Sponsors

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

Sponsored Projects

  • Automatic Toothpaste Dispenser (Spring 2019)
  • Automatic Toothpaste Dispenser (Spring 2019)
  • Smart Electric Toothpaste Dispenser (Spring 2019)
  • Smart Electric Toothpaste Dispenser (Spring 2019)

Illinois Robotics in Space

Illinois Robotics in Space (IRIS) is an RSO at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Every year IRIS competes in the NASA Robotic Mining Competition at Kennedy Space Center, works on smaller robotics-related projects and teaches younger students at local schools about what IRIS does.

Sponsored Projects

  • IRIS Localization System (Spring 2015)
  • IRIS Localization System (Spring 2015)

Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Sponsored Projects

  • Weld Gun Spatial Tracking System (Spring 2019)
  • Weld Gun Spatial Tracking System (Spring 2019)

Micron

Sponsored Projects

  • Soccer Team Gameplay Metrics (Spring 2019)
  • Soccer Team Gameplay Metrics (Spring 2019)
  • Traffic Sensing Bicycle Light (Spring 2019)
  • Traffic Sensing Bicycle Light (Spring 2019)

PowerBox Technology

Sponsored Projects

  • PowerBox Technology Power Meter (Fall 2024)

Siebel Center for Design

Sponsored Projects

  • Reconnaissance robot (SCD pitch) (Spring 2019)
  • Reconnaissance robot (SCD pitch) (Spring 2019)

Illini Solar Car

Sponsor

While Illini Solar Car started as a handful of engineering students in 2014, it takes more than that to create a solar car. Today we have grown into a much larger operation harnessing the skills of students from four colleges at Illinois to create one beautiful product.

Sponsored Projects

  • CUSTOM MPPTS FOR ILLINI SOLAR CAR (Spring 2024)
  • Active Cell Balancing for Solar Vehicle Battery Pack (Spring 2021)
  • Modules for Safe Power Distribution in an Electric Vehicle (Spring 2019)
  • Modules for Safe Power Distribution in an Electric Vehicle (Spring 2019)
  • Standalone Steering Wheel for Solar Racing Vehicle (Spring 2019)
  • Standalone Steering Wheel for Solar Racing Vehicle (Spring 2019)
  • Integrated Li-ion Battery Sensors (Fall 2018)
  • Integrated Li-ion Battery Sensors (Fall 2018)

LASSI

Sponsor

Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems at Illinois

Sponsored Projects

  • Power Board for Illini-Sat3 (Spring 2019)
  • Power Board for Illini-Sat3 (Spring 2019)

Lextech

Sponsor

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Sponsor

Northrop Grumman Corporation has provided funding for laboratory equipment and supplies in the area of applied electromagnetics, as well as support for the following groups.

Sponsored Projects

  • Filtered Back – Projection Optical Demonstration (Fall 2014)
  • Filtered Back – Projection Optical Demonstration (Fall 2014)
  • Wearable UV Radiation Sensing Device (Fall 2014)
  • Wearable UV Radiation Sensing Device (Fall 2014)
  • Radio Jammer (Fall 2005)
  • Radio Jammer (Fall 2005)

Advance Devices

Supporter

ARM

Supporter

Boeing

Supporter

Intel

Supporter

National Instruments

Supporter

Raytheon

Supporter

Rockwell Collins

Supporter

Rockwell Collins has provided funding for laboratory equipment and supplies in the area of applied electromagnetics. A number of RF student projects have directly benefited from these improvements to the laboratory.

Sponsored Projects

  • Quadcopter - Sense and Avoid - Revised RFA (Fall 2014)
  • Quadcopter - Sense and Avoid - Revised RFA (Fall 2014)
  • Continuous-frequency Synthesizer (Spring 2005)
  • Continuous-frequency Synthesizer (Spring 2005)
  • football position tracker (Spring 2005)
  • football position tracker (Spring 2005)
  • Point-to-Point RF Communication for Wildlife Project (Spring 2005)
  • Point-to-Point RF Communication for Wildlife Project (Spring 2005)
  • RFID-based parking meter system (Spring 2005)
  • RFID-based parking meter system (Spring 2005)
  • Smart Inventory Management System (SIMS) Using RFID (Spring 2005)
  • Smart Inventory Management System (SIMS) Using RFID (Spring 2005)
  • Wireless Laptop Alarm (Spring 2005)
  • Wireless Laptop Alarm (Spring 2005)
  • Car rooftop antenna (Fall 2004)
  • Car rooftop antenna (Fall 2004)
  • Portable Wireless Locator System (Fall 2004)
  • Portable Wireless Locator System (Fall 2004)
  • Transmission line modeling in SPICE (Fall 2004)
  • Transmission line modeling in SPICE (Fall 2004)
  • Wireless Heart Attack Detector with GPS (Fall 2004)
  • Wireless Heart Attack Detector with GPS (Fall 2004)
  • Wireless switch of household appliances for handicapped (Fall 2004)
  • Wireless switch of household appliances for handicapped (Fall 2004)

Skot Wiedmann

Supporter

Sponsored Projects

  • Interactive Proximity Donor Wall Illumination (Fall 2018)
  • Interactive Proximity Donor Wall Illumination (Fall 2018)
  • Modular Analog Synthesizer (Fall 2017)
  • Modular Analog Synthesizer (Fall 2017)
  • AUDIO - ANALOG/DIGITAL SYNTHESIZER - ANALOG VOLTAGE CONTROLLED OSCILLATOR TO DIGITALLY CONTROLLED STEP-SEQUENCER (Spring 2017)
  • AUDIO - ANALOG/DIGITAL SYNTHESIZER - ANALOG VOLTAGE CONTROLLED OSCILLATOR TO DIGITALLY CONTROLLED STEP-SEQUENCER (Spring 2017)

TAKE Solutions

Supporter

Funded Project 39 (smart door) Spring 2015

Texas Instruments

Supporter

Texas Instruments has donated laboratory equipment for DSP and RFID based projects. A number of student projects have directly benefited from these improvements to the laboratory.

Sponsored Projects

  • Miner Tracking Devices (Spring 2006)
  • Miner Tracking Devices (Spring 2006)
  • Quantum Cryptography Project 1 (Spring 2006)
  • Quantum Cryptography Project 1 (Spring 2006)

Xilinx

Supporter

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.

Project Videos