TerraScout

Inspiration

In warehouses, maintaining clear aisles is a top priority to allow facilitate movement of personnel, equipment, and goods. This concept is extended to worksites of all kinds - such as construction sites, data centers, and even cleanrooms, where unnecessary obstructions both decrease productivity and pose risks to occupational health and safety.

What it does

TerraScout is a lightweight, all-terrain vehicle that will autonomously scout out obstructions in working areas and report them to an operator. Its pathfinding abilities can be further exploited for various uses, such as tool/package delivery. TerraScout is activated when it is shown a QR code - the implication being that several can be placed around a worksite to act as loading/recharging stations.

How we built it

TerraScout is built on the chassis of a Yahboom G1 Tank equipped with an IR sensor, camera, and ultrasonic sensor. The IR sensor is used to pathfind until an obstruction is detected with the ultrasonic sensor, at which point TerraScout will take several pictures and navigate around the object, routing back to its original path.

Challenges we ran into

We initially faced servo motor twitching, which was fixed by activating the pigpio daemon for more precise control. The motors stopped working after running on flat ground for about 5 seconds - this is likely due to the power supply being too weak. This was fixed by pulsing the motors and occasionally shutting them down completely.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of building a working prototype despite hardware limitations.

What we learned

We learned a lot about the sensors we used. We also learned a lot about Linux OS while working with the Raspberry Pi onboard.

What's next for TerraScout

TerraScout would benefit from a higher voltage battery - this would likely fix the issues we had with the motors. It would also make sense to install an inertial navigation module so that the operator can plan routes without needing the IR sensor.