eugenesiew

Hi All,

I came up with an idea but i need some feedbacks from you all concerning its possibilities in implementing it. I want to make a car follower. Example, i place a chip on a lead car and another car follower is to follow the lead car. The car follower is to maintain a specific distance from the lead car. Meaning that if the lead car accelerates, the car follower should also accelerate... I understand that this uses fuzzy logic(do correct me if i am wrong or if you have better alternatives) concept and i am currently trying to learn it(do send me any revelant materials concerning fuzzy logic).

For my project, the lead car will be just an ordinary toy car in which i will be attaching a string to pull it. The car follower would be the actual thing that i will be designing....

The question is:

1) Is there such a device to be place on the lead car so that the car follower can detect it and aim toward it? if so, where do i get it?

2) Most of my seniors using the H-Bridge motor thingy, but some people suggested to use stepper motor instead... (stepper motor is expensive and i plan to get it from my spoiled canon LBP1120)? hows that?

3) The car follower should avoid any obstacle that come in the way, that could be done with IR sensors i suppose right? or is there any more efficient alternatives?

4) I thought of using PIC as the microcontroller (as i shall be undergoing a PIC training course) to be brain in sensing the distance and velocity of the lead car and do the necessary adjustment for the car follower speed, can PIC do the job? meaning the PIC has to be able to detect the lead car and on the same time avoid obstancles in the path...

5) I have only 4 months to implement it... do you think it's sufficient enough for a diploma student?

Please feel free to give any ideas concerning my idea. Thanks a lot in advance!

Eugene

TrevorP

Well ok you're going to need some sort of thing to be tracking on the car...and then two detectors spaced out so that you can determine to turn more to the left or right.

This is actually a pretty interesting idea...I know at my university they do a robot building competition in the summer after third year. (Not the senior year project.) But it's usually only a obstacle avoiding racer...actually probably quite similar to what you are doing.

civictypeR

Of course you have more than enough time to finish your project. Sounds intersting , It seems you may need to use GPS system.

johnnitwenty

it's so easy,just do it as a train.
it's difficult to finish the system. think as the car(head or follower) ,you will get more inspiration.