Remote Control of Micro Car with Color Camera
In our project our goal was to use the CMOS color camera to control two remote control micro cars. Dan purchased the cars locally for about $20. They come with a remote control that also functions as a battery charger for the NiCd battery on the cars. It takes about 45 seconds to charge the cars and they run for about a minute or so. The remote takes two AA batteries and has two buttons on the face: one for forward and reverse the other for left and right. The buttons actuate contact switches that make a connection between two terminals – one switch for each direction. We soldered onto these terminals and ran wires to the interface board to connect with relay switches to make the connection, thus bypassing the contact switches. A buffer connected to lines from the GPIO output activates the relay switches. The inputs to the buffer are pulled high through a 1kW resistor. We connect to the GPIO through a ribbon cable that is connected to the parallel port and another header on the side of the PWM daughter board.
Remote control interface board
We mounted the DSP with the color camera attached under a table with the remote control board and an LCD screen on top.
Top of Table
The camera pointed down at the floor to a black felt sheet that the cars drove on. This allowed the color of the cars to be more easily detected from the background.
Color Camera board, PWM daughter board, and DSP Black felt sheet under table