ELECTRIC POWERED 1/10 AUTONOMOUS CAR

Abstract

This project covers the development of an autonomous electric car at a 1:10 scale. The car will use vision and LiDAR information to follow a track at high-speeds.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
  • Hardware
  • Operating System
  • Software
• Installation
  • Installation on Host Computer
  • Flashing the Jetson TX2
  • Installation on Jetson TX2
• Testing Steering and Throttle
• Credits

Requirements

Hardware

1. Electric Powered 1/10 RC Car
2. Hokuyo UST-10LX
3. NVIDIA® Jetson™ TX2
4. Orbitty Carrier for NVIDIA® Jetson™ TX2/TX2i/TX1 [REDACTED]
5. Arduino Nano Every
6. Intel® RealSense™ Tracking Camera T265

Operating System

1. Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (Xenial Xerus)
2. JetPack 3.3
3. Orbitty L4T R28.2X BSP

Software

1. Desktop-Full ROS Kinetic
2. Python 2.7
   • pip
   • rospy
   • NumPy
3. Git
4. Arduino IDE

Installation

Installation on Host Computer

1. Install Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (Xenial Xerus)
2. Install JetPack 3.3
3. Install Orbitty L4T R28.2X BSP
4. Install Arduino IDE

Flashing the Jetson TX2

1. Connect your host computer to the Jetson TX2 via Micro-USB

2. Go through the full initial JetPack 3.3 installation

3. Copy the CTI-L4T-V121.tgz package into <installed_directory>/64_TX2/Linux_for_Tegra in the host machine

4. Extract the package

   • Open your terminal
   • Change to the Linux_for_Tegra directory
   • Type tar -xzf CTI-L4T-V121.tgz

5. Change into the CTI-L4T directory

   • Type cd CTI-L4T

6. Run the install script

   • Type sudo ./install.sh

7. Put the Jetson TX2 into recovery mode

   • Turn off the power
   • Turn on the power
   • Press the reset button
   • Hold the recovery button and press then reset button once
   • Keep holding the recovery button for 2 seconds

8. Change to the Linux_for_Tegra directory

   • Type cd ..

9. Flash the Jetson TX2

   • Type ./flash.sh orbitty mmcblk0p1

10. Connect the Jetson TX2 system to the same network as your host machine and determine the local IP address of the Jetson TX2

    • Type ifconfig on the Jetson TX2

11. Re-launch the JetPack installer on the host computer

    • Type cd ../..
    • Type ./JetPack-L4T-3.3-linux-x64_b39.run

12. Select the Jetson TX2

13. Install the default Jetson TX2 dependencies that have been overwritten by the BSP

    • Select "Clear Actions"
    • Change the entry under "Install on Target" to "install" by double clicking on "no action"

14. Enter the IP address of your Jetson TX2 system, as well as the username and password

Installation on Jetson TX2

1. Install Desktop-Full ROS Kinetic

   • Type sh ros-kinetic-desktop-full-install.sh to install Desktop-Full ROS Kinetic

2. Git clone this repository

   • Open your terminal
   • Go to the directory you wish to clone the repository in
   • Type git clone https://github.com/reuben-thomas/NP-DevCar.git

3. Install the required packages

   • Type sh requirements.sh

Testing Steering and Throttle

1. Open the Arduino IDE on the host computer

2. Configure the correct board and port on the IDE

3. Flash the scripts/Ardu.ino file into the Arduino Nano Every

4. Assemble the Arduino Nano Every

5. Run ROS on the Jetson TX2

   • Start your terminal
   • Type roscore

6. Run the rosserial script

   • Type rosrun rosserial_python serial_node.py /dev/<serial_port>

7. Test the servo

   • Type rostopic pub car/cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist '{linear: {x: <value>}, angular: {z: <angle>}}'

Credits

Photographer - Elgin Ng