Final Project¶
Project Concept¶
Ever since I found out about them, I was extremly intrigued by self-driving cars, especially Tesla’s autopilot and autonomous driving. I watched many (probably too many) videos on how it works theoretically and in live action. I was especially astonished by the cars’ ability to move away from objects to avoid crashing. This idea inspired me for my final project. I decided I want make a robot with sensors all around it that can move away if it senses an object coming too close to it.
I looked online to see if this had been done before and found this project called the MiniskeyBot that was similar to what I am planning to do.
Possible Week Layout¶
After some thought and research, I made a table with some possible tasks I could do during the weeks to help me work towards my final project.
| Weekly Topic | Product towards final assignment |
|---|---|
| Computer Aided Design | Modeling of my robot Chasis |
| Computer Controlled Cutting | Cutting Vinyl Sticker for Design |
| Electronics Production | - |
| 3d Scanning/Printing | 3d print Omni wheels/Mecanum wheels |
| Electronic Design | Design Board Works Lidar Sensor |
| Computer Controlled Machining | - |
| Embedded Programming | Program Chip |
| Modeling and Casting | - |
| Output Devices | LED Screen on body/Movement of Robot |
| Mechanincal/Machine Design | Robot wheels and movement |
| Input Devices | Lidar/Time of Flight Sensor |
| Networking and Communications | - |
| Interface and Application Programming | - |
2D and 3D Modeling¶
Initial Modeling¶
I first started actually thinking of what my project was going to look like during the Computer Aided Design week. I created multiple models of what I thought my robot chasis would look like.
Next Idea¶
After some talks with Dr. Terrence Phagan about my idea, he gave me somethings to think about.
He first talked to me abotu my design. He proposed using Omniwheels or Mecanum wheels in order to increase mobility of the robot so that it could move in any direction without having to turn its chasis. The different rotations of the wheels would cause the robot to move in different ways. This chart helped me understand them better.
The wheels are similar, but have slight differences. Through research on websites like this and reading other engineer’s opinions, I chose to work with Mecanum wheels becasue the general consensus was that Mecanum wheels allowed for better all direction movement than omni wheels and were easier to program.
After looking into these wheels, I decided I would have to redo my chasis design not only to support the omniwheel shape, but also since my original design did not have much space to keep all the electronics and hardware that would go into my robot. I found a picture that seemed like a good basis to design my robot.
Inputs¶
In order for my robot to work, it needs to somehome sense objects that come near it. I figure it will best do this using either Lidar Sensors or Time of Flight (TOF) Sensors.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Lidar Sensor | LiDAR uses pulsed lasers to build a point cloud, which is then used to construct a 3D map or image |
| Time of Flight Sensor | ToF uses “depth maps” based on light detection, usually through a standard RGB camera |
Using these sensors, I would have to program my robot to keep a certain distance away from objects around it.