"Driver's Assist" is an Arduino powered object detection project. It aims to detect vehicles that are in a blind spot of my car which does not come already equipped with blind spot monitoring. In this project I use a JSN-SR04T ultrasonic range sensor to enable the Arduino to collect distance data from it's surroundings. Currently the way it works is the Arduino sends a pulse to the trigger of the JSN-SR04T which in turn sends a burst of square waves out the sensor. It will then wait a few microseconds and receive the reflected waves through the same sensor. Accounting for the speed of sound through the air with some math, the Arduino then interprets the values from the sensor as distances and determines whether an object is too close to my car. When an object is too close the Arduino will send a message to a mini LCD screen alerting the driver along with displaying the object's distance in meters away from the car. When an object is detected but not too close an "all clear" message is displayed. Finally, when there is no object detected an "all clear" and "no object detected" message is displayed. Hopefully with this fun little device, you too can update your vehicle to meet the same technology level as modern cars today!

In the photo gallery, you'll find prototype pictures as well as the project circuit schematic.

The limits to this project are endless. This project is very minimal and can be expounded upon easily. In the future I want to turn this project into a multi-sensor system, taking in data from 3 or more sensors located around the car. The current version is only designed for backing up, but I want to expand it to include sensors placed near the rear fenders of my car to detect other objects hidden in my other blind spots. I want to add integrated LEDs and larger display to alert the driver better. One could also add an audible tone as well as many other things! The sky is the limit, and I hope you find my project to be an inspiration for your own!