Robo-car designed in Tiruchi

An unmanned car designed and developed by a Robotics-oriented group of final-year students of Roever Engineering College, Perambalur, promises valuable applications on battlefield and mines, besides transport.

The students L. K. Shyam, A. Hariharan, S. Rajesh and S. Thirumoorthy, belonging to ECE and EEE departments, are able to operate the car with ease using a laptop. The destination is determined through the external circuit designed with microcontroller and receiver, which are connected to the serial port of the laptop with RS-232 cable.

A wireless video camera has been positioned in front of the car, which they have named ‘Flight of Fantasy', to provide a clear view of the obstacles on the path. The TV tuner card connected to the USB port of the laptop through cable enables reception of video signal. Fixing a sensor in the front, the team has designed the car to stop whenever there is any obstacle. They have successfully tested the reception and transmission of the wireless signal covering a radius of three to four miles.

By enhancing the car model with global positioning system (GPS), the students have sought to create a possibility for an alternate path to reach a pre-determined destination. The GPS, according to them, will help in identifying the shortest path to reach the destination.

The students received mentoring support for the project from their faculties S.G.Susila and Meenakshi, and D. Siva Sundhara Raja, Project Engineer with Silicon Tech.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirapalli/article53423.ece