Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
47 Auto-following Luggage Platform
Honorable Mention
David Chen
Lyuxing He
Xiangyuan Zhang design_document1.pdf
design_document2.pdf
design_document3.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
photo1.jpg
presentation1.pptx
proposal1.pdf
video
# Project Title: Auto-following Luggage Platform

Team Members:
- Lyuxing He (lyuxing2)
- David Chen (sc60)


# Problem
Sometimes carrying the suitcase might be the most unsatisfactory part of a trip. This dissatisfaction can also grow into annoyance when the amount of luggage is too large to be carried with without the help of transportation tools. Therefore, people have dreamed about a suitcase that can track its owners automatically on its own, without any need of applying external force to steer it. There have been so-called “smart suitcases” made for sale with different features including USB-port for charging, GPS localization, etc. However, the price is too high for the public to afford, and only a few with exceedingly high prices might be capable of achieving the fully automatic following feature. Therefore, we propose the Auto-following Luggage Platform project that aims to solve the problem with much less cost compared to related products available in the market.

# Solution
We propose a robot platform that autonomously tracks and pursues its owner. It will use a camera as its primary sensor, and an ultrasonic sensor as a fail-safe of that.


# Parts needed (we will be providing the funds for purchasing these)
- Cuttable metal plate (for building )
- 4 DC motors
- Battery
- Camera
- Rasberry Pie 4 4G
- PCB (Motor control)
- Ultrasonic sensor

We’ll self-supply any additional materials not listed above.


# Solution Components
## Robot drivetrain
The drive will consist of 2/4 motors. It will take input PWM signals given by Rasberry Pi 4 and drive the motor accordingly. The drivetrain’s left and right motor will be independent, allowing the robot to turn with different speed on left and right.

## Control Algorithm
Using the bounding box data calculated from the Human-body identification subsystem, we can calculate the deviation angle, and use PID to track and minimize this error. We will also use a separate algorithm to control the speed of the robot. Using an estimated distance value, we will speed up and slow down the robot accordingly as well. Combining these together and our robot should be able to track the target autonomously.

## Human-body identification subsystem
We will use Yolo6 for human recognition and segmentation to produce bounding boxes. Each bounding box will be made into gait silhouettes and used for a gait-matching algorithm to identify the owner of the suitcase. The bounding box of the identified owner will be returned and used to calculate the offset to the camera center, which will be converted to motor signals for the control system to achieve local orientation adjustment. This subsystem will also return a boolean value that represents safety with respect to possible collisions.

## Safety assurance subsystem
The ultrasonic sensor equipped will report the distance to obstacles. The robot will stop immediately if the ultrasonic sensor detects a very close object to avoid collisions.


# Criterion For Success
The machine is able to follow the owner when the owner is in the camera frame, and maintain a safe distance to the owner.
The machine is able to locate the owner (put the owner back into the camera frame) autonomously when camera tracking is lost.
The machine is able to avoid collisions with obstacles and humans.

Antweight Battlebot Project

Jeevan Navudu, Keegan Teal, Avik Vaish

Antweight Battlebot Project

Featured Project

# Antweight Battlebot

Team Members:

- Keegan Teal (kteal2)

- Avik Vaish (avikv2)

- Jeevan Navudu (jnavudu2)

# Problem

In order to compete in Professor Gruev’s robot competition, there are many constraints that need to be met, including:

- Maximum weight (2lbs)

- Allowed materials (3D-printed thermoplastics)

- Locomotion system and fighting tool

- Wireless control via Bluetooth or Wifi

The main goal of this competition is to design a Battlebot that is capable of disrupting the functionality of the other Battlebots with our fighting tool while maintaining our own functionality.

# Solution

For the project, we plan to build a battlebot with a custom electronic speed controller (ESC) that can independently control three brushless motors: two for the drive system, and one for the fighting tool. This ESC will be controlled by an STM32 microcontroller, to which we will add a Bluetooth module to connect to it and specify how much power we want to send to each motor. To communicate with our robot, we will use a laptop that can connect to Bluetooth.

# Solution Components

## Vehicle Controller

The main subsystem of the robot will be a combined vehicle control board and ESC. This subsystem will contain an STM32 Microcontroller that will serve as the brain for the whole robot. With this MCU, we’ll be able to flash our whole software package that will be able to control the speed and direction of the robot, the robot’s weapon, and the Bluetooth communication.

## Power Module

This subsystem includes the battery, the voltage regulators/converters needed to power the electronics, and the necessary battery monitoring circuitry. Specifically, for the battery, we will use a 14.8V 4S2P LiPo pack to power all the components. There will also be a voltage short detection circuit for the battery that will shut down the robot in case of a short to ensure safe practices. This subsystem also contains a 5V linear regulator and 3.3V linear regulator to power the low voltage electronics.

## Drivetrain/Powertrain

This subsystem includes the motors and H-bridges needed to control both the wheels and weapon of the robot. The H-bridges will be made with regular N-MOSs that will be controlled by a PWM signal sent from the STM32 MCU. This H-bridge setup will be able to control the voltage and polarity sent to the motors, which will be able to control the speed of the wheels or weapon. This subsystem will also include the mechanical wheels of the robot and actual hardware of the weapon, which will be a spinning object. Since all the wheels and the weapon have the same mechanical motion, they can all use the same hardware and software electronically, with minor adjustments in motor selection and the actual mechanical hardware/peripheral.

## Bluetooth Module

One big requirement for this project is the ability for the robot to be controlled wirelessly via laptop. The STM32 MCU has bluetooth capabilities, and with additional peripheral hardware, the robot will be able to communicate over bluetooth with a laptop. The goal for the laptop is to be able to control the speed, direction, and weapon of the robot wirelessly and also have a display for live telemetry.

## Mechanical Design

The last part of our project would be the mechanical design of the robot chassis and weapon. For the chassis and weapon material, we decided to go with PLA+ as it offers a blend of being strong and robust but not being too brittle. The drive system will be a 2-wheeled tank style drive with one motor controlling each side of the robot. For the weapon, we are looking to utilize a fully 3D-printed drum that will have a 100% infill to maximize the rotational inertia which can lead to bigger impacts.

## Criterion for Success

We would consider our project a success if we are able to communicate with the robot from our computer as in sending throttle and steering commands to the robot, if those commands are then processed on the robots microprocessors and the motors are sent the according power needed to move and behave in the way that we want during a match.

## Alternatives

The most commonly used electronics in current antweight battlebots consist mostly of RC drone parts. We plan to create a very similar ESC to those on the market but it will have an integrated Bluetooth wireless capability as well as telemetry monitoring. We also want to focus on minimizing packaging size to lower weight and increase flexibility as much as possible.

Project Videos