This project is actually the second iteration of a project another team and I worked on two years ago. As the brief description states, the goal is to still build a robot capable of tracking and pushing objects out of a ring, without falling out of the ring itself. The design of the robot this time has a few similarities to the last robot; however, the majority of the hardware and algorithms applied are significantly different. Currently, the only other teammate on this project is my mechanical engineering friend, Dmytri.
The plan so far is to have three Prototypes for this project. Prototype 1, shown in the picture, will be to ensure all the components and the Tracking Algorithm work. Prototype 2 should have a new chassis ( and possibly faster motors ) and the electronics will be soldered onto a prototyping board. Time will be spent to optimize the Tracking Algorithm and other parameters during Prototype 2. For Prototype 3, a PCB-shield will be created.
Components
1×
chipKIT uC32
The development board whose CPU is a PIC32. MPLABX is used to develop the embedded software, instead of MPIDE.
1×
FreeRTOS
The real-time operating system running on the PIC32. Contains useful libraries such as threading and queues.
4×
IR Proximity Sensor ( VCNL4010 )
Acquires the data for the Tracking and Border Algorithms. .
2×
I2C 8 Slave to 1 Master Muxtiplexer ( TCA9548A )
Needed to connect I2C Slave interfaces with the same slave address to a single I2C Master interface.
1×
32 KB FRAM ( MB85RC256V )
Needed for storing configurations and data logging.