Junior Robot

Summary: A custom robot was designed and constructed. Odometry equations were used to develop a PID controller, which in turn was used to control the position and velocity of the robot. Two human tracking algorithms were developed with the purpose of identifying and locating a moving human. These algorithms were developed using data from a Kinect sensor located on the robot, and they include an open-source skeletal tracking algorithm, as well as a custom-developed tracking algorithm. The outputs of each of these algorithms were used in conjunction with the PID controller to command a robot to follow a moving person.

Contributions: For this robot, I designed the vehicle using SolidWorks and used rapid prototyping techniques such as laser cutting and 3D printing to construct the body. Mounts for the sensors, batteries, and computer were also designed to sit inside the chassis of the robot. I, along with my partners in the project, contributed to creating human tracking algorithms using the Kinect sensor and programmed the robot using Robot Operating System (ROS) to follow people around.

Year: 2017

Specifics:

Report: Junior_Report.pdf

Design Documentation: Junior_Design.pdf

Video: