Week 2

During the past week, I have been working on building code for our controls system as my other teammates are also doing. I was in charge of making all of the individual system components work while my teammates focused on pathing and routing. I was able to successfully create the functions that the mobile app team requested from our team. There are some functions that still need to be created which deal with the encoders and the pathing algorithm we have for our controls system.

I was also able to run the motors at the target speed we had specified throughout the project year which was 0.82 ft/sec or 0.25 m/sec. There is a library that allows a user to set the PWM duty cycle using fast PWM pins, instantly changing the PWM duty cycle of an electronic component capable of PWM. The library used was the Timer3 library instead of the Timer1 library which was originally used for the Arduino Uno. Since our team is using the Arduino Mega, another Timer library that is compatible with the Mega had to be used. At the bottom of this post is part of the code that basically runs the motors and stops the motors under certain conditions. The RGB LED has also been incorporated as an indicator of the podcar status.

In the coming week, I will be working with my team to integrate all of our work together so that we can begin testing and debugging soon. We will also begin to build our system at the end of the month which is the anticipated approximate time when all of the small scale subteams will be ready to start testing everything on the track. I am looking forward to seeing our project be a success when it is up and running on the track.


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// Function that controls the functions of the system
void controls()
{
     // Changed distance from 30 cm to 15 cm due to pole obstacle
   // LED is Red when statement is true
   if (distance <= 15)
   {
    setStateLED(1);
    setSpeedOfMotors(0);
   }

   // LED is blinking red if button is pressed
   else if (kill_state < 1)
   {
    // Creates a latching button
    kill_latch_state = false;
    reset_latch_state = true;

    // Continues to blink the LED red while latching button is in effect
    // Only way to stop this cycle is to reset Arduino or add another button
    while(kill_latch_state == false && reset_latch_state == true)
    {
      setStateLED(4);
      setSpeedOfMotors(0);
    }
   }

   // Checks to see if the hall effect sensor on the left of podcar read a magnet
   else if (hall_1_state == 0 || hall_2_state == 0)
   {
    setStateLED(2);
    setSpeedOfMotors(580);
   }

   // Checks to see if podcar is at a station
   else if (StationId == 1 || StationId == 2 || StationId == 3 || StationId == 4)
   {
    setStateLED(1);
    setSpeedOfMotors(0);
   }

   // LED should be green
   else
   {
    setStateLED(3);
    setSpeedOfMotors(580);
   } 
}