09/09/2014

EEL 4914 Senior Design

Project: Inexpensive Robot with Interior Mapping (IRIM)

Team#: 27

Group Members:

  • Hung Le
  • Alvaro Montoya
  • Ibrahim Shofiquel
  • Jaime Quintero

Seeking Sponsorship from: Boeing, SoarTech

Statement of Motivation: Where are the robot army that going to raze the world? Where are the slave that going to serve us breakfast every morning? Guess what, everything got to start somewhere and we happen to be some of those who desire to make one for ourselves rather than waiting.

Today, the world is moving toward the autonomous direction. For the last few decades, we have seen engineers and scientist worked together to make this world more and more comfortable to live. Internet brought people of the world together, power tools make workplace less dangerous while increase the efficiency, management systems that save people time and money, and many more ingenious inventions.

As the students who inspired to be engineer, we decide to make this project to be our entrant ticket toward the world full of possibilities. What we going to do here may not be ingenious innovation nor comparable to what available in the field. Still, by commit to this project and give it our very best, this project shall be our first and memorable standing stone that marked the beginning of our life long career of engineering, the career of eternal learning.

Project Goal

The goal of this project is to build the foundation for house hold oriented robot. By provide the reasonable paths system within the environment, this project would allow later robot to navigate within the environment.

This project can be divide into three main independent modules.

  1. The first part is the basic robot platform that will capable to move, carry a certain weight, and implemented with basic reactive system.
  2. The second part of the project is implemented Kinect with point cloud library to construct a navigation map of the area to be used as robot vision.
  3. The final part of the project is implement a basic intelligence system that will reading data from provided sensor such as Kinect point cloud data and map to navigate within permitted area.
  4. If time and resource allowed, we would like to further our project with gesture recognition, and voice commands.

Project Objectives

In this project we desire to learn:

-Design electrical circuits

-Design and assemble electrical part for the robot platform

-Design embedded microcontroller

-Implement operating system on designed microcontroller

-Implement point cloud data collecting

-Implement 3D modeling using point cloud data

-Design and implement navigation system

-Design and implement autonomous system

Product Description

The project as a whole must be autonomous

Robot Platform:

-Low Cost

-Light Weight

-Minimal Power

-Stable Motion

-Precise and Accurate Movement

Program:

-Fast basic reactive system

-Intelligent deliberative system

-Accurate 3D model

-Accurate navigation map

-Independent from robot platform

Project Specification Requirement

Note: The following data are estimated value and subjected to change

Physical Requirements

-1 Chassis (10” x 8” x 1”)

-4 wheels (2 inches in diameter)

-4 motors with encoders

-2 motor controllers

-1 embedded microcontroller

-1 microcontroller with Linux OS

-1 wireless transmitter/receiver

-1 Kinect (11” x 3” x 3”)

-OR 1 Kinect 2 (9.8” x 2.6” x 2.6”)

-4Battery (8” x 2” x 1”) (4 pounds total)

Entire structure dimension estimated 12” x 12” x 6”

System Requirement

-4 hours of continuous operating

-Stop if or before collide with object

-Display 3D model on monitor

-Display navigation map

-Should be able to navigate within the designate interior

Diagrams

System general architecture

Kinect (Hung Le – To be acquired)

-Output: Provide 3D data

Human Interface (Hung Le – Research)

-Input: 3D model of the building’s interior, 2D map, state of the whole platform

-Output: User commands

Scanner Data (Hung Le – Research)

-Input: Kinect stream input

-Output: point cloud data, 3D model

Map System (Hung Le – Research)

-Input: point cloud data OR 3D model

-Output: 2D navigation map OR 3D model with navigation mesh

Path Finding (Hung Le – Research)

-Input: 2D navigation map OR 3D model with navigation mesh

-Output: Optimal path toward specified target

Feedback Data (Hung Le – Research)

-Input: Data from mobile platform (encoders, extra sensors, reactive command override)

-Output: Current speed

Decision Making (Hung Le – Research)

-Input: Feedback data, directional path

-Output: Control commands to mobile platform

Control Center (Alvaro Montoya – Research)

-Microcontroller (Alvaro Montoya – Research)

Mobile Platform (Alvaro Montoya – Research)

-Microcontroller (Alvaro Montoya – Research)

-Platform Components (Alvaro Montoya – To be acquired)

-Input: Encoder data from motor controllers, commands from Control Center

-Output: desired voltage, encoder data, state of mobile platform

Reactive System (Alvaro Montoya – Research)

-Input: encoder data, and potentially other extra sensors

-Output: Reactive command override standard Central commands

Extra Sensor (Alvaro Montoya – To be acquired)

-Bumper, infra range finder

-Output: sensor specific data

RC controller (Alvaro Montoya – Research)

-Input: connected/disconnected

-Output: RC commands that override all other commands

Project Budget

Note: Items that are group together are mean to be choose one

Amount / Component / Type / Cost
1 / Kinect for xbox 360 / Sensor / $99.99
1 / Kinect for windows academic / Sensor / $159.95
1 / T'Rex Tank Robot Chassis, All Metal, 2X 12V Gear Motors / Chassis + Motors / $249.95
1 / Tank Caterpillar Tractor Chassis Crawler / Chassis + Motors / $83.00
3 / PCB Board / Exp. Board / $11.20 each
2 / USB 2.0 port / Comm. Port / $6.99 each
1 / SainSmart Due Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3 board / Microcontroller / $39.99
1 / Olimex SAM3-H256 Dev Board, ATSAM3S4BA Arm Microcontroller / Microcontroller / $27.99
1 / Raspberry pi / Microcontroller / $35.99
1 / Sharp GP2Y0A21 Distance Sensor / Range sensor / $12.00
1 / Vex Robotics 228-3011 Vex iQ Ultrasonic Distance Sensor / Range sensor / $25.00

Financing: Currently seeking sponsorship from Boeing andSoarTech

Project Milestones

1)Team Setup

-Set up team meeting schedule

-Roles distribution

-Establish Communication

2)Robot Platform

-Decide on parts and order them

-Document on selected components and comparison with others

-Design board to control robot motors

-Assemble PCB following previous design

-Document design of board

-Assemble robotincluding PCB board and Micro-controller

-Program robot platform

-Test robot maneuverability

-Document Robot Platform and Test data

3)Control Center

-Design board for Control Center

-Assemble PCB following previous design

-Document design of the board

-Install Linux operating system and ROS

-Mount additional parts to micro-controller to work with Kinect, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi transmitter

-Establish Wi-Fi connection with external laptop

-Document Setup Procedures

4)Data Collecting and Analyzing

-Collect Data from Kinect as point cloud

-3D Modeling using point cloud data

-Mappingstructure’s interior

  • 2D Mapping using point cloud data OR 3D model
  • 3D Navigation Mesh using 3D model

-Document Kinect Data and Mapping method

-Implemented path finding algorithm

-Document algorithm

5)Robot Platform – Control Center Interface

-Connect Robot Platform with Control Center

-Establish Communication Protocol

-Document protocol

-Implement control commands and feedback data

-Test control commands

-Document test data

6)Intelligence System

-Implement path analysis

-Implement decision making

-Implement control command procedure for decisions

-Implement Wi-Fi data communication

-Document intelligence system

7)Human Interface

-Implement Wi-Fi data communication

-Display point cloud data

-Display 3D model with navigation mesh

-Display 2D map with navigation data

-Test control command transmission

-Document human interface