The past 2 weeks, I worked with the team to fine-tune the overall process of the robot and help reduce errors as much as possible. Most of the errors we ran into were related to drifting, slight battery charge change effects, connection issues, or communication issues. Some of them are reliably debuggable (i.e. battery charge or connection issues), but some are random and hard to pinpoint. Overall, the robot performs somewhat reliably but we seek to continue to improve on the process as much as possible for the final demo.
Ludi Cao’s Status Report for 12/04
The past few weeks I mainly worked with my team to fine tune the robot. As mentioned in the team status report, we improved the computer vision algorithm by fine tuning parameters for the edge detection code. Return towards the basket was also implemented. I also worked on the running tests for the final presentation. Currently my team and I are on schedule in delivering the final project. I would continue working on fine tuning the parameters, as well as on the final report and video
Team’s Status Report for 12/04
For the last two weeks our team worked together to integrate the various subsystems. Attached is a video which demonstrates that our robot can autonomously complete the majority of the work, including navigation to basket and shelf, identifying the pointed object with the laser tag, and successful physical retrieval of the item. In comparison to the last status report, the robot has much more consistent behavior, and most runs are nearly successful. Some solutions include adding an IMU sensor to the robot, so that the robot can orient itself after travelling some distance, to account for drift in the wheels. We experimented on finer tunings of the edge detection code, where the camera only looks at a specific area where the object is located at. This greatly helps in reducing background noise. We also implemented the last step of returning to the basket and dropping the item. Our team also ran some preliminary tests, as well as worked on the slides for the final presentation this last week. During this process we ran into the claw having inconsistent closing behavior, but after tweaking with the heights of the two sides, the performance is much better. Since the claw inconsistencies mostly come from the claw being worn down too much after multiple runs, we also ordered a new claw in case the claw malfunctions before the final demo.
We believe our team is on schedule, and the final delivery of the project is almost finished. Next week our group would mostly focus on the project report, final video, as well as last tweaking of parameters to achieve better consistency.
Bhumika Kapur’s Status Report for 12/4
This week I continued to work with my team to improve the entire process of our robot, tweaking some values to make it more consistent, and improving the navigation process. We primarily focused on the robots navigation back to the basket after it retrieves the object, and depositing the item in the basket. The team’s progress is described in this weeks team status report. I also worked on the final presentation which Ludi presented earlier this week.