Caroline’s Status Report for 4/1

This week I worked on implementing and testing the “targeted search” algorithm for our robot, where it tries to track down the direction of a scent upon detection. Initially, I just used a simple thresholded sensor value to trigger the “targeted search” mode. Once it enters this mode, the robot stops in place and begins sampling the sensor values at different angles of rotation. It then proceeds in the direction at which the maximum sensor value was taken. It confirmed the location of a scent once the sensor value exceeded another, higher threshold. With perfect sensors, this algorithm should work in theory, but we have had to strategize and adjust due to noise and inconsistencies in the sensor readings. We tested different ranges of rotations and looking at the slope of the best fit line to more reliably trigger the search mode and identify the direction of the scented object, but the results are still not very consistent. We will try using a fan in order to amplify the distribution of the scent in preparation for the interim demo. Additionally, I integrated the ultrasonic sensor into the code, so now the robot stops and turns around if it gets too close to an obstacle. Before the interim demo, we need to build a barrier around the arena to prevent the robot from going out of bounds. We will also start testing the sensor sensitivity to paint thinner so that we can demo the robot detecting multiple scents.