PRE2017 4 Groep6

Group members

• David van den Beld, 1001770
• Gerben Erens, 0997906
• Luc Kleinman, 1008097
• Maikel Morren, 1002099
• Adine van Wier, 0999813

Project

Planning

Below follows the planning for the project for the upcoming 9 weeks constituting the course 0LAUK0 Project: Robots Everywhere

Table 1: Preliminary planning for the project

Week number	Task	Person*
1
	Choose definitive subject	Collaborative effort of all members
	Define problem statement and objectives	David
	Define users	Adine
	Obtain user requirements	Gerben
	Work out typical use cases	Luc
	Define the milestones and deliverables	Maikel
	Define the approach of the problem	Collaborative effort of all members
	Search for relevant state-of-the-art (SotA) sources, categories: Modularity (Semi-) Autonomous cars Sensors for prospecting/evaluating ground Drilling/plowing/seeding mechanism Current Forestation combat methods	All divided into the subcategories: Maikel David Luc Gerben Adine
	Make project planning	Collaborative effort of all members
2
	Review user requirements and use cases	Collaborative effort of all members
	Finish collecting SotA articles and write SotA section	Each member for their respective subcategory
	Compile list of potential robot designs	Collaborative effort of all members
	Make some concept design sketches	Maikel
	Make a preliminary list of required parts	Gerben
	Define embedded software environment	Luc
	Preliminary elimination session for designs based on user requirements	Adine
	Start compiling list of design preferences/requirements/constraints	David
3
	Finish list of preferences/requirements/constraints	Adine
	Further eliminate designs due to constraints	Collaborative effort of all members
	Rank remaining designs and select a winner	Collaborative effort of all members
	Develop a building plan/schemata for the winner design	Gerben, Luc
	Start acquiring physical quantities for modelling design	Maikel, David
	Start with a simple model of some system parameters	Maikel, David
4
	Commence robot assembly according to highest priority of building schemata	Gerben, David
	Continue modelling/simulating	Maikel
	Start coding robot functionalities	Luc
	Catch up on documenting the wiki	Adine
5
	Continue robot assembly and coding	Gerben, David, Luc
	Continue modelling/simulating	Maikel
	Catch up on documenting the wiki	Collaborative effort of all members
6
	Continue robot assembly and coding	Gerben, Luc
	Test the first (few) finished sub-system(s) of the robot.	Collaborative effort of all members
	Finish modelling/simulating	Maikel, David
	Finish catching up on documenting the wiki	Collaborative effort of all members
7
	Finish robot assembly	Gerben
	Make concept designs for possible modules	Luc
	Make a draft for final presentation	Maikel, David, Adine
	Test the first (few) finished sub-system(s) of the robot.	Collaborative effort of all members
8
	Buffer time	Collaborative effort of all members
	Finish final presentation	Maikel, David, Adine
	Complete wiki	Gerben, Luc

^* The current division of task is a rough estimate for the next 7 weeks. New tasks may pop up or task division may be rotated, and is hence subject to change during the progress of the course.

Approach

The problem will be approached by a design question. What is the best design for a robot to combat deforestation which will be build modular so that it can be implemented for other purposes with minor changes. The first 2 weeks the approach will primarily be sequential, as user analysis, use cases and requirements/preferences/constraints need to be done sequentially before the rest of the project can start. Once this is over, the project will run in a parallel fashion where building and modelling will happen simultaneously.

Milestones and Deliverables

Table 2: Milestones

Date	Accomplished
30-04-2018	SotA research done
03-05-2018	User analysis/use cases done
07-05-2018	Have a partially eliminated list of designs
10-05-2018	Pick final “winner” design
21-05-2018	Have the first working subsystem
25-05-2018	Finish modelling
31-05-2018	Have an operational prototype running with at least 2 subsystems
07-06-2018	Made several concepts for modules
11-06-2018	Presentation is finished
14-06-2018	Wiki is completely updated

Literature Review

The literature review was divided into 5 subcategories, the results of which will be extended below.

Modularity

Modular robotics is a useful tool in the design of robots for in-field applications, as building a functional specialised robot from scratch is a time-consuming and cost-intensive process. If a modular design approach is taken, the costs of designing a robot could be severely reduced as one general robotic platform with some general functionalities would serve as the starting point, upon which modules can be placed to give the end-product the desired capabilities. A drawback of this modular design method, however, is that the design space will expand explosively due to the seemingly limitless possible configurations the robot could have . However, this design space can be brought to proportions by severely reducing it, by placing the constraints which arise from the task to be completed by the robot onto the possible configurations . By doing so any and all designs with but a singular deviation which would compromise the execution of the task are immediately discarded in the earlier stages of development.

Some examples of robots which implemented a modular design and with similar environmental working conditions as our to-be-designed seeding robot include the Small Robotic Farm Vehicle , the 4-wheel steering weed detection robot of Bak and Jakobsen , the Amphibious Locomotion Robot of Li, Urbina, Zhang and Gomez and the Reconfigurable Integrated Multi-Robot Exploration System (RIMRES) . These robots have in common that they are mostly based on a singular platform, suspended by wheels for locomotion, upon which several modules (e.g. sensors, mechatronic arms, pay-loads, other deployable robots, etc.) can be placed to increase functionality.

(Semi)-Autonomous Cars

The patent on remote control systems granted to Mitsubishi Electric Crop. By the US government. This document is a thorough description of how remote control systems work, if we decide to make our vehicle remote controlled all the info we need is in here. But it is incredibly lengthy and written in a way that is not pleasant to read, so use it as a last resort.

This 2 page article is a statement from Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, about his predictions for autonomous cars in the near future. It shows his vision, which is directly linked to his companies (one of the biggest on this market) vision.

To get our car driving smoothly, we will probably utilize a remote control, meaning that it will be very closely related to a remote controlled toy car, to which this doc. is the current active patent. It shows the state of the art radio controlled toy car technology currently available.

A guide to help us control a servo motor with our computer, as a servo motor is the most likely option if we want our car to drive without outside help.

A short article on the workings of servo motors, the main two interesting reads are the control of the servo and the different types, as we will have to chose one if we opt to use servo’s to drive our car around.

Even though this site is a webshop, and not a scientific article, it shows what technology we can buy within a respectable price range and thus shows what we do not need to make ourselves. Before we start thinking about how to make a part of our robot, lets first check what this shop has got.

Sensors for prospecting/evaluating ground

Evaluating the soil the robot is on can be the defining factor whether it is worth it to plant new seeds in the ground, since an infertile soil will not create a new healthy forest. The design of the robot would benefit from such sensors, since it can utilize this information to determine where to plant the seeds.

Currently the soil can be read with a multitude of sensors. The most simple, but ineffective for our robot, sensor would be to use a simple plant and determine whether the plant shows sufficient growth. A lot of information can be obtained from the plant, like the salinity, nutrients and available soil moisture.

This is however very inefficient and not desirable for our robot. An alternative would be to use moisture sensors to determine the amount of water in the ground, since water is a critical component for a plant to grow. Further sensors include NIR reflectance sensors. These sensors can accurately measure the organic matter within the soil. This leads to an accurate picture whether the soil is fertile enough to plant seeds.

Vis-NIR sensors can also determine the amount of nitrogen and moisture in the soil. Which leads to an even more complete picture of the soil.

Humidity in the air can also help determine whether the area is suitable. An RH sensor based on a Bragg grating can determine the relative humidity accurately. The optical fiber used to determine this can also house temperature, pH, pressure and more sensors. This results in a quite complete picture of the environment above the soil and can help determine the suitability for planting the seeds.

The robot can also be used in predetermined areas. Forest fires, for example, increase the nitrogen in the soil and in most cases the amount of carbon is also increased. This results in a soil that is suitable and fertile enough to deploy our robot on.

Current deforestation and combat methods

Deforestation is clearing Earth’s forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of land. The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at current rate of deforestation. Consequences of deforestation are the loss of habitat for millions of species and climate changes. The most feasible solution to deforestation is to carefully manage forest resources by eliminating clear-cutting to make sure forest environments remain intact. The cutting that does occur should be balanced by planting young trees to replace older trees felled. The number of new tree plantations is growing each year, but their total still equals a tiny fraction of the Earth’s forested land. (Geographic, 2015)

Rehabilitation of deforestation areas can have different steps. It can include anti-erosion works, projects for slope formation and protection and reforestation. The prototype will focus on reforestation. The forest service takes into account the type of vegetation that has been burned, the success potential of natural regeneration of trees and the general conditions, and, accordingly, shall proceed, or not, to artificial reforestation of burnt areas using native species. The purpose of reforestation is the creation of new forests, the renewal of mature forests and the recovery of degraded forest ecosystems while ensuring natural regeneration or artificial intervention (seeding or planting) for production purposes and the protection of soils. The cost of reforestation in the last 8 years was enormous due to many manhours. (Christopoulou, 2011)

This website reviews many different ways for reforestation. Almost all methods are based on man work, people are physically present and are planting the seeds themselves: direct seeding. One method that is currently used that does not involve a person physically being where the seed is planted is called aerial seeding. This method plants new seeds using planes and helicopters. This method is much more efficient than being physically present on the ground but is generally outside the budget of most reforestation projects. (David, 2015)

Seeds of different species have different optimal depths for sowing, with some growing best if they are buried a few inches deep in the soil, while others, including many grasses and herbs, need exposure to light to germinate and so need to be on the surface. A rule of thumb when growing vegetables and grains is to sow the seed at a depth of one to two times the width of the seed. If seeds of one species, or a mixture of seeds of different species with different needs are randomly mixed in a larger seed ball, at least some of the seeds should be in the optimal position for germination. This optimizes reforestation. (Goosem & Tucker, 2013)

USE aspects

Society

Much influence from the prototype will be noticed by society. Deforestation is an international problem with huge and devastating consequences which includes but not limits to soil erosion, water cycle disruption and greenhouse gas emissions (Cook, 2018). This results in a loss of biodiversity and will also influence human lives. Greenhouse gas emissions for example contributes to global climate changes. Deforestation thus has great influences on the society in ways that cannot be imagined. When no actions are taken against deforestation, the problems arising are getting bigger and bigger with the years. The society is currently looking for solutions to these problems. The prototype is created to combat deforestation and therefore the consequences of deforestation. If deforestation is reduced, the society will benefit from this since the prototype makes reforestation much easier and cheaper. It is more efficient than current ways of reforestation and is therefore a better solution to decrease the consequences of deforestation.

Users

Apart from the society, which will mostly be influenced by our prototype. Users is another group to consider. Users can be divided into three groups: primarily users, secondary users and tertiarily users. Primary users are those persons who actually use the artifact; secondary users are those who will occasionally use the artifact or those who use it through an intermediary; and tertiary users are persons who will be affected by the use of the artifact or make decisions about its purchase (Abras, Maloney-Krichmar, & Preece, 2004). The primary users of our prototype will be foresters. Foresters are going to use the prototype to combat deforestation and the prototype helps them to plant more seeds in less time compared to planting them with no help of smart technology. Next to the foresters other users will be influenced by the technology as well. Secondary users are companies that are involved in the maintenance and production of the prototype and the government, more details on this can be read in the enterprise and government section. Tertiary users of the prototype are in principle all living residents of the world. The consequences of deforestation will eventually influence everybody and the prototype will decrease these consequences and thus each living individual will benefit from the prototype.

Enterprise

Enterprise would benefit from these robots since there are no major negative consequences for utilizing the robot. The robot is not labour intensive and can operate autonomous. Besides the actual affect the robot can have on reforestation and restoring devastated areas. Other solution might be more expensive, and might not be cost-effective compared to the fines they can face when not replanting the devastated areas.

It is also a major factor for the company image. It is almost free advertising, since being green is rising in popularity for the consumers. Logging companies, for example, can create a green image while still being able to perform their operations in a sustainable way. Other solution might be more expensive, and might not be cost-effective compared to the fines they can face when not replanting the devastated areas.

Companies that are not active in the logging or agriculture sector can set up these kinds of programs to boost their image.