SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY ENGINEERING PROGRAM

Remotely Controlled Cargo Vehicle

Submitted by

W.L.Ranasinghe

B. ENG. (HONS) IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

MODULE: 16-6077
March 2013

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Remotely Controlled Cargo Vehicle

B. ENG. (HONS) IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

Submitted by

W.L.Ranasinghe

Supervised by Mr. Prabhath Buddhika

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Acknowledgement

First of all, I would like to express my gratitudeto my Project Advisor Mr. Prabhath Buddhika and Lecture in charge Mr. M. Kalyanapala for their invaluable assistance, support and guidance offered to me spending their precious time. And also I would like to thank my friends who gave their valuable ideas and help me whenever Ineeded. Last but not least,I would like to thank my parents and my brother for their unconditional support,andunderstanding in many ways.

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Abstract
Proposed project is to build a Cargo Vehicle which can be used in industries. This vehicle has a luggage carrier which can move items between two locations with the help of Wi-Fi. This has a real time video streaming facility as well. So user can also monitor the environment which this vehicle is going through. This can be used for industrial surveillance as well without wasting lot of money to surveillance products available in the market. This can be controlled with Wi-Fi connectivity. These days Wi-Fi is a most commonly used networking method in industry. Simple Wi-Fi connection which is already available is the only thing needed to get this Cargo Vehicle moving. This can reduce the cost of security and the man power needed to do item shifting to one place to another in various industrial situations. Implementation cost is so low than any other security based product and cargo vehicle product available in the market. Final product of this project will become a Cargo Vehicle with the surveillance facility on it.

Key Words
Arduino Arduino Wi-Fi Shield DC motors Servo Motors IP camera

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Table of Contents

1 2 3 4 5

Introduction/Background .............................................................................................................................. 6 Aim ................................................................................................................................................................. 7 Objectives ...................................................................................................................................................... 7 Literature Review ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Methodology................................................................................................................................................ 10 5.1 Calculation........................................................................................................................................... 10

Resources ..................................................................................................................................................... 11 6.1 6.2 Hardware............................................................................................................................................. 11 Software .............................................................................................................................................. 11

7 8 9 10 11

Gantt chart ................................................................................................................................................... 12 Beneficiaries ................................................................................................................................................. 13 Cost Analysis ................................................................................................................................................ 13 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 13 References ............................................................................................................................................... 14

List of Figures
Figure 1 : Surveillance Robot .................................................................................................................................. 8 Figure 2 : Military Robot ......................................................................................................................................... 9 Figure 3 : Above is the block diagram for the remotely controlled cargo vehicle ................................................ 10

List of Tables
Table 1: Gantt chart .............................................................................................................................................. 12 Table 2 : Cost Analysis .......................................................................................................................................... 13

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Introduction/Background

Wireless communications play an important role in mobile robotics and are able to address real world applications. Wi-Fi radio signals sent from distant computer can be used to control the movements of a robot. Using a wireless router we can make a robot that can be viewed and controlled over a network or over the internet. A microprocessor attached with the robot gets the incoming message through the Wi-Fi network and controls the movement of the robot accordingly. Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) is a wireless technology that uses radio frequency to transmit data through the air. WiFi has initial speeds of 1mbps to 2mbps. Wi-Fi transmits data in the frequency band of 2.4 GHz. It implements the concept of frequency division multiplexing technology. Range of Wi-Fi technology is 40-300 feet. Because of those high speeds and long working ranges we can smoothly control the movements of the robot even though it is not in the range of visible area of the user. The concept of this project is to develop a Cargo Vehicle that can be controlled using Wi-Fi techniques. On board Wi-Fi shield serves as a wireless access point sending and receiving commands from a computer. The use of a microprocessor is to add sense of computing power to the system. Pieces of software had to be written separately for the microprocessor and computer. The on-board network camera was a clever addition to the project because it would be impossible to drive the robot once it was out of the sight.

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Aim

Final aim of this project is to develop an industrial robot vehicle with a luggage carrier which can be controlled through Wi-Fi.It should have the ability to stream live video to the computer. By looking only on the live video any user shouldbe able to control it easily bypressing the required buttons of that computer.

Objectives
Delivering project proposal and presentation. Calculating the torque needed for the motors. Building the motor driver circuit. Developing the main algorithm for the microcontroller. Designing the client PC software. Developing the video streaming method. Testing the range, speed and power. Building a mechanical structure. Completing the final design. Final presentation.

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Literature Review

In recent years, wireless technology has given rise to a large number of available mobile tools and their emerging applications are becoming more and more sophisticated by years. Therefore, many mobile robot platforms use wireless technology to communicate with off-line computing resources, human machine interfaces or others robots. Many mobile robots have equipped with wireless technology such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Wireless LAN etc. Numerous robotics institutes and universities are focusing on intelligent mobile robot systems. Revolutionary new technology involving mobile robots in Mechanical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering, Automation Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, etc. Mobile robot is presented with a situation or a different form depending on the area of application usage. An appropriate sensor is required to design a mobile robot and know how to control it. Therefore, various mechanisms used to control this mobile robot. With the advancement of wireless communication technology in mobile robots, there is a great possibility that we shall have a cellphone controlled the robot maid, wheel chair or an autonomous robot car [1].

Figure 1 : Surveillance Robot

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Figure 2 : Military Robot

As you can see in the above pictures there are many developers who make products like these for the needs of people. Especially for the military purposes by increasing the mobility factor in various ways. By increasing the controlling range. By giving the ability to run on any landscape. By adding some artificial intelligence.

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Methodology

Figure 3 : Above is the block diagram for the remotely controlled cargo vehicle

When the user gives the commands from the PC, microcontroller gets those commands through the Wi-Fi network. Then the microcontroller gives the commands to the motors accordingly through the motor driver. The User can give commands from the client PC software. Through PC software user can see the live video which is streaming through Wi-Fi.

5.1

Calculation

When selecting the Motors I am going to consider the weight of my final product and the maximum weight I am going to carry in the luggage section. I need to adjust the torque according to my final total weight.

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6 6.1

Resources
Hardware
Microcontroller- This contains the main algorithm of the system Wi-Fi connectivity controller (Shield)-This gets the inputs from the client computer. Motor driver-This controls the DC motors and Servo motors. DC motors-This controls the movement of the vehicle. (Forward or Backward) Servo motors-This controls the moving direction of the vehicle.

6.2

Software
Arduino IDEArduino IDE is a standard C compiler for Arduino board with libraries. PROTEUS ISIS and ARESPROTEUS ISIS and ARES is a software package for simulation and PCB designing.

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Gantt chart

Table 1: Gantt chart

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Beneficiaries

We can use this robot in a place which we have to move some components in between two places. And when going through the path we can simply do a surveillance task as well, to look what is happening in the environment. So I think this robot will help in many ways in the industry. Even though I designed this for industrial purposes, this can be useful to various parties. As an industrial equipment As a military equipment As a domestic surveillance equipment

Cost Analysis
Table 2 : Cost Analysis

Component Arduino Mega Arduino Wi-Fi Shield Motor Driver IC DC motors Servo motor IP camera Power supply PCB and circuit components Chassis making Total Estimated Cost

Quantity 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1

Price(Rs) 2000.00 6000.00 200.00 5000.00 2500.00 3000.00 2000.00 1500.00 1000.00 23200.00

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Conclusion

With the use of technologies like Wi-Fi, IP camera, and microcontroller it is amazing to see what we can do. The application of this project is unlimited. Even though I designed it for the industrial activities it can be used by military or can be used for remote monitoring. It is the beginning of new era of robotics where the function of the robots can be increased by the proper deployment of different architectures.

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References

[1] Fahim Iqbal. (2012, May ) WiFi ROBOT with real-time video transmission, hurdle detection and other features. [Online]. www.projectpiles.com/2012/05/wifi-robot-with-real-time-video.html [2] David Szondy. (2012, July) Engineering students build robot capable of creating theoretically infinite Wi-Fi network. [Online].http://www.gizmag.com/wifi-robot/23471/

[3] foam111. (2012, September) wifi robot with realtime video transmission, hurdle detection and light sensitivity. [Online]. http://www.instructables.com/id/wifi-robot-with-realtime-video-transmission-hurdl/ [4] Glen Chiacchieri. (2012, July) WiFi-Extending Robot. [Online]. http://glench.com/make/nodejs-robot/

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