Differential Drive 1

DDR_2018

Objective: To build a simple Differential Drive Robot (DDR) using inexpensive components and involving a lot of hands-on experiments and learning.

Info

List of components used are

1. Arduino UNO
2. HC05 bluetooth module
3. BO motors
4. Wheels
5. Caster wheel
6. L293D motor driver IC
7. L298N motor driver module
8. L7805 voltage regulator
9. Capacitors
10. Acrylic sheet
11. Soldiering setup
12. Solid core (single core) wires
13. Perforated PCB
14. Nose pliers etc.

Instructions for firmware

1. Use Arduino IDE or Visual Studio Code with PlatformIO extension
2. Connect Arduino UNO to the PC using usb cable and select corresponding comport in the IDE.
3. Upload the firmware

Instructions for pc ground station

1. Install python 3.12 in the pc
2. Open pc folder inside the ground station folder in Visual studio code
3. Create python virtual environment

   python 3.12 -m venv venv
   

4. Activate the virtual environment

   • For Windows pc use the following command

      venv/Scripts/activate
     

   • For Linux based pc use the following command

      . venv/Scripts/activate
     

5. Install requirements in the virtual environment

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

6. Run the python script ground_station.py

7. The robot is controlled by following four keyboard arrow buttons

   1. Up arrow key	:	Forward
   2. Down arrow key	:	Reverse
   3. Left arrow key	:	Turn left
   4. Right arrow key	:	Turn right

Instructions for android phone ground station

Note: The above applicaiton were build for old version of android os. It might not work on current version.

1. Copy the following files from ground station/android_phone to android mobile phone
   1. DDR_bluetooth_transmitter_V0.0.apk
   2. DDR_bluetooth_transmitter_V1.0.apk
2. Try installing both DDR_bluetooth_transmitter_V0.0.apk and run the application
3. If step 2 does not work try installing and running DDR_bluetooth_transmitter_V1.0.apk.