Dimensions and Perspective

In my second year, I was assigned a project; to create a 3D rendering LIDAR spatial system. I utilized the environment Keil to code a MSP432E401Y microcontroller to power the system; through the use of a stepper motor and the VL53L1X time-of-flight sensor I was able to build from scratch a platform for the device in order to allow for full 360 degree rotation to map out a 3D render of the surrounding space.

How it works

The system works as follows:

1. The ToF sensor is initialized and powered by the microcontroller. Code is flashed to the microcontroller which then relays to the ToF sensor.
2. Measurements are taken by sending rays of light and measuring the time it takes for the light to hit the object it is facing and come back.
3. Data is sent to the microcontroller which is then serially communicated to a Python script.
4. The script converts the distance measurements into respective x,y,z values on a cartesian grid.
5. Matlab is used to create a 3D mesh using the newly acquired x,y,z values using the Matplotlib library.

This assignment was very code heavy and took a lot of processing and debugging in order to get fully working.

Takeaways

All in all, this project was the prime example of how the coding process works and how much time and effort is needed in order to ensure the product/system being created works as intended.