Author: akshatj

Name : Akshat Jain

This week I worked on 3D printing the stand for the Raspberry Pi, Power Bank Thermal Camera as well as the Lidar sensor. We assembled the 3D print and attached all of the parts to the iRobot. In addition to this, we worked on creating an appropriate transformation for the iRobot along with our stand so that it works in simulation. We also started initial real world testing in basic rooms. One problem we are facing is that the Local network created by our laptops is not powerful enough to communicate with the robot. We plan to use a router to create a much more powerful local network to fix this problem.

Name : Akshat Jain

This week we received most of the hardware components so we started work on setting up each one of them. I set up the LIDAR and connected it to the Raspberry Pi with a serial cable. I was then able receive point cloud data from it. One issue we had was that the point cloud data from the LIDAR did not give one point per degree which it claimed to give originally. We are currently trying to find a fix to this problem.

This week we finally received the iRobot Create 2 as well. I set up the libraries on the Raspberry Pi as well as the lab computer for robot control. We can now give commands to the robot to move with a specific speed and turn specific angles.

I also helped Wenxin set up the Thermal camera and set up libraries for it on the Raspberry Pi. We were able to receive an 8×8 grid of temperature values which would successfully give us a higher reading when we put our hand in front of it.

Akshat Jain

Over this week I worked on setting up the hardware interfaces for all the sensors on the Raspberry Pi. This involved setting up the virtual machine on Raspberry Pi and setting up SSH on it so that all team members can work on the Raspberry Pi remotely. It also involved opening up the I2C, SPI and serial ports of the Raspberry Pi. I also downloaded all the API’s needed for all the sensors so that all of them can work with Python. I also set up ROS on the Raspberry Pi.

I also worked on creating a more detailed diagram of the hardware subsystems for the Design Document. This involved finding the correct GPIO pins for the I2C, SPI and serial interfaces and figuring out the correct wiring as well as the exact placement of the lidar on the mobile wheeled robot. We also figured out a mechanism to rotate the robot so that the thermal camera can capture 360 degree information.