Traffic Light Tracking
March '18
Traffic Light Tracking
March '18
Computer Vision
March 2018
Background
LiDAR- what it is, why it is relevant
Reference Velodyne LiDAR page
Remote Sensing- class at UMD, build our own LiDAR systems to map something on campus --> note less design, more build
Medical Robot: Phase 1
September 2017
Background
This was the first phase of a larger project for a course in Medical Robotics taken during the Fall Semester of my senior year.
The robot was designed to translate a stage along a thread in one direction with the use of an Arduino, stepper motor, and motor driver.
All the material was supplied, but with limited assembly instructions-- leaving the door open for creativity [...and debugging].
Stage
Stepper motor
Motor driver
Aluminum brackets
Build Process
The robot was built using aluminum extrusion bars, screws, and a lead screw set (drives the stage in one direction).
The aluminum extrusion bars were held together with corner braces and socket screws. The stage rested on top of three L-shaped brackets that were cut and pressed to size in the machine shop.
Finally, these brackets screwed into the bearings that translated along the aluminum rods.
Testing
Using Matlab to actuate the stepper motor and a ruler to measure the translated distance, the robot was tested for repeatability and accuracy.
First, the number of steps per revolution of the stepper motor was calculated to determine the amount of steps needed to translate 1cm.
Then, this ratio was used to move to a set point at 50mm, stop, and continue an additional 30mm to 80mm from the "home position". The robot was 96% accurate for the first point and 97.5% accurate for the second over 10 total runs.
The 50mm point had a higher repeatability than the 80mm point where it only deviated from the measured distance once.
Lessons Learned
This was the first time I had to interface between Arduino and Matlab which led to a pretty steep learning curve. I had previously used both individually, but never together. Nevertheless, this was an extremely useful learning experience.
In the process of testing, I burned through one of the motor controllers [RIP] by accidentally uploading the Arduino code before I made sure the external power supply was plugged in. Though painful, this made me a lot more careful with the hardware.
