Planning a head, GPS locator

We have kept talking about a GPS locator on Super Crawler, so the robot can reach a point on the map using this locator. For this purpose we need to have a GPS locator installed on the robot telling our navigation program where the robot actually is on the map. But how can Super Crawler receive the coordinates ? Manual input(a semi numpad on the robot) ? Wireless communication to a WiFi unit connected to our navigation system / micro-controller ?

Report 8 | #21st of July 2010

This is the current design that the whole design team is agreeing on. We have also received the blue-prints from the company we are going to order our belts from & have customized our design to the belts we are going to get from them.

Report 7, Line Follower code

Now we have coded our test chassis to follow a black line on the ground. We are facing some problems following the line on uneven fields but we are working on it ... Our test subject drives around the Robotica lab & stops when it reaches a red line or an obstacle on the way. Film & photos will soon be posted here ...



Our next step is to code our test chassis to drive around & detects objects on its way and the smart enough to drive around them. For this purpose we have bough 4 reflex detectors to have around our chassis. More updates on the way ... Click on read more for the source code in Semi C++ Arduino programing language.

Report 6, Design phase

Design phase : 
We already have made a fast prototype in cardboard as reported before and now came up with different designs in 3D. Regarding the belts we have two scenarios which are based on the Robin group decision on printing our belt design or not. 
1 - Our first scenario is that the Robin group would print out our belt design.
2 - The other scenario is to buy belts from the market. 


Now we are waiting for Mats Høvin to come back from his holidays & see if we can get his approval to print out our own belt design ? At the same time we are ready for the other scenario which is to buy a product. We are looking around for the available belts in the market :

• http://www.robotshop.com/lynxmotion-track-trk-01.html
• http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/271975894/Robot_Belt.html

Report 5 | #8th of July 2010, Fast prototyping of our design in cartong

we have made this as a fast prototype of our design ...

Re: Report 4 | #4th of July 2010

This is the code that we have used for remote controlling our car with help of Arduino board. We have used a infrared receiver on the car, connected to Analog input of Arudino sending in the Analog signal. We have analysed the way the receiver is giving out feedback signals on the analog input according to the buttons being pressed on the remote control. According to our analysis we have a state machine which sets the state of the program and then a function called "comm" which actually sends the order to the DC motors according to the states.

Report 3 | #4th of July 2010

The code that controls our test chassis from Java GUI that we have designed at the summer project team of Robotica Oslonesis. Special thanks to [b]Ehab[/b] who did most of the job in designing the GUI/debugging and making the moves as smooth as possible :-) We believe our code still is not perfect and we are going to keep working on it ...

The code is consist of 3 classes(Main, Frame & arudinoCom)

Report #2nd of July 2010

[b]*** NEWS :[/b] 3 more members have joined us :-) Two have been to Kick-start meetings before, but one(Ehab) is a new member :-)

We are already finished with programing the micro-controller(Arduino card) and right now we are working on the navigation program with Java. The program writes forth and read back from USB port.
The following code is developed in Arduino C language and is written for two motors which one(MOTOR#2) is connected to the front wheels controlling LEFTWARDS & RIGHTWARDS movement and the other(MOTOR#1) which controls the SPEED, and FORWARDS & BACKWARDS movement. The program can receive characters from USB port which according to those will enter different phases :

F - Moving Forward(Change the mode in Motor#1)
B - Moving Backward(Change the mode in Motor#1)
S - Moving Straight(Change the mode in Motor#2)
R -Moving Right(Change the mode in Motor#2 & does not change anything about Motor#1)
L - Moving Left(Change the mode in Motor#2  & does not change anything about Motor#1)
r - Resets everything & STOPS all the motors
V(speed)# - Sets the speed(PWM value) - Ex : V45# OBS : Be careful not to crash into the wall, driving with too high speed :-D We did it :-D

Re: Report 1 | #25th of June 2010

Current situation :

We are right now able to control the DC-motors with given speed. Our test chassis can drive forward, backwards, to right and to left. We also have begun some experiences on starting the motors in different directions according to the input sound signal(This experiment is not useful for our summer-project but maybe for fall-projects which are based on sound signals mostly).

This is a very simple code on how to control a DC motor with sound signal :
*** THE CODE IS VERY MESSY ***

Workshop for Super Crawler team in Solidworks & Arduino

The chosen day is 1st of july 15:30 when everyone can take part in the workshop.

New teams for Super Crawler

New teams for Super Crawler Project :

• Design / Redesign :
  Magnus, Shahab F., Andre
• Belts :
  Magnus
• Micro-controller Programming :
  Puya, Jonas, Ole Marius, Shahab F., Magnus
• Navigation Program :
  Shahab F., Jonas, Shahab B.
• Video Streaming :
  Jonas, Ole Marius, Shahab F.

The goal of these groups are to make the first version of Super Crawler, which is a simple remote controlled robot which can do the following operations :

• Drives around (Not autonomous)
• Controlled of a remote control system
• Send back a video report to a computer at the Robotica Osloensis robotic lab

Design / Redesign :

We use SolidWorks as our CAD program. Design of a chassis for Super Crawler. The current chassis is designed and 70% finished, but there are still things to be done ... Solidworks tutorials can be found both on Internet and on Youtube.

Belts :

Belts are 90% finished, but still there are things to be done before we reach the actual printig pahse.

Micro-controller Programming :

We are going to use Arduino cards and the programming language will be a simplified C which is designed by Arduino for programing on their products ...  Current package solution can be seen here.

The Navigation/Controller Program

The environment and programming language for this program is yet to be chosen by the team. The alternatives are Java, Matlab or Max MSP.

Video Streaming :

The limitation of this part of project is up to the team. The goal is to send a video report back to the lab and even if we can do it with choosing the right technology and the right application it is enough for us. But this can be extended to applications being written for Gstreamer or under MPEG-21 standards.

Team Building meeting presentation

Super Crawler will soon get new team members

This project is going to be transfered to Robotica Osloensis, the student robotic community at university of Oslo. Our aim is to set up different teams to work on Super Crawler project together and finish it as soon as possible as the first robotic project for Robotica Osloensis.
If you are interested in cooperating with us, don't hesitate to contact us :-)
Want to show up in team building meeting, click here.

Project KICK-OFF, Robotica Osloensis

Possible Electronic Solution

Tank Belt design w/sprockets

Project Report

Well as said before, we are 4 students working on this Robotic project and things have been much more clear than the imaginary robot I was talking about last time. Now we know what kind of micro controller are we going to use, although still we have troubles setting it up(Vegard). We have designed the basic circuit for controlling the robots movement as well, but not tested yet(Kjetil). Also we are working on the body. My friend Magnus is designing the belt and the wheels ! Yep it’s gonno drive around with the help of 2 belts and 8 wheels. My responsibility is to design the chassis up to now. Here is a very basic version of it that I am just playing around to learn more how to work with Solidworks. When we are finished we are going to print this out with the help of a 3D printer that the robotic group has(in a quite nice resistible plastic material). Image processing part has not even started yet !!!

Basic Chassis with 4 holes on each sides for placing the wheels.

Haha, before I forget, Vegard wants to name robot, Superman  Dunno if she is gonno be named that, but that’s what he is saying around 

Early designs for Super Crawler

Done by Magnus

Robotic+Image Processing summer project

I am planning for a summer project these days. This semester, I have taken two difficult, but very interesting courses. These two courses are Robotics(INF3480) and Image Processing(INF2310). Although I’ve had big challenges with the good mathematical understanding of these two courses, but I am deeply interested in both and would like to combine what I’ve learnt in theory, in a practical project. The plan is to combine Robotics and Image Processing to make a portable robot with more than basic Image Processing abilities. The following drawing is just an imaginary plan of the final robot. Of course I would be happy to be able to finish half of this and I believe I would come to changes many of these fantacies with realities and there might be fundemental changes in the plan on the way. I am sure I am going to learn alot soon 

Imaginary Robot

The imaginary robot is supplied by a wireless transmitter and GPS adapter(The anthenas are just symbols and are not going to be there). The robot is supposed to be portable and move around to a desired location by the help of GPS adapter. She would also be able to send the information(a film stream or even sounds) about her environment back to the lab by the help of the wireless LAN(Wireless Internet or a dedicated wireless LAN). The cameras are supposed to capture the film stream and send the perspective(Not Flat) pictures to the screen at the lab. Also same cameras will be used for Image Processing operations(locally at the robot by laptop or at the lab). The plan up here is showing that the robot actually is carrying a light Eee laptop to implement image processing at place right after they are captured by the cameras. There is also another scenario that the robot can carry just a combination of Micro Processors that sends all the information to the lab and the information would be processed in the lab and would be sent back to the robot. There would be proabably some delays and I am not sure if this system is actually practical.

I am not going to be alone at this project and I am going to have some friends with me. The plan is to do this project step by step and keep it simple at first and at every step we would try to expand our previous simple model to a more advanced one. The duration of this project would be up to the end of next semester(December 2009) and would probably will be my(an others if they are intrested to continue) bachelor project.