Week 13 (Design Phase): (9/12 - 9/18)

This week our group work consisted of setting up the Arduino with a test program given to us to check if the chassis motors are working properly. The motors will be driven by an L298N H-Bridge motor driver module that requires 2 digital inputs and a PWM signal per motor from the Arduino. It also needs to be connected to a power supply that will provide 12V and 5V from the Arduino. This module can power up to two motors so we will employ 2 of these to power all four motors.

The modules were connected to the Arduino, supplied the voltage, and the program was run to test the movement of the wheels. The wheels functioned properly, and we are now ready to begin programming the logic.

In this process, we learned that the L298N requires more inputs than we previously anticipated and practically maxed out the Arduino Uno’s GPIO with just one module. So now to solve this, we will upgrade to an Arduino Mega, which we will include in our project budget.