Engaging Undergraduate Students with Robotic Design Projects

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Engaging Undergraduate Students with Robotic
Design Projects  James O. HamblenSchool of
ECE, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0250
hamblen_at_ece.gatech.edu
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Introduction

• Have used robots in three large undergraduate
  classes at Georgia Tech for the past six years.
• Wanted engaging robotic design projects for
  undergraduate students.
• CmpE and CS students need a mixture of hardware
  and software design work in their undergraduate
  projects.
• Funds are limited for schools and they also need
  to support large numbers of students.
• Robot kits and embedded computer boards funded by
  recent Microsoft Embedded RFP

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Overall Robot Project Approach

• Select a Robot Base
• Add computer control electronics
• Select interface new sensors
• Develop hardware software to control robot to
  perform assigned task
• Expensive parts are reused by students

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Options for a Robot Base

• Construct one from scratch
• Can take too long for student projects and become
  an ME project
• Hobbyist Robot Kits
• Most come with a very limited microcontroller and
  tend to be small
• Low-cost R/C Toys
• Most toys are available only a few months
• Hobbyist R/C Models
• Need more space to steer and maneuver
• Small Low-Cost Commercial Robot Bases
• More expensive, but can also be reused

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A simple low-cost robot base built using two
modified R/C servos, a round plastic disk, R/C
car battery pack, and an FPGA-computer board. We
used this robot in our first digital laboratory
course.
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Students modified this R/C toy truck to create an
autonomous mine detection robot by adding an eBox
II running Win CE.
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This R/C hobbyist Hummer was converted to an
autonomous robot with vision tracking
capabilities by students using a computer board
and a CMOS Camera. Hobbyist R/C models use a
standard digital PCM control signal.
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This Amigobot commercial robot was originally
designed to be remotely controlled using a PC
with a serial cable. An eBox II running Win CE
was added to control this mail delivery robot by
a student design team for their sr. design
project.
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Students used an X86 embedded computer board and
.NET Framework to develop this robot convoy. The
lead robot is teleoperated and the others follow
automatically.
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Left The ER1 is a low-cost commercial robot base
designed to carry a notebook PC. The ER1 uses USB
for motor control and sensor interfaces. Right
A student project built using the ER1 that uses
Sonar to map a room and a USB camera to send back
images.
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Selecting a Computer to control the Robot

• Would like a processor with enough speed and
  memory for all student projects and a wide
  variety of I/O options to interface motors and
  sensors
• Use a commercial embedded computer board or a
  notebook PC
• Power consumption is a concern - runs off
  batteries
• Complex robots will need an embedded OS
• Boot from Flash - No Hard Drive? - Multithreaded
• Wireless networking support useful for
  communication and remote control of the robot

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The low-cost eBox II SOC X86 PC runs Win CE from
Flash and has the common PC I/O options
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This Arcom Olympus embedded computer board uses
standard X86 PC chip technology and runs
Windows CE or XP Embedded using Flash memory.
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Low-Cost Sensor Options for Robots

• Sensors from left to right Line following, IR
  proximity, shaft encoder, GPS, Sonar, IR
  distance, Electronic Compass, CMOS Camera.
• These sensors all have digital outputs and are
  not hard to interface.

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Conclusions

• Robot projects help maintain a high level of
  student interest. They motivate the students to
  work harder on the design, implementation, and
  testing of their projects.
• Using embedded computer boards to control the
  robot can provide students with a significant
  RTOS, C/C, networking, and GUI programming
  experience.
• Microsofts Hardware Empowerment Program helps
  with educational discounts on embedded computer
  boards http//msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/communi
  ty/academic/collaboration/default.aspx
• Academic Community could use a new educational
  robot kit with more capabilities at a reasonable
  price point.
• Examples from the presentation are
  available on-line at
  http//www.ece.gatech.edu/hamblen/4006/projects