Graphical LCD Display:

An accurate and simple graphical oscilloscope using a PIC18F2550 microcontroller and an AGM1264F graphical LCD has been constructed using the PIC18F2550 GLCD Text Test as basis. It has the capability of measuring the maximum voltage, peak-to-peak voltage, average voltage, minimum voltage, and the zero-crossing frequency for a DC signal over 100 samples. To capture on rise or fall, the oscilloscope has a built-in edge trigger function that can be set.

Using the change Time Division function, the time scale for the display is variable and can be easily redefined while the voltage range can be changed to 0-5V, 0-2.5V, and 0-1.25V. The relatively slow acquisition time and sampling rate is the main limitations of this oscilloscope due to the fact that the inputs are limited by the constraints of the internal ADC.
A 9V battery is used as the power supply along with a high-accuracy low drop-out linear voltage regulator to provide a stable 5V supply for the microcontroller and the graphical LCD. The power spikes/ripples are prevented by capacitor.

Robot Navigation System

Robot Navigation is a large component of current robotics research. In this paper, a method to implement the “go-to-goal” aspect of navigation is discussed. Specifically, I will first discuss a method called Egocentric Navigation, which was developed at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Intelligent Systems. Then improvements toward making the system more accurate and efficient will be proposed. Finally, the experimental and simulation results of this new Egocentric Navigational system follow. In total, this paper will lay out a complete system for implementation on a robot which will accomplish navigation to goal in a landmark-based “egocentric” manner.

Fireflies With Small Microcontrollers

This circuit simulates fireflies with small microcontrollers. Here is the circuit and the component used for single fireflies

1. ATtiny13 microcontroller
2. Light Dependant Resistor (LDR)
3. LED
4. 2 resistors

To make it interesting, assembly it on the board for 25 fireflies. Every single firefly is self contained, there is no over-all controller. Here is the picture

Interfacing an AVR controller to a GPS Mobile Phone

So my first idea was to combine a microcontroller with a GSM and a GPS modul. There are a lot of these modules over at Sparkfun, for example. Looking through their shop I found the Telit GM862, which is a GSM modul with an built in GPS receiver. That is what I wanted. And they sell great break out boards to make it easier for hobbyist to access these modules.

Here are some of the features of this GSM-GPS module:

• Quad band GSM
• 17mA average stand-by, 3.5mA in low-power mode
• 250mA average operating current
• SiRF III GPS Receiver Built In
• Data, Voice, SMS, and Fax
• Data speeds up to 57.6kbps
• Supply voltage : 3.4-4.2V
• CMOS Camera Capable
• Python Interpreter built-in

Voice means you are not limited to mobile tracker applications. You could attach a speaker and a microphone to build a complete mobile phone!

Ultrasonic Spotlight Tracker

The ultrasonic spotlight tracker is a system that uses a wireless beacon to track a target’s location using both RF signals and ultrasound waves. It then drives a light source to point at the location of the target.
In this project, we limit our remote unit’s degree of freedom to two dimensions to prove the concept, although it can be very easily extended to three dimensions. To locate the target, we need to measure the distance of the target from at least two known points. The distances are measured by counting the time it takes for sound to travel from the target to the base station and multiplying it by the speed of sound waves. The speed of sound in air is about 334 meters per second. The 16 MHz microcontroller avr can count time intervals on the order of 0.0625 microseconds, which gives a theoretical accuracy of 0.02 mm.

Inex Interactive C Robot Kit

High performance C programmed robot kit

For power hungry hobbyists

Perfect for students, or anyone looking for an easy to build robot that is programmed in C

The Inex Interactive C Robot Kit V2.0 includes the AX-11, a 68HC11 based microcontroller board, an assortment of great sensors, 2 DC gearboxes and mechanical parts for building and modifying 8 sample robot projects (see manual below).

The AX-11 microcontroller board

The AX-11 microcontroller board is a modified version of the popular Handy board from MIT. The AX-11 is a microcontroller system that is used to run robot design courses and competitions at the university and high school level, build robots for fun, and control industrial devices. This board uses the 68HC11 microcontroller and has 32KB non-volatile RAM, 9-digital inputs , 21-channels 8-bit ADC, 4-DC motor driver, 6-Servo motor driver, a 16x2 LCD module for display and an infrared LED with 38kHz IR module. Data can be downloaded from your PC via its RS-232 port.

The Inex Interactive C Robot Kit is programmed in C. The Interactive C environment consists of a compiler (with interactive command-line compilation and debugging) and a run-time machine language module. It has many functions and libraries to directly support robot programming.

Includes

• Controlled by 68HC11 Microcontroller
  
• 32KB non-volatile RAM
  
• Serial port interface
  
• LCD 16x2 display
• Piezo speaker
  
• Ability to drive 4-DC motors (2 gearmotors are included)
  
• 6-Servo motor ports (servo motors sold separately)
  
• 6-Digital inputs
  
• 8-Digital outputs
  
• 21-Analog inputs
  
• 12V Power Supply (included)
  
• 6xAA battery holder
  
• Sensors (GP2D120 IR ranger, 2 wheel encoders)

This kit comes complete with Thai manuals (English manual can be found below) and CAI software for learning to program the robot. Everything you need to successfully build your robot is provided.

The manual includes instructions on using a SFR04 ultrasonic rangefinder (RB-Dev-01), IR proximity sensors (RB-Lyn-02) and the CMPS03 magnetic compass (RB-Dev-03) which can easily be interfaced with the Interactive C Robot (sold separately). Add any of our sensors and increase its awareness!

Controlling AVR with Visual Basic

Controlling AVR with Visual Basic

The purpose of this microcontroller project is to give the student a figure out about How to Control AVR Devices using Visual Basic (PC). To comunnicate between PC and Microcontrller, it use RS232. So, this is not a stand alone project. From this general microcontroller project the student can improve and made more specific to meet their requirement. This project creted by Serasidis

"The use-range of this application is very high. You can make, anything you want, that its need control from PC computer or some circuit that is collect data from somewere, and at the end, its give this data to PC computer via RS232 port to our software"