Group5_final

Inspiration

Amazon warehouse robots

What it does

The intention was to have multiple robots controlled by a central computer. The robots would pick up objects, bring them to a location which represents a picker, and then put the objects back somewhere else.

How we built it

We collected position data for a robot and an object using the Vicon camera system using a Raspberry Pi. We then determine what action the robot should take based on that data and communicated the desired action to an mbed using UART; the mbed was essentially a serial passthrough and simply sent the data to a Zigbee transceiver. Our robot had a corresponding Zigbee transceiver to receive the action. It would decode the message, which was passed as a string, and then perform the requested action.

Challenges we ran into

Our parts arrived significantly later than we thought they would. Our WiFi chip pulled so much power that it could not be used on the robots at all, meaning we had to start over with a new communication chip well into the project. Different parts of the project took turns breaking (wheels would jam, mbeds would stop communicating with ATmegas, motor drivers and MRF chips would fail, etc...) and the robots had a very short battery life, making debugging our software frustrating.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Not much...

What we learned

Have at some meaningful tasks which can be started immediately. Prepare better for hardware failures and complexity of a multi-robot project, especially within a short timeframe.

What's next for Group5_final

The parts for the project can be re-used. The project could also be continued or restarted if desired, and one of our team members is interested in doing that.

Built With

• c/c++
• m3pi-robots
• raspberry-pi
• vicon