2013 RESEARCH EXPERIENCE FOR TEACHERS - ROBOTICS

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1 2013 RESEARCH EXPERIENCE FOR TEACHERS - ROBOTICS ELIZABETH FREEMAN JESSE BELL RET (Research Experiences for Teachers) Site on Networks, Electrical Engineering Department, and Institute of Applied Sciences, UNT, Denton, Texas. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No and the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) Outreach Fund. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF or the IEEE. BACKGROUND Can be deployed in hazardous areas Solar Explorations Contamination cleanup Assist the elderly Assisting soldiers Autonomous spacecraft Search and rescue Unmanned vehicles Asteroid research 1

2 GOAL OF PROJECT Our goal is to get multiple robots communicating with one another via Bluetooth connectivity. Set up a Lead-Follow relationship between two NXT Lego robots using Mindstorms programming CURRENT RESEARCH Monitoring elevation changes in glacial regions using vision based odometry Passenger carrying robots Assistive Robotics Natural Disasters Search and Rescue 2

3 MONITORING ELEVATION CHANGES Large crevasse Irregular surface and melt pools ASSISTIVE ROBOTS 3

4 SEARCH AND RESCUE LEGO MINDSTORMS Easy to use Easy to program Fun! Multiple sensors Bluetooth capable 4

5 STEP 1: FOLLOW THE BLACK LINE Using a light sensor, the robot is able to distinguish between dark/light areas and follow this black line. PROGRAMMING PROGRAM I: Light: Turn left Dark: Turn right Switch Bluetooth Modules Light Motor s Ultrasonic Light Math Switch Bluetooth Module Tabs Defined by Switch Variables Motor Ultrasonic PROGRAM II: 1: Hard left 2: Easy left 3: Go straight 4: Easy right 5: Hard right 5

6 LINE FOLLOW TROUBLESHOOTING reads <50% reads >50% LINE FOLLOW TROUBLESHOOTING reads <50% reads >50% 6

7 CHALLENGES Now that the lead robot can successfully follow a black line our next challenge is finding the most efficient method of getting the other robot to follow. What do humans do? Use sensors? Communicate actions? Programming Bluetooth on each robot: Need a program for lead robot to send a message Need a program for follow robot to receive a message PROGRAMMING PROGRAM I: Light: Turn left. send 2 Dark: Turn right send 5 Switch Bluetooth Modules Light Motor s Ultrasonic Light Math Switch Bluetooth Module Tabs Defined by Switch Variables Motor Ultrasonic PROGRAM II: 1: Hard left 2: Easy left send 3: Go straight 1 5 4: Easy right 5: Hard right 7

8 7/28/2013 RESULTS 8

9 BLUETOOTH AND NXT-G Ability to access and adjust Bluetooth settings is limited. NXT-G allows for approximately 13 messages per second with delays between messages at about 100 msec. Continuous synchronization between sent and received Bluetooth messages prevented reliable communication. ALGEBRA LESSON PLAN Students will use direct variation as an introduction Linear Functions and the concept of rate of change and slope. The Mindstorm NXT Robot will be used in the activity. 9

10 PHYSICS LESSON PLAN Balloon Drop Activity: Students will use knowledge of kinematics equations and the movement of falling objects to coordinate the timing required to drop a water balloon on a robot moving at a constant velocity. REFERENCES Building and Programming, Tufts University, Projects for NXT 2.0, Lego Mindstorms, A. H. Ismail, et al, "Investigation of homogeneous multi robots communication via Bluetooth," Computer Applications and Industrial Electronics (ISCAIE), 2012 IEEE Symposium on, vol., no., pp.124,129, 3-4 Dec. 2012, doi: /ISCAIE A. Koller, G.Kruijff, Talking robots with lego Mindstorms, in Proceedings of the 20 th Coling, Geneva, A. Pasztor, T. Kovacs, Z. Istenes, Compass and Odometry Based Navigation of a Mobile Robot Swarm Equipped by Bluetooth Communication, Computational Cybernetics and Tech. Informatics, pp , May DOI: /ICCCYB D. H. Barnhard, et al, Using Bluetooth Communication for Coordinated Robot Research., Artificial Intelligence Center, University of Georgia, D. Zermas, Control of a Leader-Follower Mobile Robotic Swarm Based on the NXT Educational LEGO Platform., IEEE Conf. Pub, pp , 2011, DOI: /ISIE E. J. Chung, et al, Development of a Multiple Mobile Robotic System for Team Work, Int. Joint Conf.SICE-ICASE, 2006, pp DOI: /SICE J. Steshenko, E. Kagan, I. Ben-Gal, A simple protocol for a society of NXT robots communicating via Bluetooth., IEEE Conf. Pub., pp , M. Rooker, A. Birk, Multi-robot exploration under the constraints of wireless networking., Science Direct, Control Engineering Practice, vol. 15, pp , Nov O. Wongwirat, T. Hanidthikul, N. Vuthikulvanich, A formal approach in robot development process using a UML model., 10 th Intl Conf. on Control, Automoation, Robotics, and Vision, pp , Dec R. Shephard, S. Mansoor, Bluetooth Based Proximity Sensing for Reactive Mobile Robots, IEEE TENCON 2005, pp. 1-6, DOI: /TENCON