Project Design

Android Developer Portal

Android Developer Website

Concept Design

Bluetooth:

Bluetooth communication will be used to send data from the Freescale car’s camera to a smartphone device. In our case we will be using an Android platform and user friendly application on the smartphone to display the camera data. The main reason for picking bluetooth communication for this project is because its low power, the module itself can be small/compacted, easy to program for, and most all smartphones have built in bluetooth capability. The packet size of the data being transferred is also not very huge, so transfer rates shouldn’t cause much lag between for viewing camera data from the car.

Rechargeable Batteries:

Instead of using the car’s battery for powering our device, we will be using an external rechargeable battery. Using the car’s battery might cause interference with communication from the motors of the car. This battery will power the bluetooth module and the microcontroller that will processes camera data. The battery will be able to recharge through USB.

Shield:

We wanted our device to easily be connect and detach from the car without problems for the user. The whole device is going to be more small shield that will have two ports. One port will be connected to the camera and the other port will be connected to the cars microcontroller.

Inline Connection:

Inline connection means that our module will be in between the camera and the car’s microcontroller. The microcontroller on our module will recieve data from the camera. The data will then be copied and go to both the bluetooth module and then to the car’s microcontroller.

Video and Student Overlay:

The video and student overlay will be done on the Android app. The video will be the gray scale of each of the 128 pixels that come from the camera. The line of pixels will then be duplicated down the screen for easier viewer for the user. Black or very dark pixels should show where the line.