CPE279: Design and Develoment Project

Acad Unit: 4

Pre-requisite: Students must be registered for or completed both CPE206 Microcontroller Systems Design and CPE207 Software Engineering.

The Design and Development Project (DDP) emphasizes practical aspects of analysis, design and construction, testing and reliability. The work undertaken reinforces theories, concepts and issues introduced in formal lectures through team-based implementation of a project that integrates both hardware and software-related exercises.

The DDP project to be carried out by the team is to

1. Design a microcontroller based stepper motor/dc motor based mouse to explore a maze, solve the travelling salesman problem on the explored maze, and find the fastest/shortest path. Engineering and environment constraints as well as safety issues are considerations to be taken into account in the design.

2. To update the status of the exploration to a software program on the PC through the serial communication interface. The monitoring program will update the mouse movement in real-time.

On completion of this subject, the student should be able to:

1. Design a hardware based project using a microcontroller.

2. Develop medium scale software project including a Graphic User Interface and algorithms such as maze exploration, travelling salesman problem, etc.

3. Integrate the hardware and software to perform real time update.

Total number of contact hours/laboratory access:

1. Two hours of DDP briefing

2. Two weeks of formal laboratory work (1 week during recess week and 1 week after exams)

3. Free access to the laboratory from week 4 of term to DDP completion.

For the description of the DDP programme, please click here.