The most significant risk for our project at this point is acquiring a LIDAR camera from the ECE parts inventory that’s suitable for our needs. We’re choosing to use an Intel RealSense camera as opposed to a 360-camera since any trash bin will cause a significant obstruction that we have to process away as not being a wall or other flat obstacle. Based on background research, we think mapping with a fixed FOV camera will provide acceptable performance.
Another risk at the moment is going to be the docking mechanism, which we discussed in detail on Wednesday following the proposal presentations. We’re thinking about using an omnidirectional system to avoid alignment complexity with the robot’s movement. We believe this will save time and help us to meet/exceed our design target.
We didn’t make any design changes this week, and are on schedule with respect to the timeline in our proposal.
Our project includes considerations for economics and general welfare. The automated system is intended to relieve the workload on janitorial staff, and allows them to focus and invest time in other tasks. Regardless of the system, bins must be emptied to maintain a private and healthy office environment.
We started putting together a parts list and submitted our first request from the ECE inventory! Yay!