Astrobot Goals

The goal of the Astrobot project is to re-create the autonomous, 'intelligent' 1992 Courier Robot replacing the original components with their modern counterparts. The Courier Robot was built to resemble a human. It was designed to roam the halls of buildings and perform simple tasks, including delivering mail, greeting employees, and traveling from door to door using real-time sonar mapping. Like Courier the Astrobot will use voice recognition software to understand simple commands. This is intended to be an ongoing permanent program developed to continually re grow the robotic system in semester to semester increments. This represents the first initial phase setting up the structure for the program and re building the initial robotic platform with modern components. All work being done will be done in well documented packages designed to be handed off to the next crop of students.

We will be improving upon the Courier Robot that was created approximately 20 years ago. More advanced systems will be integrated into Astrobot's arsenal of on-board components. In addition, we will include a more sophisticated human interface system centered on a monitor mounted behind Astrobot's helmet visor. By displaying a variety of expressions as well as phoneme-enabled speech synchronization, Astrobot will provide a inviting, pleasant and engaging experience as it goes about its business.

Our initial strategy is to layer 'intelligence' onto the robotic platform starting with a basic PID control algorithm as a foundation to initially provide for basic motion control within a office/hallway environment. Since the intention for the program is to provide a educational experience for students, all participants will receive training in Control Systems Theory as they work on and develop the basic robotic platform.

The second layer of intelligence involves building an internal map of the of the robot's operational environment that the robot can use to recalibrate it's position and location to update it's internal encoder based position tracking algorithms. This capability will be complimented with an inference engine based algorithm used to identify and characterize spurious sonar and sensor signals as objects vs people etc.

A third layer of intelligence will involve the use of a neural network navigation system previously developed for the robot. This system will be expanded to provide the robot true knowledge of its environment to a depth not available in other conventional systems. These three systems will be connected to provide the basic foundation for the Robot's intelligence. This will of course just represent the basic building block which will be handed off and grown through a series of semester long incremental assignments.

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3.) To see the team members click here --&gt; http://astrobot.wikia.com/wiki/Team_Astrobot

4.) To see some robot components click here --&gt; http://astrobot.wikia.com/wiki/Motherboard_%2B_Atom_Processor