Accomplishments:
This week, I focused on researching the hardware requirements for our onboard intelligence. I read through multiple papers and machine learning datasets to evaluate which public, free datasets we could use for our model’s initial training. I quickly learned it is hard to find a lot of acoustic datasets for our use case but fortunately I came across academic and industrial research work related to Structural Health Monitoring. We can use guided wave-based structural monitoring datasets to evaluate how taps against sheet metal in HVAC ducts can propagate through wave materials. I was able to identify how frequency bands and wave reflections can indicate leaks or corrosion. In all, I believe I have found 3 or more datasets we can use to train our model. I have shared these with the signal processing expert in our group, Rayann, and it is pending discussion.
On the hardware side, I further analyzed whether the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano is the right onboard computing platform for us to run real-time signal processing and ML interference on. Upon further research I was able to look at performance, power requirements, and software support as well as ability.
In addition to the Jetson, I looked into the best tapping mechanism for our design. I found 3 but have narrowed it down to solenoid, and servo-driven approaches as this best fits our use case and how we are planning to build our robot.
I also, along with my teammates, contacted several HVAC repair places and learnt that it is best to contact trade schools, dump sites, and look within CMU itself in the robotics department and the Mechanical Engineering department. I will be doing this early next week as we need some way to source sheet metal and learn more about the defects themselves in general to be able to simulate realistic testing towards the end of our build process to ensure our product works.
Finally, I ordered most of our initial parts for our project and am excited to start building next week!
My work is here: Adithi – Week 4
Schedule:
We are slightly behind schedule because we have been researching technical components and restrictions of the testing of our project. However, because of our research, I think we are putting ourselves in a better position by addressing key problem areas and thinking about how we can mitigate them beforehand. We will be catching up to our schedule by Wednesday latest this following week.
Next Week:
Next week, I will finalize the hardware architecture, component selection, and finish my research on the power distribution and mechanical integration. I will also start building the tapping mechanism if the parts arrive otherwise, I will start finalizing testing and sourcing plans for different materials and begin the software development with Mahati.