Team Green
- Anila Durbha
- Gautham Krishna
- Marie Lee
Car Simulator
Project Description
This project was inspired by TESLA. Given the alarming price of TESLA cars, we aimed to design a low-budget prototype that could potentially be a competitor to Chevy or Ford. We designed a semi-truck-based car that could mimic the features of a modern-day car such as automatic lights, proximity alerts, blind spot detection, and temperature insights. This was designed using a Wio terminal, 5 external sensors, and 3 buttons. A detailed part list and working principle are listed in the upcoming sections.
Parts List
- Motion Sensor To detect the presence of an object while passing left.
- Circular LED To simulate front headlights.
- Ultrasound Ranger To measure the distance between your car and behind.
- Temperature and Humidity Sensor To simulate and measure the ambient and engine temperature.
- Digital Light Sensor To determine the outdoor light conditions.
Features
The project was developed with the following features:
- Simulate the start of the vehicle remotely.
- Turn on the light automatically by reading the light sensor value.
- Use the LED to simulate front headlights.
- Simulate High Beam and Low Beam.
- Provide an alert to the user if the Engine Temperature is high.
- Provide a proximity alert based on the car behind.
- Provide a blind spot audio alert while passing left.
Setup Instructions
- Step1: Connect the Circular LED to D2
- Step2: Connect the Ultrasonic Ranger to D4
- Step3: Connect the Digital Light Sensor to the I2C port on the Wio Terminal
- Step4: Connect the Temperature and Humidity Sensor to D6
- Step5: Connect the PIR Motion Sensor to D0
- Step6: Attach the Wio to the 3D Printed Truck
The below portrays the image representation for step-by-step connections:
Construction Video
Working Principle
Remote Start
- Pushsafer was used to send a command through Python to an iOS device that posed the question "Want to start your car?".
- If the user responded yes, a command was then sent to Wio which would simulate the start of a car engine.
- If no, the loop in Python would repeat after a set period that will ask the question again
The following images represent the screen from PushSafer.
Passing on the left
- When WIO_KEY_C is pressed, the motion sensor is enabled to check for blind spot objects.
- This is done to simulate the indicator camera in cars.
- If an object is identified, the WIO_BUZZER is set to provide audio feedback in addition to the alert that appears on the terminal
Rear end proximity detection
- The Ultrasonic Ranger is used to simulate rear end proximity detector.
- The ranger is set to run continuously and provides visual alerts on the terminal if the vehicle behind is close.
- If the vehicle behind is between 15 to 30m, the alert is issued as "CAR BEHIND", and when the vehicle is closer than that, the alert is issued as "ALERT!".
Automatic Lights
- This was designed based on the automatic headlights in cars.
- Based on the light value from the digital light sensor, the LED lights up.
- This is particularly true when it comes to low light values.
- On pressing down WIO_5S_PRESS button, the LED also simulates High and Low Beam.
Temperature
- The Temperature and Humidity Sensor serves two purposes.
- During the initial startup, it is used to measure "ambient temperature" and issues visual feedback.
- The feedback will include either "Beautiful Weather" or "Bad Weather, Drive Safe!" based on the temperature.
- While the vehicle is running, and when WIO_KEY_B is pressed, the same sensor is used to measure "engine temperature".
- Visual feedback is provided based on the temperature and the variation is also depicted through changes in colors - Blue for normal and Red for high temperatures.
Fitting with 3D printed Case
The below image shows various angles for the final fitted vehicle.
Working Video
The final prototype is as below:
The code can be found here