The most significant risk that could jeopardize this project will be the integration of the motor mobility and vision pipeline, and the interconnection between target tracking and obstacle detection. Right now, we have the motor mobility and most of the vision pipeline done, and they seem to work independently, at least for simple tests. The challenge is therefore how the robot reacts to complex circumstances once everything is done, e.g., when the person comes back and forth in front of the robot. We currently plan to have two weeks for such extensive tests, but we would like to extend it slightly to at least 2.5 weeks, as integration probably can be done in less than a week.
We made a slight change to our system, where we now plan to have the robot to remain moving if it faces an obstacle to try to go around it, instead of requiring the user to manually press a button to make it move. This is to address the feedback we got for the design proposal for increased convenience. This will likely take more time to implement, so we will try to squeeze more time for this change.
As discussed above, we would like to extend tests from 2 weeks to at least 2.5 weeks, as integration probably can be done in less than a week. However, this is not definitive, and we’d like to start testing as soon as integration is done. Therefore, we will leave the schedule unchanged for now but we will be aware that test can be started early if possible.