Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
21 Campus Tour Guide by AI-Powered Autonomous System
 Bob Jin
Hao Ren
Weiang Wang
Yuntong Gu
 design_document1.pdf
design_document2.pdf
design_document3.pdf
proposal1.pdf
 Simon Hu
This [link](https://accurate-ringer-067.notion.site/Campus-Tour-Guide-by-AI-Powered-Autonomous-System-f4d17e16378740e2948f5bef4afd7315?pvs=4) contains the html version of our project description.



# Team Members


* Hao Ren 3200110807 haor2
* Xuanbo Jin 3200110464 xuanboj2
* Weiang Wang 3200111302 weiangw2
* Yuntong Gu 3200110187 yuntong7



> 💡 Note: this doc provides an overview of the project “Campus Tour Guide by AI-Powered Autonomous System”. We start by re-iterating the problem. We then present our proposal and solution. We also draft an initial plan to help build `v0`solution.

# đź‘€ Problem

Anyone entering a place for the first time, like an university, can be quite challenging. Knowing where you are, how to get to your destination, how to optimize your routes, knowing factors that will influence your routes can be complicated. Having a real-time interactive system that guides people through this process is needed. It has been possible yet not able to scale because it’s not open-sourced, and its hardware isn’t standardized, and is expensive. The interaction isn’t versatile enough to adapt well under the ever-changing applications. A cheap and versatile solution is needed.

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# đź’­ Proposal

## Solution Overview

Our solution utilizes autonomous UAV to guide our clients, sensing them and the environment, such as obstacles and drone’s location with a sensor module, controlled by a control unit which orchestrate a series of tasks. Our solution is cheap, open-sourced, and versatile to meet the need of a generalized and sustainable long-term solution for our campus and many other applications.

## Solution Components

Our solution contains the following parts: a sensor subsystem, a control subsystem, a mobility subsystem, an inter-connect module.

### Sensor Subsystem

- Identify obstacles
- Identify the person to lead, exclude the other people
- GPS location

### Control Subsystem

- Deploy routes

### Mobility Subsystem

- A drone

### Inter-connect Module

- Inter-communication of control unit, peripheral sensors, and the drone
- Supply power to the sensor module and control unit.

## Criteria for Success

### Milestone 1

- drone can be controlled and moved independently
- GPS can sense the location
- Sensors can be powered

### Milestone 2

- Drone can be controlled by control subsystem
- control subsystem can receive signal from GPS module and sensors
- Routes can be output (not necessarily by moving the drones)

### Milestone 3

- Without obstacle, the system can follow the human
- Without obstacle, the system can fly from A to B and slow down / stop when human is too far away
- System can identify obstacle and plan a route to avoid them

### Milestone 4

- With obstacle, the system can fly from A to B and slow down / stop when human is too far away
- The starting point and ending destination pairs can be selected, e.x. 5 pairs of (A,B) is available.

### Milestone 5 [optional]

- An easy web app which sends signal to the system
- System can receive our instruction (vocal) and design a destination and lead the clients
- Support interactive chatting mode to help understand the surroundings

## Alternatives

*SKYCALL* currently provides a similar version of guiding tour for MIT. But that project isn’t open-sourced and the hardware are not cheap enough, or easy-to-maintain. Our solution is different in that we provide

- Cheap solution
- Open sourced solution (software + hardware), each component will be documented
- Unnecessary functionality will give its way to generality
- Versatile enough to support our campus (which is drastically different to MIT)

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# 🛫 Division of Work

- Xuanbo Jin: Xuanbo excels at software works. He should do the algorithm part of the design and also takes part in the firmware integration.
- Yuntong Gu: Yutong’s strong background at electrical engineering makes him a great candidate to test the validity of different hardware and connect them to the object. He should also helps the communication between each components.
- Weiang Wang: Enabled by weiang’s strong background in electrical engineering, he should actively helps the communication and interfaces between components.
- Hao Ren: Hao can do assorted works. Hao should actively do the software and firmware part of the work. Hao should explore the validity of possible direction and iterate the version of the projects properly. Hao should organize the roadmap and update it frequently, examining the priority of each part by experimentation and analysis.

Prosthetic Control Board

Featured Project

Psyonic is a local start-up that has been working on a prosthetic arm with an impressive set of features as well as being affordable. The current iteration of the main hand board is functional, but has limitations in computational power as well as scalability. In lieu of this, Psyonic wishes to switch to a production-ready chip that is an improvement on the current micro controller by utilizing a more modern architecture. During this change a few new features would be added that would improve safety, allow for easier debugging, and fix some issues present in the current implementation. The board is also slated to communicate with several other boards found in the hand. Additionally we are looking at the possibility of improving the longevity of the product with methods such as conformal coating and potting.

Core Functionality:

Replace microcontroller, change connectors, and code software to send control signals to the motor drivers

Tier 1 functions:

Add additional communication interfaces (I2C), and add temperature sensor.

Tier 2 functions:

Setup framework for communication between other boards, and improve board longevity.

Overview of proposed changes by affected area:

Microcontroller/Architecture Change:

Teensy -> Production-ready chip (most likely ARM based, i.e. STM32 family of processors)

Board:

support new microcontroller, adding additional communication interfaces (I2C), change to more robust connector. (will need to design pcb for both main control as well as finger sensors)

Sensor:

Addition of a temperature sensor to provide temperature feedback to the microcontroller.

Software:

change from Arduino IDE to new toolchain. (ARM has various base libraries such as mbed and can be configured for use with eclipse to act as IDE) Lay out framework to allow communication from other boards found in other parts of the arm.