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2013 RESEARCH EXPERIENCE FOR TEACHERS - ROBOTICS

E L I Z A B E T H F R E E M A N J E S S E B E L L

RET (Research Experiences for Teachers) Site on Sensor 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. 1132585 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

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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

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MONITORING ELEVATION CHANGES

Large crevasse Irregular surface and melt pools

ASSISTIVE ROBOTS

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SEARCH AND RESCUE

LEGO MINDSTORMS

Easy to useEasy to programFun!Multiple sensorsBluetooth capable

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Using a light sensor, the robot is able

to distinguish between dark/light

areas and follow this black line.

STEP 1:FOLLOW THE BLACK LINE

PROGRAMMING

Math Block

Switch Block

Light Sensor

Bluetooth Module

Tabs Defined by Switch Variables

Motor Block

Ultrasonic Sensor

PROGRAM II:1: Hard left2: Easy left3: Go straight4: Easy right5: Hard right

Light Sensor

Motor Blocks

Bluetooth Modules

Switch Block

Ultrasonic Sensor

PROGRAM I:Light: Turn leftDark: Turn right

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LINE FOLLOW TROUBLESHOOTING

Sensor reads <50%

Sensor reads >50%

LINE FOLLOW TROUBLESHOOTING

Sensor reads <50%

Sensor reads >50%

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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 messageNeed a program for follow robot to receive a message

PROGRAMMING

Math Block

Switch Block

Light Sensor

Bluetooth Module

Tabs Defined by Switch Variables

Motor Block

Ultrasonic Sensor

PROGRAM II:1: Hard left2: Easy left send3: Go straight 1 54: Easy right5: Hard right

Light Sensor

Motor Blocks

Bluetooth Modules

Switch Block

Ultrasonic Sensor

PROGRAM I:Light: Turn left…. send 2Dark: Turn right…send 5

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RESULTS

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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 andthe concept of rate of change and slope. The Mindstorm NXT Robot will be used in the activity.

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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, http://legoengineering.com.

“Projects for NXT 2.0”, Lego Mindstorms, http://nxtprograms.com.

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: 10.1109/ISCAIE.2012.6482082

A. Koller, G.Kruijff, “Talking robots with lego Mindstorms,” in Proceedings of the 20th Coling, Geneva, 2004.

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. 565-570, May 2010. DOI: 10.1109/ICCCYB.2010.5491208

D. H. Barnhard, et al, “Using Bluetooth Communication for Coordinated Robot Research.”, Artificial Intelligence Center, University of Georgia, 2001.

D. Zermas, “Control of a Leader-Follower Mobile Robotic Swarm Based on the NXT Educational LEGO Platform.”, IEEE Conf. Pub, pp. 1381-1386, 2011, DOI: 10.1109/ISIE.2011.5984361.

E. J. Chung, et al, “Development of a Multiple Mobile Robotic System for Team Work”, Int. Joint Conf.SICE-ICASE, 2006, pp. 4291 - 4296 DOI: 10.1109/SICE.2006.314877.

J. Steshenko, E. Kagan, I. Ben-Gal, “A simple protocol for a society of NXT robots communicating via Bluetooth.”, IEEE Conf. Pub., pp. 381-384, 2011.

M. Rooker, A. Birk, ”Multi-robot exploration under the constraints of wireless networking.”, Science Direct, Control Engineering Practice,vol. 15, pp. 435-445, Nov. 2006.

O. Wongwirat, T. Hanidthikul, N. Vuthikulvanich, “A formal approach in robot development process using a UML model.”, 10th Intl Conf. on Control, Automoation, Robotics, and Vision, pp. 1888-1893, Dec. 2008.

R. Shephard, S. Mansoor, ”Bluetooth Based Proximity Sensing for Reactive Mobile Robots”, IEEE TENCON 2005, pp. 1-6, DOI: 10.1109/TENCON.2005.301049 .