This week our team worked on the navigation and retrieval process of the robot. After speaking with Tamal and Tao we reconsidered our robot’s sequence of steps, and worked on the code required for the robot’s navigation and retrieval. This week, we accomplished the following:
- We wrote code for our robot to rotate 360 degrees in search for the April Tag on the basket. Once the robot detects the Tag on the basket, it rotates to be perpendicular to the basket, and drives up the basket stopping about 1 foot in front of the basket.
- Next we wrote code for our robot to rotate and look for the April Tag on the shelf. Once the tag on the shelf is detected, the robot rotates so it is facing perpendicular to the shelf.
- Then, the robot moves around the basket, and drives up to the shelf, stopping about 1 foot from the shelf.
- Then the linear slides extend until they reach the maximum height, about three feet.
- Once the slides are extended, the robot searches for the laser pointer.
We accomplished the above steps this week, and a video can be seen below:
Currently the robot is sometimes able to center itself to the item with the laser and drive towards it, but this step does not work all of the time. Thus, next week we plan on improving the item detection step, and working on the grabbing the object from the shelf.