This paper represents a computer controlled small vehicle. This type of vehicle can move in a predefined path without human operator intervention and can collect data from the surrounding environment. This data has been processed by a well structured hardware and software. After processing the received data is sent to the vehicle to move it in its correct path. This type of vehicle can be used in variety of application such as military spying, fire fighting system etc.
Introductuion
A 6 volt motor operated small vehicle is developed which is fully computer
controlled. The developed system has been interfaced with PC through
standard parallel printer port of an IBM compatible Pentium I processor.
Micro-switch sensors /1/ has been attached with the body of the vehicle at
different locations to collect data from the surrounding environment. Five
sensors are used for this purpose and they are attached on front, back, lower front and two sides of the vehicle. Data from the vehicle is serially sent towards the PC through a transmission line using serial data transmission standard. A software has been developed using ‘TURBO C’ language to process this data and suitable command has been sent serially towards the vehicle to move it in its correct path. The complete system is shown in block diagram in figure 1.
Peripheral hardware design:
Design of peripheral hardware is necessary due to serial transmission of data. From the micro-switches data are directly used to communicate with PC and it is not necessary to convert signal from A/D /2/. It is possible to use serial port for data transmission but it has a serious drawback- the transmission rate is fixed at RS 232 standard /3/ and cannot be modified. Receivers and other timing circuits should be arranged according to this standard. For this reason parallel port is used and parallel to serial conversion is necessary.

Download full report
http://files.spogelabstracts/p-0077--project.pdf