Week 3: IR System

Group Meeting

• With the help of professor Smith, we calculate the value of all the resistors.

• Summary of the job done in last week.

• To measure more directly, we choose the valves as the measurement origin point. The IR system will detect the valves to refresh the spoke number then record the spoke number continuously.

• The stepper motor drives part need to be connected with the IR system to realise the spoke detect function.

Supervisor meeting

• Professor Smith gave some advice to improve the motor drive.

• Provide a sample for the original detector.

• Show some basic coding for the KL46Z.

Lab Day

IR system

• We used the resistor calculate before and reconstruct the IR system circuit.

• Besides, we add a LED on the circuit to detect if the phototransistor can work actually.

• The coding for KL46z was still confused so we take a long time work on that. And the program finally works on the circuit.

• Try to derive the data from the KL46Z and build communication with the raspberry pi (motor).

• But finally, we decided to use Raspberry Pi to construct the IR system rather than the KL46Z because we still confuse the KL46Z programming. In this way, to realise the IR detection, the WiringPi library will apply to the program as well as the stepper motor.

• Finally, the IR system can operate correctly and the second IR system built successfully with the IR module TCRT 5000 to detect the valve.

• To support the IR system, both of the IR LED and phototransistor stand were 3D modelled and printed. which will stand under the wheel combine with the stepper motor stand.

Stepper Motor drive

• The motor has been tested when co-operating with the IR system with the raspberry pi for several times. We corrected some code and both of them can operate well.

Problems, Issues and Concerns

• The program of the KL46Z was still not stable, the group member really not familiar with this microcontroller.

• The data communication between raspberry pi and KL46Z is complicated.

• The signal delay between circuit and KL46Z was quite large.

Plan for next week

• Receive the data comes from the visual system group.

• The method to receive the data and calculate the data need to be determined.