Need help with year 12 major..PLEASE HELP

Hey im doing year 12 major in electronics, i want to build a rc car that is controlled by a steering wheel and pedal (from a pc or ps2). It will have a wireless camera on top so can be driven out of sight. My problems are: (is it possible?)

*to have led's for headlights, taillights and blinkers on the car controlled wirelessly using arduino?
*accelerate and reverse using an acceleration/brake pedal system in conjunction with steering wheel.

if anyone has any idea on any of this or where i can get help it would be greatly appreciated.

Certainly possible as long as the wireless camera is ready made solution - and you you're not hoping to do that with the Arduino. Everything else is feasible.

Here's a starting point.
http://www.wegmuller.org/arduino/Arduino-Playstation_gameport.html

Sound feasable. Have a search for arduino videogame controllers/ps2 controllers.

Sending basic signals to the arduino for lights and indicators shouldn't be a problem. Have a search for xbee for wireless communications.

The camera will be a problem. You're unlikely to be able to use the arduino to send that much data. You could have it send jpegs (using a camera that grabs jpegs) but that wouldn't be enough. You can get off-the-shelf wireless video kit though

Something else that's hard to appreciate until you try - is how much you turn your head when you drive.

Most off-the-shelf wireless cameras you can buy have a fairly narrow field-of-view; that is, the view left-to-right (and up-and-down), as an angle, the camera can see. Your eyeball, held steady (and discounting peripheral vision), has a FOV of about 60-70 degrees horizontal, and about 45 degrees vertical. With peripheral vision, those angles increase greatly.

Most cameras FOVs are smaller than the human eye's, somewhere around 40 degrees or so is typical, sometimes even less depending on how cheap the camera is. What this means is that what you see thru it isn't the "whole" picture.

Driving around an RC car using such a camera is going to be very difficult; imagine trying to drive a real car, but you can't turn your head, and you have blinders on, so your field of view is restricted to less than your peripheral vision (peripheral vision is very important in vision, by the way). In a real car it would not only be difficult, but very dangerous.

In an RC car, what is likely to happen is that you will run into objects, you will misjudge turns (and run into things), and you won't be able to easily back up. This is an issue with any remotely operated vehicle/machine, which is why you often see several solutions to overcome it:

  1. Multiple cameras
  2. Cameras with wider FOVs (fisheye or wide-angle lenses)
  3. Pan/Tilt mechanisms for the cameras
  4. Other sensors, like LIDAR, IR, sonar, radar, etc

For a project of your scale, if you can't afford to add a pan/tilt system (though it is fairly easy to do with a couple of extra servos, which can be controlled from the arduino), I would add a lens to the camera to widen its FOV - a simple fisheye lens from a good quality door peephole device (cheap at the hardware store) would work perfectly.

Adding this (and you might want a second camera with a similar lens for reverse!) will greatly enhance how well you can drive the car; keep it in mind as you build the car and try it out, you will find that without it steering will be challenging as I mentioned, and once you add it, it becomes easier. If you can add a pan/tilt mechanism, things can become interesting depending on how far you want to take the project; for instance, you could add a head-tracking system, and an HMD, to remotely control the pan/tilt device, and gain (in the HMD) a "virtual presence" (called "telepresence" actually) that can make it feel as if you are "there" instead of "here"...

Good luck with your project!

:slight_smile:

Good points Cr0sh
I'd probably go for a pan tilt mechanism on the camera and use the other stick on the ps2 controller in a similar way to games like call of duty. One stick to look around the other to move.

Lots of people have made bots like you describe. They can be from mild to wild. Probably best to research the various robotic forums to see projects similar to what you want. As others have said, the arduino really doesn't have any video capability. If you are considering using an RC vehicle for the base, you need one that is capable of moving at slow speeds (most move too quickly to be remotely controllable via an onboard cam)

http://www.lynxmotion.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3509
http://www.inspectorbots.com/_Home.html

thanks everyone for your help, however what i ment by playstation control was a steering wheel like used in racing car games, and use this to control the steering of the car along with foot pedals to control speed and reversing. maybe this is too hard?

Indeed it is possible. Camera setup can be bought from radioshack/hardware store/hobby shop (the last ones tend to have small ones specially made for rc car/plane use)

As for wide angles - I'd go with a custom lens, as mentioned (multiple cameras will be hard to deal with visually)

and your playstation driving setup is most likely quite easy to adjust for your needs too. If you can't directly get a hold of the output from the steering wheel/pedals electronically speaking, you can always strap a pair of accelerometers/pressure sensors/flex sensors/ whatever works to said pedals and steering wheel to indirectly get their positions.