Project mission: develop an autonomous vehicle capable of navigating and following colored objects using embedded systems and custom sensor arrays. The brief asks small teams to integrate hardware design, embedded programming, and control systems into a fully autonomous platform with real-time decision making and wireless coordination with other vehicles.
Overview
The system is powered by an embedded ATmega MCU and combines custom hardware design, embedded C++ firmware, and wireless communications for real-time control and telemetry. The project emphasizes practical engineering skills — PCB design, sensor integration, and embedded software development — applied to a tangible robotic platform.
Embedded detection system
To enable color detection for line following, the team designed a purpose-built photodiode array and the algorithm that drives it — using the MCU's embedded ADCs to identify course markers. The system processes analog sensor data in real time to find navigation targets and steer the vehicle without relying on external computer-vision hardware. It's a clean demonstration of embedded systems design principles applied to a constrained, time-sensitive sensing problem.
WebSocket communication
The project also requires WebSocket communication for real-time telemetry, remote control, and interaction with other student vehicles on the course. The wireless interface enables dynamic control adjustments and coordination across multiple autonomous systems — a small-scale simulation of multi-robot coordination scenarios.