need suggestions regardin my proj

[shruthi]

hi,
my frnds and i are thinking of building up an autonomous vehicle which moves from a start location to any target location irrespective of the obstructions.It simply moves around obstacles and reaches the desired destination point.

The trouble we are facing is our lecturers are complaining that it is a very simple project.
1. so could please suggest any enhancements which we could work on?
2. suggest a suitable name for this project.(we thought of 'SELF-GUIDED VEHICLE'..but.. may something better n more interesting. )

please help me !

 

[dknguyen]

You probably didn't specify the project well enough. It's ridiculously hard to make a robot go somewhere regardless of all obstructions in the way (unless you mean on a flat floor with obstacles, I am thinking about somewhere like a forest floor). You would need an an IMU and a very robust chassis. The IMU alone should be enough to shut the prof up (they aren't easy to make).

Even if it was just a flat floor, you are almost cheating if you just have it wandering blindly to a general destination area and then wandering around some mroe until it reaches a destination "beacon".

Your prof would probably let you do it if all the start points and destination were internally programmed (no beacons) and the distance you planned to travel was long enough. TO do that you would need accyrate dead-reckoning which would increase the complexity of your project (if not skyrocketing) to the point your prof would let you.

 

[shruthi]

hey thanks for d suggestion....shal think on ur lines.....we wer thinking of flat floor only and not a forest ground.. adding IMUs or GPS will make it complex..

 

[mrvanx]

Well my project currently uses a USB camera and a program running on cygwin/linux which processes the image and determines any objects in it, i planned out 3 months of coding for that alone but the program is surprisingly logical once you have read up on the techniques. The problems i have noticed are connecting the various sections of the robot together and getting them talking! camera (USB)-> PC Program <-(serial RS232)-> motors and chassis.

The various communication methods are usually the headache!