CS [45]163: Main Class Project Our main class project is a robot that can play soccer. By the end of the semester, the robot will be able to find the ball, dribble, shoot, and navigate around the field.

Project Goals

• design and implement physical interfaces that involve digital and analog signal generation and processing;
• design, implement, and use serial protocols for device-to-device communication;
• implement control loops that integrate sensing systems with control;
• implement mid-level image processing algorithms;
• document and communicate your designs within a collaborative group, as well as with external observers; and
• debug and test real-time systems.

The development of this system will nominally be split into five distinct milestones. At each milestone, a group is responsible demonstrating a specific minimum level of capability, and for producing documented code and other supporting documentation. Although project work will be performed in groups of 3-4, grades will be assessed in two components: personal work and group work.

• Personal work: during the course of the semester, each student must be a primary contributor to 2 (4163) or 3 (5163) major system components. There will be 2-4 such major components that are required for each of the milestones. In addition, individuals/groups may suggest other major components (these need to be approved ahead of time).

  Unless otherwise specified, each major component will be worth one credit. In order to receive full credit for a major component, you must be the one group member who performs the design and implementation of the subsystem. Your other group members should be involved in reviewing your design, testing your implementation, and helping you to debug. But - a primary contributor will have a significantly larger role in the subsystem (in particular, this person will be able to discuss any aspect of the associated code). Note that two group members may take on a single major component. In this case, each will receive half of the credit available.

  A list of possible major components is listed below. Although you should not stress out about the assignment of major components, it will be good to begin discussing possible assignments as early as possible with your fellow group members.

  In general, major component implementations may not be shared across groups, as this will be considered cheating. There are a couple of exceptions that are noted below. When in doubt, ask.

  The value of a particular major component is based on my heuristic assessment of the difficulty of the task. I am open to negotiating higher values, but your case needs to be with respect to the difficulty of the problem (not the amount of time you have left before the deadline)

• Group work: milestones 1-5 represent important steps for bringing your robot up to speed. Points will be awarded for demonstrating functionality for the milestone and for properly documenting the work. Hence, if the primary contributors are doing their job, the group work will focus on system integration, testing, and documentation. However, if the primary contributor fails to complete their task (or no one has stepped up to perform the task), then the group grade will suffer.

Milestones and Major Components

Milestones:

• Milestone 1: Due March 9
  
  • 1A. Reactive obstacle avoidance: turn away from contacted obstacles; if no obstacles, move forward
    
  • 1B. Camera: track a ball as it is moved in front of the camera

  Major components:

  • CREATE (robot) base control
  • Vision I

• Milestone 2: Due March 25
  
  • 2A. Heading: Given an arbitrary initial heading, orient to and drive down a specified heading.
    
  • 2B. Move to Ball: given that the ball is in view, orient to and move toward it.

  Major Components:

  • Compass
  • I²C slave
  • Motion Control I

• Milestone 3: April 6
  
  • 3A. Approach ball from a direction that allows alignment of ball to a specified heading while avoiding obstacles. Dribble the ball along this heading
  • 3B. Track ball and robots using overhead camera(s)

  Major Components:

  • Distance
  • Motion Control II
  • Blob tracking
  • Wireless communication

• Milestone 4: April 20
  
  • 4A. Shooting along a given axis
  • 4B. Global navigation: given that the ball is anywhere in the field of play, plan and execute a path toward it

  Major components:

  • Shoot
  • Navigation

• Milestone 5: May 4
  Full game play

  Major components:

  • "Skills"
  • High-level control

Major Components

• CREATE base control (M1)
  • Commanding robot to move forward/backward/left/right
  • Querying the on-board sensors
  • Simple program to demonstrate sensor reading
  • Hint: watch out for byte ordering on integers (atmel and intel processors order bytes differently)

• Vision I (CMUcam2+) (M1)
  • Serial interface to Mega8
  • Configuration for color blob detection/tracking.
    • Must be able to handle the various object colors (ball and goals)
    • Reading out the servo joint angles
  • 2 credits
  • Hints:
    • There are two ways to read the joint angles (a wrong way and a right way). See the note on the Hardware Wiki
    • Make sure that you calibrate brightness and color

• Compass (M2)
  • I²C interface: make use of general library (provided)
  • Use current heading to command the CREATE
  • Hints:
    • Keep the compasses away from metal and current sources.
    • Make sure to calibrate your compass in the context in which it is going to be used

• I²C Slave (M2)
  • Configure camera mega8 as a slave that responds to master queries about state of the camera and possibly sends high-level commands
    • Remember that we are using one general protocol: master transmits some number of bytes, then some number of bytes are transmitted by the slave
    • Deal with necessary error handling
    • Must use ISRs for this
    • Hint: go slow and use the oscilloscopes

• Motion Control I (M2)
  • Use the state of the camera servos to approach the ball so that it is sitting in front of the robot

• Real-time Operating System
  • A number of small, real-time operating systems are available for the Mega8. Find and use one that provides multi-threading and thread communication capabilities
  • Note: sharable across groups

• Distance Sensing (M3)
  • Install and interface to Sharp sensors
  • Use on-board A2D converter
  • Hint: you may need to experiment with positioning of the sensors

• Motion Control II (M3)
  • Align robot with ball along a specified heading while avoiding collisions with obstacles
  • Dribble along heading

• Blob tracking (M3)
  • Use Open-CV to track the locations of the ball and the robots in real time
  • 2 credits: (can be shared across groups and not all groups need to do this component, though all will use it)

• Wireless communication (M3)

  Communication will be used from global tracking system to robots, and between robots and a command interface (for high level mode setting only)

  • XBee interface to the atmels
  • Basic software interface for the XBees
  • Establish protocol for our application
  • 2 credits (can be shared across groups)

• Shoot (M4)
  • Mount solenoid foot
  • Interface solenoid to atmel
  • Control solenoid to achieve several different kicks

• Navigation (M4)
  • Receive ball and robot locations from the global tracking system.
  • Use this information to plan and execute a path to the ball.

• "Skills" (M5)
  • These are individual movement units that the robot might select during play (above and beyond what you have already developed)
  • Credit: various

• High-level control (M5)
  • High-level decision making for when different skills are used
  • Credit: at least one unit (you must negotiate for more and be convincing)

Each Milestone: What to Hand In

• Demonstration/Presentation: All group members need to be present for this phase; demonstrations/presentations may be done for either me or the TAs
  • Presentation: Describe in brief the design and the organization of the major components using 2-3 printed or computer-displayed slides (not hand written). Upload a copy of these slides to the subversion tree.
  • Demonstration: show that your circuit and software work as specified for the milestone. Multiple tests and testing under various conditions will be "par for the course". Prepare appropriately.
  • Code discussion: be prepared to address any questions about the code implementation.

• Documented code: Turn in your documented code to the subversion tree. Function-level documentation must be done using Doxygen markup.

• Group report: You should view this as a "living" design document on your group's wiki page. Here, you should discuss how the major components are implemented and how they fit together (i.e., what are the electrical and protocol-level interfaces?). You should include sufficient detail that would enable a new team member to jump into the project and begin contributing. This document will evolve with each milestone. Make sure that you indicate what material is new for the current milestone.

• Personal report: must be turned in via D2L by each group member in TEXT format. Assess the following:
  • Major components: assess the contribution of the major components by the student(s) responsible for each of these. Note that a student does not have to be the sole contributor to the major component. However, they should take the primary responsibility for its design, implementation and testing.
  • Group work: state the relative contribution of you and your group members. Ideally, all group members are contributing equally.

Grading

• 25%: Demonstration:
  Does it work under a variety of conditions?

• 50%: Implementation
  Is the code well organized, clean and correct?

• 25%: Internal documentation
  The implementation should be clear to someone who is familiar with the hardware and problems to be solved (i.e., you do not need to document for an inexperienced programmer).

Group work:

• 25%: Presentation and implementation discussion
• 25%: Demonstration (pieces that do not necessarily fall within a "major component")
• 25%: Implementation (again, non-major components)
• 25%: Group report

Notes:

• An individual's grade may be influenced by the personal reports of his/her peers.
• Grades will not be assigned if personal reports are not handed in.

References

• Atmel HOWTO
• Hardware references (this page will be updated as new hardware becomes available)
• Doxygen
• Subversion
• Open-CV
• Official Robocup small-scale robot rules
• Main class web page

fagg [[at]] cs.ou.edu

Last modified: Sun Jan 17 00:56:28 2010