PRE2017 4 Groep6

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Group members

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

Project

Project Statement

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:
  1. Modularity
  2. (Semi-) Autonomous cars
  3. Sensors for prospecting/evaluating ground
  4. Drilling/plowing/seeding mechanism
  5. Current Forestation combat methods
All divided into the subcategories:
  1. Maikel
  2. David
  3. Luc
  4. Gerben
  5. 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 [1]. 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 [1]. 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 [2], the 4-wheel steering weed detection robot of Bak and Jakobsen [3], the Amphibious Locomotion Robot of Li, Urbina, Zhang and Gomez [4] and the Reconfigurable Integrated Multi-Robot Exploration System (RIMRES) [5]. 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. [6]

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. [7]

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. [8]

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. [9]

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. [10]

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. [11]

Sensors for prospecting/evaluating ground

Drilling/plowing/seeding mechanism

Current deforestation and combat methods

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)[12]. 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)[13]. 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

Government

Bibliography

  1. 1.0 1.1 Farritor, S. & Dubowsky, S.. Autonomous Robots (2001) Volume 10, pp57-65. “On Modular Design of Field Robotic Systems”. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026596403167
  2. Bawden, O., Ball, D., Kulk, J., Perez, T., & Russell, R.. Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation (2014). “A lightweight, modular robotic vehicle for the sustainable intensification of agriculture.”
  3. Bak, T., & Jakobsen, H.. Biosystems Engineering (2004), Volume 87, pp 125-136. "Agricultural robotic platform with four wheel steering for weed detection.". https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2003.10.009
  4. Li, G., Urbina, R., Zhang, H., & Gomez, J. G.. International Conference on Advanced Mechatronic Systems (ICAMechS) (2017), pp 145-150. “Concept design and simulation of a water proofing modular robot for amphibious locomotion.”. IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAMechS.2017.8316566
  5. Cordes, F., Bindel, D., Lange, C., & Kirchner, F.. Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (iSAIRAS’10) (2010), pp. 38-45. “Towards a modular reconfigurable heterogenous multi-robot exploration system.”
  6. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/eb/4b/ce/ba560b94ae5c1a/US5554980.pdf
  7. http://www.oharas.com/ET/elonmusk.pdf
  8. https://patents.google.com/patent/US4457101A/en
  9. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Dynamically-control-a-servo-or-motor-throug/
  10. https://www.jameco.com/jameco/workshop/howitworks/how-servo-motors-work.html
  11. https://www.tinytronics.nl/shop/nl
  12. Cook, M. (2018, April 19). Four consequences of Deforestation. retrieved from Sciencing: https://sciencing.com/four-consequences-deforestation-7622.html
  13. Abras, C., Maloney-Krichmar, D., & Preece, J. (2004). User-Centered Design. Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 1-10.