Embedded Motion Control 2014 Group 12

Introduction

Members of group 12

Groupmembers (email all)
Name:	Student id:	Email:
Anthom van Rijn	0737682	e-mail Anthom
Jan Donkers	0724801	e-mail Jan
Jeroen Willems	0755833	e-mail Jeroen
Karel Drenth	0863408	e-mail Karel

Corridor Challange

The goal of the corridor challange is to make pico drive autonomously trhough a corridor, recognize succesfully a T-junction and have him/her take this corner.

Planning

Week 1

• Lecture

Week 2

• C++ tutorials
• ROS tutorials
• SVN tutorials
• Run the first test on pico (safe_drive.cpp) to get some hands-on experience.

Week 3

• Start the actual coding, based on the safe_drive.cpp file. Paying special attention to robustness and exceptions.
• Have pico recognize situations (corridor, corner, t-junction,dead-end, etc.) and act accordingly
• Have the script succesfully run in simulation

Week 4

• Fine tuning of script
• Corridor Competition

Design Choices/Iteration (Corridor Challange)

• Chose to work in one main file, due to time constrains
• Decided to go for robusness over performance, First get it working, then make it fast.

Experiments

• 09-05-2013

Tested the provided safe_drive file, making small alteration to see the effects on Pico. Tested how hard constrains are handeld and some different safety protocols.

• 13-05-2013

Tried, and failed, to run corridor_challange_v2 due to numerous bugs in the script (most importantly: stuck in situation zero, unsure what to do). Received help from tutor regarding tips and tricks regarding Qt creator for debugging, building/making C++ in ROS and running simulations. Information was used to create a "how to start: Pico" tutorial. Remainder of time spent on bugfixing.

Changelog

09-05

Created scipt corridor_challange.cpp with basic siteval to recognize conditions

13-05

• Testing corridor_challenge on Pico.

With new input from experiments: updated the corridor_challange.cpp to corridor_challange_v2.cpp. Brought the function sit-eval withing the callback loop for sensor messages. This way, the situation is evaluated and updated whenever new laser data is present. Some minor typo's. Added a situation that when things are to close (hard constraint) pico shuts down. After testing it was revealed that pico is stuck in condition 0 (does not know where he is).

15-05

• Revisited corridor_challange_v2.cpp -> renamed to corridorchallenge_v2.cpp and added some new functions:
• Extended laser 'vision' with left- and right diagonal view and updated amount of laser data used for each 'vision' vector.
• Extended the amount of possible situation PICO can be in to nine. Currently using:

- Corridor
- T-Junction (L+R)
- Crossing
- Corner (L+R)
- Dead End
- Exit

• Added a function that compares the left and right laser data and 'strafes' PICO to the middle using the y coordinate.
• Added an 'integrator'-like function that aligns the front vector of PICO to the walls of the corridor.
• Included front laser data to this function to ensure 'backup' when PICO comes too close to a wall.
• Added corresponding functions to new situations.
• Tweaked variables to ensure functioning simulations. (Allowance of some initial angle with reference to wall 'disturbance'). PICO is currently able to pass corridors, T-junctions and corners, for this however, the amount of possible situations PICO can be in is reduced for the sake of simplicity.

Final Design

The final design that was used was corridor_challange_v2. It's goal was to use the laser data to recognize one of 9 conditions (ranging from freedom, corridor) and act in a preprogrammed way (outside of the loop) on how to handle these, and then turn on the loop again.

Result

Due to unforseen circumstances, corridorchallenge v3 failed to load on pico. We resorted back to v2, which, while less robust, was still able to find the t-junction and act accordingly. The result was first place in the limited speed catagory, with a time of around 20 seconds.

Maze Challange

Test1

Final result

We became first in the slow catogory.