So yesterday I bought a new (cheap) RC car with a plan in mind. I am planning on controlling the car from my computer.
There are several ways to do this project depending on the type of communication I want to use. But I'm not sure how. Here are some of my ideas to do this:
1) I was thinking of connecting a PIC microcontroller serially to my computer. This microcontroller is in turn connected to the microcontroller of the joystick/radio transmitter of the car. So the command from the computer will be processed my PIC microcontroller which would receive this command and transmit a certain command from one of it pins to a specific pin on the joystick's microcontroller. For example, when I press W on the keyboard, the microcontroller receives this, and sends a voltage to a certain pin on the joystick's microcontroller( this pin was initially connected in the board for the forward command of the car.)
This sounds quite complex, but I think its better to use this then infrared, since radio has a better range. So I have some questions:
-What best PIC microcontroller should I use? Any simple one? I have only four output commands(forward, backward, right, left)
-should I use C for the coding of the microcontroller or PIC assembly?
-does the type of microcontroller on the joystick affect what PIC microcontroller I should use?
-should I have a special program(VB,Java) on the computer to send the commands to the microcontroller? Or when its connected serially it directly takes the pressed command?
2) I was thinking of connecting the PIC microcontroller to the microcontroller on the car instead. But that means there will be a cable connected from the laptop to the car, and the project would not be wirelessly.
So which project is better and easier to accomplish?
And if anyone can help me with the coding of the PIC microcontroller I would be more than thankful(ready made code?)
Thanks !
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