ECE 110/120 Honors Lab Section : Ghost of ECEB

Statement of Purpose

The goal of this project is to create an autonomous robot that will roam the halls of ECEB. It will be able to detect obstacles and avoid them. It will be able to return to its charging station by itself when needed, and basically just live in ECEB by itself. If we have more time, we will add sensors that detect when people are nearby and run away from the people. This is where the name “Ghost” comes from. Time permitting, we will also hopefully have the robot be able to use the elevators (or just beg someone to push the button for the robot).

Background Research

Our background research mostly came from Amazon and some projects we found online that had indoor autonomous robots or indoor location tracking robots. We are excited to work on this project because if this project is completed, it will be our lasting legacy, hopefully running around ECEB for the next few years to come even after we’ve graduated. It would also be a cool thing to show kids touring ECE at UIUC.

Block Diagram / Flow Chart

Parts

• Car Chassis + motors w/ encoder: https://www.amazon.com/wheel-layer-Chassis-Encoder-Arduino/dp/B06VTP8XBQ/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=robot+chassis+kit+encoder&qid=1613961555&s=toys-and-games&sr=1-2 [$18.99]

• 3 LiPo Battery: LP103048JU + PCM + WIRES 70MM [$34.77 total, $11.59 each]

• Charger: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/robotis/903-0144-000/12349129 [$12.90]

• Low Quality Camera: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3099?src=raspberrypi [$29.95]

• Ultrasonic Sensors: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15569 [$15.80 total, $3.95 each] (keep in mind that this is probably more than we need, we are just keeping redundant ultrasonic sensors to compensate for inaccuracies. 

• Gyroscope w/ compass: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13284 [$15.95]

• Raspberry Pi 3A+: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15139?src=raspberrypi [$25] 

• Breadboards: Breadboard - Self-Adhesive (White) [$4.95]

• TOTAL: $159… we will optimize costs to try to cut down by $15 to buy a beefier pi

Possible Challenges

Implementing object avoidance programs in a large enough scope to encompass humans. We also need to figure out how to keep track of the exact indoor location (perhaps a map of some sort) and make sure it can get back to its charging station when it needs to. We also need to figure out how to easily connect the charger to the robot.

References

A. Fabio, “Mikey, The Robot That Charges Itself,” Hackaday, 19-May-2014. [Online]. Available: https://hackaday.com/2014/05/19/mikey-the-robot-that-charges-itself/. [Accessed: 22-Feb-2021].

A. Industries, “Adafruit AMG8833 IR Thermal Camera Breakout,” adafruit industries blog RSS. [Online]. Available: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3538. [Accessed: 22-Feb-2021].

A. Industries, “Lithium Ion Polymer Battery - 3.7v 1200mAh,” adafruit industries blog RSS. [Online]. Available: https://www.adafruit.com/product/258. [Accessed: 22-Feb-2021].

“Arduino LIDAR,” Arduino Project Hub. [Online]. Available: https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/Abhinav_Abhi/arduino-lidar-917404. [Accessed: 22-Feb-2021].

CockrellSchool, “Centimeter-Accurate GPS Demo,” YouTube, 05-May-2015. [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG4Q2kq8DAE. [Accessed: 21-Feb-2021].

Microcontrollershub, “Get Centimeter Level Accuracy in your GPS GNSS Projects Using ZED F9P Application board,” YouTube, 04-Jan-2020. [Online]. Available: Microcontrollershub. [Accessed: 21-Feb-2021].

Precise (±2cm) Indoor Positioning and Navigation - Marvelmind Robotics, 20-Feb-2021. [Online]. Available: https://marvelmind.com/. [Accessed: 22-Feb-2021].

R. Bakx, “Robot with Raspberry Pi finds back its charging station using Python OpenCV,” YouTube, 30-Aug-2015. [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyJfpf-QpD4. [Accessed: 21-Feb-2021].

”SuperDroid, “How To Build a Robot,” How to Build a Robot. [Online]. Available: https://www.superdroidrobots.com/shop/custom.aspx/how-to-build-a-robot/70/. [Accessed: 22-Feb-2021].