Education in electrical engineering through a design project

Application of a vision system and a remote control car to an elective fourth year design project in electrical engineering is discussed. The design project involves learning and application of various sensors, actuators, control theories. The end product of the design project is an intelligent vehicle that is able to follow an emulated highway automatically. A camera with embedded color tracking capabilities is included in the project. A remote control car is used as a mobile robot to build the intelligent vehicle. The objective for building the intelligent vehicle is to design an intelligent controller for path tacking tasks. Experimental results have demonstrated that the developed intelligent vehicle is able to achieve the tasks. Fourth year electrical engineering students are trained through the design project. They are able to apply their knowledge in digital electronics, analogue electronics, sensors, motors, microcontrollers, and mechatronics to complete the project.