Donkey car lite

Simpler version of donkey self driving car

Table of contents

• General info
• Connection
• Functionality
• Miscellaneous
• Screenshots
• Technologies
• Status
• Inspiration

General info

Donkeycar is minimalist and modular self driving library for Python. It is developed for hobbyists and students with a focus on allowing fast experimentation and easy community contributions.
We use Raspberry Pi 3 and the STM32 board a.k.a Blue Pill to communicate with car.

Setup Remote Access

To set up Raspberry Pi look here.

Connect Raspberry Pi to WiFi

Show instructions

1. Check for available WiFi on your Raspberry Pi:

   $ sudo iwlist wlan0 scan |more

2. Input the ESSID and password into the configuration file.

   $ sudo wpa_passphrase "login" "password"

   Append it to configuration file.

   $ sudo wpa_passphrase "login" "password" | sudo tee -a /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

   Go to wpa_supplicant.conf file and delete non hashed password. (ctr + k to cut line, then ctr + x to save)

   $ sudo nano -w /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

3. Reconfigure and connect to a new network.

   To check connection.

   $ ifconfig wlan0

   To reconfigure connection.

   $ sudo wpa_cli -i wlan0

   You should get OK output.

   Now if you check connection again there will be information about your network.

Connect your PC to Raspberry Pi using SSH

Show instructions

1. Make sure SSH and VNC is enabled. If not go to sudo raspi-config then Interfacing Options.

2. Connect your PC to the same WiFi network.

3. Get your Raspberry Pi ip adress. ifconfig or use IP Scanner.

4. Connect your PC to Raspberry using for e.g. PuTTY (only command line) or VNC Viewer (full preview).

Setup Remote File Access

Show instructions

1. Install Samba File Server on Raspberry Pi.

   $ sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin -y

   $ sudo rm /etc/samba/smb.conf

   $ sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

2. Paste in the following lines into the nano editor.

   [global]
   netbios name = Pi
   server string = The PiCar File System
   workgroup = WORKGROUP
   
   [HOMEPI]
   path = /home/pi
   comment = No comment
   browsable = yes
   writable = Yes
   create mask = 0777
   directory mask = 0777
   public = no

3. Create samba password.

   $ sudo smbpasswd -a pi

4. Restart samba server.

   $ sudo service smbd restart

5. Go to your PC (Windows), open cmd and type:

   C:\Users\My_user_name>net use r: \\your_raspberry_ip\homepi

   dir r: to check directory
   r: to switch to Pi your disk

From now on you are able to access your Pi's content in This PC as it's an external drive.

For Mac users check this.

Install USB Camera

Show instructions

1. To enable video preview using VNC, open the VNC Server dialog (top bar on the RPi), navigate to Menu > Options > Troubleshooting, and select Enable direct capture mode.

2. Run raspivid -f in terminal to see if it works.

3. You might also use cheese if you want.

   $ sudo apt-get install cheese -y

   (It didn't work for me, tho.)

4. Simple python scipt worked the best for me.

   from picamera import PiCamera
   from time import sleep
   
   camera = PiCamera()
   camera.rotation = 180
   camera.start_preview(alpha=200)
   sleep(5)
   camera.stop_preview()

Functionality

donkey_lite/camera

• camera_preview.py

  • Shows X second of video at given transparency

• record_video.py

  • Records 5 seconds video

• take_picture.py

• web_camera.py

  • You can watch the camera stream at http://172.16.0.13:8887/status
  • Now also saves every frame recorded

donkey_lite/car_modes

• recording_car.py
• simple_autonomous_car.py
• wall_bouncing_car.py

donkey_lite/drive_using_keyboard

• Allows you to drive using your keybord.
  Uses pygame window to render buttons and listen to keys.

donkey_lite/learning_models

• Image preprocessing
• Self-driving model training
• Saved models

donkey_lite/parts

• Used to communicate with car's hardware.

Miscellaneous

• To build the CPP module run python setup.py build_ext --inplace.

• To check RPi temperature type vcgencmd measure_temp

Screenshots

• Self driving

  

Technologies

• Python - version 3.7.3
• donkeycar
• pytorch - Tutorial
• cv2 - Common issue

Status

Project is: just_started,

Inspiration

Donkey car repo: https://github.com/autorope/donkeycar