Tailgate Buddy: Robotic Power Wheels Vehicle

This is a robotic vehicle created for a senior design project at the University of Central Florida's school of electrical engineering. This started as a 12 volt Power Wheels vehicle and was converted into a robotic vehicle that follows and infrared emitter which can be worn on the users belt. It was designed to be used on game days as a vehicle to haul coolers and other supplies. It uses two IR receivers mounted on the hood to track the position of the IR emitter and steer the vehicle towards it. An ultrasonic sensor mounted in the front bumper allows the vehicle to determine speed for which to travel as well as avoid running into obstacles. There are also two more ultrasonic sensors mounted on the sides of the vehicle which keep it from turning into objects or people when driving past. One nice feature is a water gun that is mounted on the front of the vehicle. If a curious observer walks up to the vehicle and blocks the path, the vehicle will stop and then spray them with water until they decide to move. Once out of the way the vehicle can travel on its way. Two other nifty features for tailgating is a 50 watt stereo with mp3 player input and a 12 volt power outlet which can be used to charge cell phones or the mp3 player. More videos to come as vehicle is perfected.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Power
• Wheels
• robot
• robotic
• ultrasonic
• infrared
• emitter
• radio
• control
• toy
• rc
• car
• autonomous
• University
• of
• Central
• Florida
• UCF
• Knights

[adverseking]

Hi,

I am about to do a very similar project for my 3rd year university. I have to say that I love what you have done with this. I was just wondering how long and how many people have been working on this to get it to this stage as I am working on my own so I dont know if it will nd up being too much! Thanks

[ucimaplaya2]

We had a semester to build it but we built a lot of it in the first few weeks and then built the rest in the last week of the semester. It was a 4 member group but it could have been done with less people in that whole semester time if it was worked on more often.

[KurtWoloch]

How many different speed settings does it have? Seems like it continuously accelerates and decelerates.

[ucimaplaya2]

we have about 10 programmed into it, however at the time of the video there was a problem with the motor controller. It would jump to a high speed before slowing back down. It did the same thing when driven directly by radio control. The motor controller had to be replaced.

[freaknigh]

hell ya