SwitchLab Vehicles
SwitchLab Vehicles
Project Introduction
Our client Peter Oliver, owner of The Switch Lab, builds electric vehicles and provide classes to high school students in order to educate them about those vehicles. Peter's goal is to come up with new ideas and design for switch vehicles, so that student can also learn and expand their understanding in the field of electrical engineering. Most of the employees that work with him are Mechanical engineers, so he wanted a group of electrical engineering students who could work on switch vehicle and take part in the process of upgraded technology. Peter Oliver and his team also builds educational kits, so those who can not afford the vehicle can buy the kit and learn the fundamentals of the vehicle. That being said, our group is committing to work on two parts. That first part includes two things; #1 is to control vehicle with an Android phone to move it forward/backward, turn headlights on/off, turn vehicle on/off, #2 is to use Lidar/Radar to detect objects in the blind spot to give warnings. The second part is to enhance the educational kit of the Switch Lab. After successful completion of the project, we will provide documentation to Peter so he can educate other students about our project.
Problem Statement
SwitchLab currently does not have anything to make their vehicles stand out from the crowd of automotive manufacturers in terms of newest technology. Our goal is to design a system that can control the basic functions of the electric vehicle from SwitchLab. Some of those functions include turning on the vehicle and moving it forward and backward. We also plan to make the vehicles light turn on and off. We will do so using wireless technology to send commands from an Android phone. We will also use sensors to detect objects and alert driver to avoid collisions. SwitchLab also offers educational kit, that is shown below, in order to teach about their technology. The problem with this educational kit is that it does not model the vehicle and it consumes too much energy. In order to implement our project, we will design a new educational kit that can be connected to the vehicle or used as an educational kit with a test board.