Behaviour Based Robotics

Ryan Kenneth ClayKamil RytelMert GurtenJack SavoryChunfan GaoWilliam Garret-JonesMiles Plaskett

Robots we use today

● Automated production lines

● Robotic surgery

● Automated motor vehicle e.g. Mars Rover

● Cleaning robot e.g. Roomba

● Robotic lawnmower

What is a ‘Robot’?

● ‘A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially programmable by a computer.’ (Oxford Dictionary)

● An autonomous robot can make actions without direct user control. It has the ability of self-government.

● Behaviour-based robots exhibit actions that are modelled by its environment.

● The robot can ‘sense’ the world through the various sensors

The Task

● Design a robot with the ability to respond to an artificially created environment. The robot has to:

– work in an environment created by a projector

– roam and detect ‘grass’ or ‘dirt’

– explore 'grass'/'dirt' in order to ‘clean’ it up

– avoid virtual (projected) and physical obstacles

● Develop a software that would create the virtual world

– User Interface: map creation and preview

– Backend: blob detection and environment alteration

Lego NXT

Sensors Used In The Project

● Light sensor

● Colour sensor

● Sonar

Group workflow diagram

The line following algorithm.

From the light sensor to the colour sensor

The angle problem

The Shield

The Shield

The obstacle avoidence

The GUI

The UI backend

● Initial idea of using Python

● Implemented using OpenCV library for java

● The blob detection

– Uses Hough Circle Transform, a general technique for identifying the locations and orientations of certain types of features in a digital image.

● When the circle is detected, green colour in that area is being removed, which simulates the 'dirt'/'grass' removal.

The summary

Achievements?

● Completely new experience: work with a 'real world' robot – not just software simulation on the screen

● Connection of the real world (robot) with the virtual reality (projected maps)

● Dynamic alteration of the virtual world

● Successful ending of the project despite the problems faced

The future

● Robots usage in programming teaching

● Lego NXT can be easily programmed

● It is faster and easier to program the robot, therefore to understand the problem and the code

● Using robots (especially Lego NXT) can show that programming can be fun, not just boring code on the screen

The future

● Robotics is developing

● AI involvement

● Sensor precision

● Interaction with software

● Different approaches, methodologies – a big field for research

The end