What it is:
This device takes the signal from an RC receiver, the kind you would plug your servos into in an RC car or airplane. Based on that RC signal it outputs controlled power to pair of motors up to 18V and 4A. The control is proportional (variable speed), and goes in both directions without bias in either direction, making it well suited to tank drive vehicles. The logic is based on a PIC18F1320. The best part of this project is not just that it allows you to make a relatively cheap RC dual motor controller, but that using this code and input scheme you can take any PIC microcontroller project and add radio control with as many channels as you like using only one pin to receive it all. Besides using those values to control other robot functions you can still use any of the ports on your receiver, including the ones that are going to the control board, to control servos.
Because it's not that much fun controlling two motors without a robot for them to drive I have built the system into a Lego robot . This motor controller could be used for any skid steer robot, or you could simplify it to one motor, use the other port for a servo and make a vehicle that steers like a car. If the Lego part of the project is of interest to you the connectors are explained in step 4 and the lego body is layed out in step 5.
This project requires basic electronic tools and a programmer that can work with 18F series chips.
The electronic hardware is fairly simple. The PIC 18F1320 handles all the signal interpretation, requiring only 2 filtering diodes. The same chip generates motor control signals for both motors. The other big chip on the board is a L298n motor driver. This chip contains two H-Bridges capable of driving a motor with up to 4A of current at up to 18V. Besides the chips the one other large component is a 5V regulator to give the PIC a good power supply. Besides those you have a handful of inexpensive diodes and resistors. A specific parts list is in step 1.
The software for the chip has a portion that interprets PWM* servo control signals into a variable, and another portion that generates two motor control PWM* signals. These parts could each potentially be used to make either a system that does something else based on radio control commands, or a motor controller that is driven by other means. The code could easily be expanded to read many (I'm talking 8 or more) PWM signals. You could take one of those huge $500 airplane remote control systems and have a chip read every channel! What you did with all that control data would be up to you.
A note on PWM:
These are both pulse width modulated (PWM) signals, which simply means the width of the pulses is used to represent values, but the motor control signal pulses on and off to vary the average power, or duty cycle, to accomplish various motor speeds, while the servo signal works by sending different widths of pulse which are read as relative command values.