Robot Rosie

Client:

TU Delft Elective: Mechatronics & Software

Year:

Feb. 2011 - Apr. 2011

Team:

Mike Bond
Robert van den Born
Jens Johansen

Summary:

For an elective we had to create a robot that uses stereoscopic camera vision to track and 'shoot' a laser at an object of a designated colour. It had to be designed in such a way that when the target is lost the robot can autonomously move around to relocate the target while avoiding obstacles.


My role was to program the autonomous search and obstacle avoidance, and the communication protocol.

At the final stage the robot was required to complete a test track. The laptop on the robot was running software that calculated the distance to an object using a video feed from two web cams, in the same way that humans perceive distance.
The robot had the instructions to track an object of a predefined colour, and send commands to an Arduino programmed to control the motors. At a certain distance to the target a laser pointer is turned on and aimed at the object.

The Arduino is programmed to receive a command from the web cam software and controls the driving. When the object is lost from view a command is send to enter a search loop, where the Arduino uses the last known location and data from ultrasonic sensors attached to the side to move around autonomously until the object is located again by the cameras.