The lab of week 5

1. The objectives of week 5:

Today we plan to test the car by the whole flow to make sure that it can achieve all the functions. Moreover, in order to help users get information more clearly, the group decides to add a LCD to the board, which can show some information about the car such as the position.

2. The results

Figure 1. The LCD

As shown in figure 1, the LCD we set showed the position of obstacles are on [1,0] and [1,1]. This function will continue throughout the demonstration.  Before this process, it also displayed options that would require users to select a parking space they wanted. When the users chose a parking space, the car would start to park and the LCD would show positions of the obstacles.

So far we have finished all the functions of the car. Next, the group tested different conditions to check whether it exists errors. We recorded three different routes of parking space 1 that is the lowest road. The figure 2 shows that the car went straight line directly to park into space. In figure 3, when we put obstacles onto road 1 and road 3, the car went along the middle way. It is shown that in figure 4 the car went through the route 3 while the obstacles were put on the road 1 and road 2.

 Figure 2. Route1

 Figure 3. Route2

 Figure 4. Route3

3. Summary

1) The board can allow the users to select parking space on the LCD and it will show the position of obstacles during parking.

2) The car can successfully receive the parking space and road condition information sent by the parking lot, and can follow the route calculated by the system, and finally stop at the designated parking space.

3) Although this project has been finished successfully, it will be still improved in the future. Firstly, the signal transmission time can be reduced because different size signals causes to last for several seconds. Secondly, the path of parking space 3 will be designed out. Lastly, we need to change a larger battery.

The lab of week 4

1. The objectives of week 4

Today, the group plans to test the whole movement situation of the car on the board. We want to test whether it can walk on the road and it can plan the path by itself. So the task will be divided into the following parts:


1) The road line of parking space will be pasted.
2) The team first plans to set a specific route to test whether it can reach the parking space.
3) The team will test whether the car can reach the required parking space when an obstacle will be placed on the road.


2. The experimental process and results

 Figure 1. the complete board

The figure 1 shows the complete parking lot. As can be seen, three red squares represents three parking spaces. The roadway is between two parallel black lines where we set the entrance in the lower right corner of the figure.

Figure 2. testing the car set by a specific route

In figure 2, we had set a specific route that the car needs to detour into the parking space. There were about twenty times we tested. Half of them were successful and others were failed. There were two reasons we observed that caused the failure. One is that the car did not detect the black line accurately so that it could deviate from the track after turning. The other was that the turning angle was not enough. Therefore, the team adjusted the turning parameters and added auxiliary black line to solve them. As a result, the probability of success was greatly increased.

Figure 3. testing the car with an obstacle

As shown in Figure 3, we started to add an obstacle onto the board. However, the results were not expected. When the car meet the obstacle, the car could not plan a path but start to turn all the time. So the group found problems and analyse reason.


3. Summary
1) The board has been finished completely. 2) The car can go along the specific route basically but it still makes mistakes. So we need to improve its balance in next week.
3) The car cannot detect the obstacle and make a reaction. So the group will continue to discuss this problem and make further attempts.