Open-Source Educational Robotic System
Problem Statement:
Robotic systems are recently being used broadly in educational college courses due to the rapid increase of computer jobs throughout the world. Many students with a Robotic background wish to take up courses that involve more hands-on experience. This project not only helps the students learn about programming and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related concepts but it also gives faculty the opportunity to emphasize the importance of teamwork in the framework of solving problems. Providing adequate power to the robot, and mounting components such as a computing board, USB hub, and battery on the system requires extensive engineering and design. …show more content…
There are several power source options in the market to choose from. After several hours of research, it was determined that the best two options were lithium polymer battery and a high capacity smart technology USB power bank.
Design #1: LIPO Battery
The LIPO battery is a great piece of equipment to power electronic devices such as RC planes and RC cars. These types of batteries can usually push out significantly more amount of volts/amps than traditional alkaline batteries. For example, the Powerizer superior performance 3900 has 3 cells, which 2 of the cells are in series pushing 4.2 max V for each cell and a cutoff 3V per cell, which then has a third cell in parallel. However, there are several issues with the LIPO battery. First, a special battery charger is required to charge the LIPO battery once the voltage level gets low. This type of battery requires an electronic balance charger. If a different charger is to be used, you run into the risk of damaging the battery. Second issue with using the LIPO battery is safety. If this type of battery was to get punctured, certain gases would be released which then can lead to a small fire. Nevertheless, with all of these types of issues, by carefully setting up and properly charging the LIPO battery, it can still be a great product to supply power to the …show more content…
➢ Setup the ROS working environment so programs to can be implemented.
➢ Write several scripts:
• Capture a video/images from two cameras to the computing board
• Process the video/images so they can be sent wirelessly
• Send video/images from computing board to laptop or computer
➢ Test the final product by mounting the computing board, external USB hub, and sensors to the iRobot Create and running a mapping filed algorithm.
Implementation of the Plan Benchmark Testing
Both the Raspberry Pi2 and the ODROID xu4 have Ubuntu 16.04 and the ROS Robotic operating System installed. We were able to run a couple of benchmarks tests. One test was video streaming using the Raspberry Pi 2 computing board and ODROID xu4. This benchmarked determined how clear the video images displayed as well as the CPU processing percentage user per core for each computing board. Refer to table 1 and figure 1 for testing results. The benchmark testing was performed by running you tube videos on the computing boards and examining the CPU history. Based off the benchmark testing, the ODROID outperform the Raspberry Pi 2 by a significant margin. The Raspberry Pi 2 displays video images with lagging transactions and occasionally tends to freeze while the ODROID displayed video images with smoother transactions between
Problem Statement:
Robotic systems are recently being used broadly in educational college courses due to the rapid increase of computer jobs throughout the world. Many students with a Robotic background wish to take up courses that involve more hands-on experience. This project not only helps the students learn about programming and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related concepts but it also gives faculty the opportunity to emphasize the importance of teamwork in the framework of solving problems. Providing adequate power to the robot, and mounting components such as a computing board, USB hub, and battery on the system requires extensive engineering and design. …show more content…
There are several power source options in the market to choose from. After several hours of research, it was determined that the best two options were lithium polymer battery and a high capacity smart technology USB power bank.
Design #1: LIPO Battery
The LIPO battery is a great piece of equipment to power electronic devices such as RC planes and RC cars. These types of batteries can usually push out significantly more amount of volts/amps than traditional alkaline batteries. For example, the Powerizer superior performance 3900 has 3 cells, which 2 of the cells are in series pushing 4.2 max V for each cell and a cutoff 3V per cell, which then has a third cell in parallel. However, there are several issues with the LIPO battery. First, a special battery charger is required to charge the LIPO battery once the voltage level gets low. This type of battery requires an electronic balance charger. If a different charger is to be used, you run into the risk of damaging the battery. Second issue with using the LIPO battery is safety. If this type of battery was to get punctured, certain gases would be released which then can lead to a small fire. Nevertheless, with all of these types of issues, by carefully setting up and properly charging the LIPO battery, it can still be a great product to supply power to the …show more content…
➢ Setup the ROS working environment so programs to can be implemented.
➢ Write several scripts:
• Capture a video/images from two cameras to the computing board
• Process the video/images so they can be sent wirelessly
• Send video/images from computing board to laptop or computer
➢ Test the final product by mounting the computing board, external USB hub, and sensors to the iRobot Create and running a mapping filed algorithm.
Implementation of the Plan Benchmark Testing
Both the Raspberry Pi2 and the ODROID xu4 have Ubuntu 16.04 and the ROS Robotic operating System installed. We were able to run a couple of benchmarks tests. One test was video streaming using the Raspberry Pi 2 computing board and ODROID xu4. This benchmarked determined how clear the video images displayed as well as the CPU processing percentage user per core for each computing board. Refer to table 1 and figure 1 for testing results. The benchmark testing was performed by running you tube videos on the computing boards and examining the CPU history. Based off the benchmark testing, the ODROID outperform the Raspberry Pi 2 by a significant margin. The Raspberry Pi 2 displays video images with lagging transactions and occasionally tends to freeze while the ODROID displayed video images with smoother transactions between