A 1996 Firebird after crashing into a telephone pole.

A method of early collision detection and avoidance could curb several of the accidents that may be related to factors such as loss of control, careless driving, sleepy/drunk drivers, and not paying attention to the road. Although it is not a standard safety feature in any car on the current market, the use of sensory equipment to detect potentially dangerous objects a certain distance away and either slow the car down or steer to a safer path has not been released.

Our project was to take a remote controlled Humvee vehicle and add an ultrasonic sensor to it. Simulating a possible advancement in safety/security systems in cars and automobiles, the R/C Humvee and Sensor would be able to operate normally until the sensor detects a possible hazard. In our case, the sensor would face forwards until the car came within ~4 feet of an object, at which time user control would be disconnected from the motor, the sensor would rotate to find the safest path, if any (or back up if there was none), and steer towards that path.

The "smart" logic of the car would be controlled through an Atmel Mega163 programmable chip, which we coded for the project. The recieved commands from the "driver" (the remote control) would pass through the Mega163, and the Mega163 would determine the car's best course of action based on the results of pulses from the sensor. The Mega163 would then drive the car motors as well as recieve information on object distance from the sensor in order to avoid any collisions. The design, implementation, analysis, schematics, and code can be found through the rest of this web page.