Week 3

This week, Brigette and Trent worked on schematics for the electronic system. The schematics were finalized and confirmed by Dr. Isenberg and Dr. Davis will be reviewing them next week. When all the schematics are approved, construction on the PCB designs will begin. The parts for the prototype H-Bridge have arrived allowing Brigette and Trent to replace existing components with new components. Unfortunately the new MOSFETs are not handling the voltage and current spikes that the H-Bridge is producing when connected to the large motor so, next week the pair of them will be looking for a solution to this problem and potentially ordering new parts.
Brigette updated the Gantt Chart with everyone's current progress and will continue to update the Gantt chart to attempt to keep the project on track.

This week the vision team (consisting of Gabe and Harris) has been able to successfully perform an edge detection on a single still image and is near to completing a Hough analysis of the edges. This will allow the team to identify the edges of a sidewalk from which to judge the robot’s position.

The team has begun programming on robot’s mini-box computer which will eliminate some integration time in the future. However, another computer, running Linux, has been set up to run Open CV so development can occur even more quickly, by working simultaneously on both machines.Next week the team will complete analysis of still images and will begin to work with live stream input from the webcam. Planning has also begun on the correct method of localization using the information that will be provided by the Hough Analysis of the robot camera stream.

This week Jaya updated and completed the basic odometry program. Next week he will be implementing a control law titled “back-stepping” into the program which will allow the integration of a kinematic controller and a torque controller using a dynamical extension. The major problem of using this method is that Jaya will have to teach himself the material, which can lead to misunderstandings and it may take some time to fully grasp the context. One of the major benefits of using this method is that the odometry algorithm will be able to travel a more accurate path to find its destination points.

According to the gantt chart of assigned tasks, Karl was scheduled to assist Jaya in developing the computer torque controller. The calculations and pseudocode behind the basic controller were already developed in the Robotics II class last semester. With this said, Karl and Jaya decided that (knowledge of working in Python aside), Jaya had the material he needed to begin development of the controller on his own. Karl then decided to begin the task of developing a simulated mobile robot to demonstrate the dynamics and functionality of the controller on the basic system before it is implemented in the real robot. Using a template designed by Dr. Isenberg, Karl completed a simulated animation in MATLAB, able to demonstrate a controller designed in MATLAB. In the upcoming week, Karl will now attempt to develop the same/similar model in Python to work with the Python-based controller.

By the end of this week Jason and Tanner accomplished the following: mounted the motors to the platform base, provided Patrick with all the parts to be fabricated (all but one of the ordered parts has been delivered), and cut the L-brackets. Now the L-brackets just need to be drilled before mounting them to the robot base. Currently the pair are waiting for Patrick to finish the parts they gave him, so they can finish the drive system on the robot. Next week, Tanner and Jason hope to have all parts back from Patrick, and finish fabrication of the L-brackets for the wheel axels finished. With these parts completed, they can finish installing the drive system on to the robot base except for welding the axel into place. In addition, a caster wheel will be chosen, bought, and installed to the base.