BTI3051 Bachelorthesis FS2022 : Standalone Track Editor and Observer for Anki Overdrive - BFH Hyperdrive
This bachelor thesis at the Bern University of Applied Sciences aims to develop a standalone system "BFH Hyperdrive". It is a standalone system to observe the original car racing game "Anki Overdrive". It is ideally suited as a base system for application areas in researches such as traffic simulations or process control.
BFH Hyperdrive:
- A standalone system, which is immediately ready after starting the computer.
- The Track Editor can generate the track images with the SVG format.
- In difference to PNG, the SVG file size has become up to 40 times smaller.
- The quality of the printed SVG tracks is excellent.
- The animation of the digital twin has become smoother and more accurate.
- Optionally, it can work collaboratively in the network with other "BFH Hyperdrive".
- Connect the computer to the power supply.
- Supply the power to the station of the vehicles (plug in the power adapter/USB port on the computer).
- Run a web browser and call the main page (index.html)
localhost
Alternatively: connect the computer with an Ethernet cable and call the main page (index.html) http://192.168.5.5. There are only static IP addresses on the computer, and no DHCP server. Make sure that all devices are on the same network /24.
- Minimum speed should be 300 (mm/s).
The system can be built as a new BFH Hyperdrive using the following instructions:
Computer Requirements:
- Linux debian operating system
- Eclipse Mosquitto MQTT broker
- Node.Js 10.13.x or higher
- Chromium Browser 98.0 or higher
A static IP address for the Ethernet interface could be set on the computer. e.g.192.168.5.5/24.
Download the code of BFH Hyperdrive from the this Gitlab repository and upzip the file "car_controller.zip".
The MQTT broker is to be configured as follows. The configuration file is located on the /etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf directory.
listener 1883
protocol mqtt
allow_anonymous true
listener 9001
protocol websockets
http_dir /home/pi/Desktop/Frontend #<--- directory of frontend
allow_anonymous true
######################
##### Bridge Config #####
To set the car controller as a system service, the following text file should be created in the folder /etc/systemd/system/anki_car_controller.service.
[Unit]
Description=Anki Overdrive Car Controller
Wants=network.target
After=syslog.target network-online.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node /home/pi/Desktop/nodejsankisdk/host.js
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
KillMode=process
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Note: the ExecStart is the directory of the Node.js and the file of car controller.
Activate and start the following services with the following commands:
sudo systemctl enable mosquitto.servicesudo systemctl enable anki_car_controller.servicesudo systemctl restart mosquitto.servicesudo systemctl restart anki_car_controller.service
The front-end-Application can now be accessed directly via the system's browser or via the IP address in the LAN, e.g. http://192.168.5.5:9001.
[1] Many browsers report security issues, that the front-end-Application is not running on a http-server.
In this case, the frontend might not load properly. Only few browsers allow the user to ignore this security.
Therefore I decided that the car controller should take an alternative http-server port 80 role.
Simply by edited the host.js file in car_controller with the path of the front-end-Application as example as follows:
const frontEndDirectory = ("/home/pi/Desktop/Frontend"); //At Line Number 11 with the path to frontend
The front-end-Application can now be accessed directly via the system's browser or via the IP address in the LAN, e.g. http://192.168.5.5
[2] If this problem occurs.
Error: The module '/home/pi/Desktop/nodejsankisdk/node_modules/@abandonware/bluetooth-hci-socket/lib/binding/bluetooth_hci_socket.node'
was compiled against a different Node.js version using
NODE_MODULE_VERSION 83. This version of Node.js requires
NODE_MODULE_VERSION 64. Please try re-compiling or re-installing
Please reinstall the module @abandonware/noble in car controller directory with:
sudo npm uninstall @abandonware/noble and sudo npm install @abandonware/noble
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Anki/WebClient/S/Status | Status of this application |
| Anki/WebClient/E/Share | Share track via MQTT-message |
Anki/Host/name of host/S/HostStatus |
Status of AnkiOverdrive Host |
Anki/Host/name of host/S/Cars |
List of found cars |
Anki/Host/name of host/I |
Request car controller to discover the cars or update MQTT-Bridge) |
Anki/Car/name of car/E/track_piece_id |
to subscribe Track piece ID |
Anki/Car/name of car/E/track_location_id |
to subscribe Track location ID |
Anki/Car/name of car/E/Messages/ANKI_VEHICLE_MSG_V2C_LOCALIZATION_TRANSITION_UPDATE |
to subscribe track piece changed |
Anki/Car/name of car/E/speed |
to subscribe cars speed. |
Anki/Car/name of car/I |
Request car to changed lane or speed. |
*** The car controller was developed by Dominique Hofmann https://github.com/hofdo/nodejsankisdk. I made some changes to test the MQTT bridge feature and set up a static http server.