Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
56 Automatic Bike Light
 Magdalene Noftz
Nathanael Salazar
Pesandi Gunasekera
 Chihun Song design_document1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
# Automatic Bike Light

Team Members:
- Magdalene Noftz (noftz2)
- Pesandi Gunasekera (pesandi2)
- Nathanael Salazar (nsala6)

# Problem

Bicycles that drive on the road legally must have a light on the front allowing them to be visible for 500 feet and have a rear reflector or rear light in the state of Illinois. It is also recommended that a bike is visible for at least 100 feet for vehicles approaching from behind.

Presently there are no systems in place to adjust the brightness of the headlight of a bike in the same way cars have automatically adjusting headlights. There are also no rear lights that automatically turn on or off to alert cars behind the bike of its presence.

Additionally, even if cyclists have lights on their bikes, they can forget to turn them on. Similarly, cyclists can forget to turn their lights off, thus draining the battery and making the lights useless. Also, the luminosity of certain lights may not be appropriate for the light level of the environment that the cyclists are biking through.

# Solution

Bike lights increase visibility and reduce accident risks.

Front light brightness is determined based on ambient light. The darker the surrounding the brighter the light. We would ensure this brightness is calibrated for the bike and is always visible from 500 ft ahead.

The rear light turning on would be based on the bike’s distance from a car behind the bike.

For additional functionality to save energy, if we had time we would like to turn the bike light off if the bike is stationary for long periods of time.

# Solution Components

Bike (Nathanael’s bike)
Front Light
- White bike light (Walmart)
- Photoresistors
- Microcontroller
- Vibration sensor (1528-1766-ND)

Back Light
- Red bike light (Walmart)
- Ultrasonic sensor (1738-SEN0313-ND)
- Microcontroller
- Vibration sensor (1528-1766-ND)

## Subsystem 1: Front light

The front light would detect the ambient light of the surroundings and automatically adjust its brightness accordingly. Photoresistors would be placed on top of the light to determine the luminosity of the sunlight or streetlights nearby.

In broad daylight, the photoresistors would detect the brightness from the sun. This condition could turn the lights off or set it to a flashing mode to improve the visibility of the cyclist.

During night time, the lack of surrounding light would be detected by the photoresistors and set the front bike light to a constant beam that varies in intensity depending on the environment. In well-lit areas, such as cities, the microcontroller would set the light to emit an intensity of at least 150 lumens. In semi-lit areas, such as main roads, the light would emit an intensity between 150 and 400 lumens. In very dark areas, such as unlit trails, the light would emit an intensity upwards of 400 lumens.

The bike light will contain a vibration sensor to detect when the bike is moving. The vibration sensor would be able to detect when the bike is in motion and turn on based on the aforementioned light level. After 5 minutes of inactivity, the light would automatically turn off.

## Subsystem 2: Rear light

The rear light will use an ultrasonic sensor to detect a vehicle behind the bike within a distance of 25 feet. Although the recommended distance is 100 feet, ultrasonic sensors that can detect this range are very expensive, and so our project will use the range of 25 feet. If the project were to be expanded later on, we would switch the sensor to one that could detect farther.

If the sensor detects a vehicle behind the bike, the microcontroller will turn on the rear light to make the bike visible. Once there is no longer anything detected within the range, the microcontroller will turn the light off. Additionally, the vibration sensor will detect if the bike is in motion and is being used. Once the vibration sensor detects that the bike has not been in motion for five minutes, it will turn off the light fully.

# Criterion For Success
- Photovoltaic sensor detects changes in ambient light
- Photovoltaic sensor is used to adjust the brightness of front bike light
- Ultrasonic sensor detect movement 25 feet behind bike
- Rear light turns on if movement is detected
- Vibration sensor correctly detects when bike is moving
- Both lights turn off if the bike has not moved for over five minutes.

Remotely Controlled Self-balancing Mini Bike

Will Chen, Eric Tang, Jiaming Xu

Featured Project

# Remotely Controlled Self-balancing Mini Bike

Team Members:

- Will Chen hongyuc5

- Jiaming Xu jx30

- Eric Tang leweit2

# Problem

Bike Share and scooter share have become more popular all over the world these years. This mode of travel is gradually gaining recognition and support. Champaign also has a company that provides this service called Veo. Short-distance traveling with shared bikes between school buildings and bus stops is convenient. However, since they will be randomly parked around the entire city when we need to use them, we often need to look for where the bike is parked and walk to the bike's location. Some of the potential solutions are not ideal, for example: collecting and redistributing all of the bikes once in a while is going to be costly and inefficient; using enough bikes to saturate the region is also very cost inefficient.

# Solution

We think the best way to solve the above problem is to create a self-balancing and moving bike, which users can call bikes to self-drive to their location. To make this solution possible we first need to design a bike that can self-balance. After that, we will add a remote control feature to control the bike movement. Considering the possibilities for demonstration are complicated for a real bike, we will design a scaled-down mini bicycle to apply our self-balancing and remote control functions.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1: Self-balancing part

The self-balancing subsystem is the most important component of this project: it will use one reaction wheel with a Brushless DC motor to balance the bike based on reading from the accelerometer.

MPU-6050 Accelerometer gyroscope sensor: it will measure the velocity, acceleration, orientation, and displacement of the object it attaches to, and, with this information, we could implement the corresponding control algorithm on the reaction wheel to balance the bike.

Brushless DC motor: it will be used to rotate the reaction wheel. BLDC motors tend to have better efficiency and speed control than other motors.

Reaction wheel: we will design the reaction wheel by ourselves in Solidworks, and ask the ECE machine shop to help us machine the metal part.

Battery: it will be used to power the BLDC motor for the reaction wheel, the stepper motor for steering, and another BLDC motor for movement. We are considering using an 11.1 Volt LiPo battery.

Processor: we will use STM32F103C8T6 as the brain for this project to complete the application of control algorithms and the coordination between various subsystems.

## Subsystem 2: Bike movement, steering, and remote control

This subsystem will accomplish bike movement and steering with remote control.

Servo motor for movement: it will be used to rotate one of the wheels to achieve bike movement. Servo motors tend to have better efficiency and speed control than other motors.

Stepper motor for steering: in general, stepper motors have better precision and provide higher torque at low speeds than other motors, which makes them perfect for steering the handlebar.

ESP32 2.4GHz Dual-Core WiFi Bluetooth Processor: it has both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity so it could be used for receiving messages from remote controllers such as Xbox controllers or mobile phones.

## Subsystem 3: Bike structure design

We plan to design the bike frame structure with Solidworks and have it printed out with a 3D printer. At least one of our team members has previous experience in Solidworks and 3D printing, and we have access to a 3D printer.

3D Printed parts: we plan to use PETG material to print all the bike structure parts. PETG is known to be stronger, more durable, and more heat resistant than PLA.

PCB: The PCB will contain several parts mentioned above such as ESP32, MPU6050, STM32, motor driver chips, and other electronic components

## Bonus Subsystem4: Collision check and obstacle avoidance

To detect the obstacles, we are considering using ultrasonic sensors HC-SR04

or cameras such as the OV7725 Camera function with stm32 with an obstacle detection algorithm. Based on the messages received from these sensors, the bicycle could turn left or right to avoid.

# Criterion For Success

The bike could be self-balanced.

The bike could recover from small external disturbances and maintain self-balancing.

The bike movement and steering could be remotely controlled by the user.

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