is concerned i think i have that covered. But i am unsure how to tackle the steering and position control. My specification requires there to be no mechanical links between the two vehicles and i can't have any form of wireless signal, such as IR. I have two ways of solving this problem, either use accelerometers in the lead vehicle to give a steering output or more likely to have magnetometers fitted at the front of the vehicle giving voltage reading for a steering input. The steering input will be applied through a servo effectively mounted onto the steering column of the vehicle to mimic a person giving the steering input.
In essence what i need to do is to be able to control the a servo using magnetometers, does anyone know how to do this and code this??
myles_05:
I am doing a project which requires a vehicle to follow exactly the vehicle in front. But i am unsure how to tackle the steering and position control. My specification requires there to be no mechanical links between the two vehicles and i can't have any form of wireless signal, such as IR. I have two ways of solving this problem, either use accelerometers in the lead vehicle to give a steering output or more likely to have magnetometers fitted at the front of the vehicle giving voltage reading for a steering input. The steering input will be applied through a servo effectively mounted onto the steering column of the vehicle to mimic a person giving the steering input.
If you can't use any signal between the lead vehicle and the trailer, how will a sensor in the lead vehicle help you in any way?
From the way you describe the problem it sounds like some form of image processing in the trailer is what you need. Unfortunately that is well beyond the capability of a basic Arduino. You might want to consider a small Linux system like the Raspberry Pi. It could use a camera to give the trailer both distance and orientation to the lead vehicle.