Advaith’s Status Report for 3/27/2021

Accomplishments
- Got the Roboclaw running the motor and getting encoder values
- Shortly after, the Roboclaw we had stopped working. I suspect that the USB port is messed up, or that we accidentally damaged it during our testing, but we weren’t able to connect to the software to update the firmware/debug either (so I suspect it is a USB port issue). We have ordered a new one arriving 3/31.
- To prevent any further damage to the new roboclaw, we are following the instructions on the manual for operation strictly.
- I finished the mechanical part of the robot, including sensor mounts, wiring,electronics mounting, etc.
- Wrote a ROS node that can perform object detection using the YOLO CNN
- Tested the RTABMAP algorithm outdoors using the robot’s compute. FPS runs fine, however, there are some issues with tracking when it viewed sidewalks with not many features. We believe this problem might get better if we include the IMU, GPS sensors as well. We will retest once we have the motor controller so we can drive around.
Schedule Progress
- We are slightly delayed on our first milestone (joystick moving the robot) because of some issues with the Roboclaw motor controller. However, we tested on the previous one before it failed, so we are confident we can integrate it quickly.
Deliverables for Next Week
- I wish to bring in all the sensors for state estimation, and make sure the visual slam works properly
- Finish the pedestrian detection and tracking pipeline.