Circuits Powers Up
This semester, Circuits’ goals are to design new power and signal boards, extend responsibility of the team to included embedded code, create fourteen competition-simulating ground Roombas, and investigate a way to accommodate two Jetson TX2s (computers used in the vehicle) on board. Previously, Circuits’ time was spent on training new members and switching our PCB design software to Altium from Eagle. This training involved working together as a group on the same project; this semester, however, the sub-team was split up further to accomplish our set-out goals.
Circuits’ main responsibility is to design, build, and test the signal and power boards of the vehicle. Our signal board, which communicates between the on-board sensors, high level processor, and electric motor controllers, is an updated version of the previous year’s. We are using a similar strategy to past years, but the new signal board needed to be able to accommodate a new vehicle design and added components. Similarly, our power-distribution board needed to be updated, including adding a way to reduce 14.8 Volts from our LiPo Battery to 12 Volts to power the Jetson TX2 carrier boards, which are responsible for the vehicle’s computing power. We are using Altium Designer to design both boards. Recently, the schematics were reviewed by a professor and an old member of MAAV, with positive feedback. Our next-steps are to send the completed board files to be printed, to populate, test, and debug these boards, and to get our final boards printed at Saturn PCB Design Inc. After all this, we will finalize the boards for the IARC competition, held in July, where we hope to take first place!
Originally, we planned to switch our micro-controller on the signal and power boards from the Tiva TM4C123GH6PM to the Atmel SAM D21E; however, this would create the need for new embedded code, which is very time intensive and requires more time than just this semester. A small sub-section of Circuits has been working on learning how to use Atmel Studio, which is a program for developing microcontroller applications. The group has also been learning and gaining a good understanding of MAAV’s old embedded code. This process has been slow and tedious; but it is necessary as we plan to switch to the Atmel Sam D21E next year. Circuits has also been tasked with creating 14 ground robots that simulate competition behavior. This project was started several years ago but wasn’t finished. Circuits has recovered previous work and has developed a plan to complete the manufacturing of the robots. Currently, Circuits is on track to achieve our goals by the end of semester, and we are very excited about finishing the vehicle by the end of the semester.
