brahm neufeld
EE395 - Electrical Engineering Design
EE395 is the third-year design cource in the department of Electrical Engineering at the U of S. It is a half-term, 3-credit course which serves as a more substantial introduction to design than the first-year GE121 course, and draws on what we've learned in Electrical Engineering to date.
I partnered with Mike Kachor to work on a Braitenberg Vehicle for this project. A Braitenberg vehicle is designed to be mechanically and functionally simple, and generate complex responses from an array of simple inputs. These responses, observed over time, can be interpreted as an emotional response similar to that of a human. Basically, this Braitenberg vehicle serves as a research or entertainment tool, and features a variety of possible pre-programmed responses to sensory inputs.
Our vehicle featured a pair of analog infrared sensors and a trio of proximity sensors to detect different inputs - the brightness of the environment and the vehicle's distance from any walls or objects. For output, the vehicle had a pair of motors as well as four super-bright RGB LEDs. An Atmel ATMega32 provided the "brain" for the robot. To summarize the practical aspects of this project, it was mainly an application in familiarizing ourselves with circuit design, counters, microcontrollers, and D/A and A/D conversions.
The vehicle had the following "moods" or "emotions" which could be toggled by a 16-position hex switch:
| Switch Position | Program | Description |
| 0 | LED Test (Debug) | Cycles through all the LEDs colour combinations |
| 1 | IR Test (Debug) | Lights a pair of LEDs white when one IR Sensor is detecting more light then the other |
| 2 | Light Follower | Vehicle will turn to Follow Detected Light |
| 3 | Wall/Object Avoider | Vehicle will move around and avoid any solid objects detetecd |
| 4 | Distance Sensor Test | LEDs are lit depending on which distance sensor is triggered |
| 5 | Cross Bot | Similar to Light Follower |
| 6 | Cross bot with object avoidance | Program 5 plus object avoidance |
| 7 | Motor Test (Debug) | Will go forward, stop, then go backwards |
| 9 | Light Hater | Moves around and turns away from light, if it gets too close to light, it stops and blinks its LEDs red |
| A | Light Lover | Moves around turning towards light. When really close to light, it stops and turns the LEDs yellow |
The third-year design project is an exercise in learning, and we certainly learned our lesson about project management and bug anticipation. Though we finished everything to a satisfactory degree and pulled off a successful presentation, I am too ashamed to post a picture of our finished product, which was packed with cardboard and hot glue.
Last Modified March 2, 2009