PRE2024 3 Group6
Shared Document - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pPDWfC-ANSb7UUsSuHuB8DjOFGSYxDZMXs8z4nUY1Wk/edit?usp=sharing
| Name | Student Number |
|---|---|
| Dev Joshi | 1787101 |
| Geert Langhout | 1721704 |
| Haochen | 1533819 |
| Merlin | 1734008 |
| Michiel Sweere | 1762435 |
Problem statement
Blackboards are widely used even in the digital age. At the Technical University of Eindhoven blackboards are beloved with teachers and students alike. There are many reasons for the love for blackboards, however one downside is that cleaning the blackboards is inefficient. While the professor is cleaning the blackboard the lesson is momentarily halted and the chalk can get everywhere which can make for an unclean environment. A blackboard cleaning robot could mean that a teacher does not need to pause their lecture and could lessen the unsanitary environment of the teacher.
Objective
The objective of this project is to develop a robot that can efficiently and without much drawbacks clean the blackboard. The robot should be able to reach all the spaces on the blackboard and clean them. This is the basic requirement of the robot, furthermore several things are preferred. First of all the robot should be able to detect if parts are not necessarily erased and avoid erasing these locations. Second, the space the robot takes up should be minimized and the chalk residue should be stored, as to lessen the need for routine cleaning of the machine. Lastly the robot should clean the robot efficiently as to be as small as a distraction for students and professors as possible.
Who are the users?
The primary users of a blackboard cleaning robot include teachers, lecturers, and school staff that rely on blackboards for instruction. Additionally, people working at companies, research labs, and conference halls that use whiteboards or blackboards could also utilize these robots. Janitorial staff working at these institutions can also benefit from the robot as it reduces their workload.
What do they require?
Users need robots to be better than humans in some aspects of the task of wiping the blackboard, such as faster, cleaner, and dust-free, or have some additional intelligent functions, such as controling with phone app, saving erased content or providing intelligent assistant services. After meeting the main requirements and some minor requirements, we will try to make the robot more stable, reliable and cheap, and apply it to more different blackboards.
Goals
Core goal: Clean the blackboard quickly and effectively, leaving no dead corners.
Secondary goals:
1. Provide a function to save the blackboard content before erasing, which can be linked with the projector to recall the previously erased content.
2. Remote control through a mobile app.
3. Provide a dust removal solution to prevent dust pollution from affecting the health of users. (May be the most important secondary goal)
4. If you decide to have projection capabilities, you may be able to combine voice recognition and natural language processing functions to record some important words (using ready-made APIs, such as Google Speech-to-Text), or even connect with chat AI such as GPT or Deepseek to provide AI assistant services instantly through oral dictation when needed. (This is relatively simple in theory. After all, it is a purely procedural job and does not even require much debugging.)
Possible designs
During the week, we came up with a few designs. Below they are elaborated on.
'Crane' design, with track on top and eraser hanging down
This is a variation of the traditional design, where the vertical brush heads are replaced with a small robot suspended on the top track, which moves left and right through the track and up and down through the suspension system. The advantage is that it is smaller and lighter, but the disadvantage is that the erasing speed is necessarily very low.
Traditional design, column that moves from left to right
This is the most traditional design of a blackboard-wiping robot. It is a rectangular block with the same width as the blackboard. It moves left and right in front of the blackboard via upper and lower tracks and cleans with row-by-row blackboard brushes. The advantages of this design are stability，speed, maturity, and a large number of examples that have been put on the market. There is a lot of redundant space to add additional components such as dust removal modules. The disadvantage is that it is too large and must be installed with two rows of upper and lower tracks.
'Car wipers'
This is a design based on a car windshield wiper. Through the combination of six connecting rods, it can achieve a similar effect to a car windshield wiper and wipe the blackboard surface very quickly. The advantages are small size and extremely fast speed. The disadvantage is that there are bound to be blind spots that cannot be wiped, which need to be solved.
Freely moving little car with two cables pointed on two corners.
This is a design similar to a glass-wiping drone, which is attached to the blackboard surface by magnets. The highlight of its design is that there are two taut cables between it and the two corners of the blackboard, which can provide a certain support for its weight and help the robot accurately locate its position on the blackboard at any time, eliminating the trouble of self-positioning in similar designs.
Drone
While brainstorming, a lot of designs couldn't service multiple blackboards at the same time. Therefore, it might be cost-efficient to design a robot which is able to clean every blackboard in the room. There is another benefit to this: the dimensions of the blackboard do not matter as much, since the robot won't be attached to it. One way to realize this idea is with a drone. The drone could be 'resting' in a corner of the room, charging, until it is called to action. It then flies up, identifies the blackboard(s) that need cleaning and flies there, giving a wide berth to any obstacles in its way. Using an eraser affixed to its body, it can clean the board side to side or in swaths going up, paying close attention to its balance. Once done, it flies back to its charging station where the eraser can also be cleaned for next time.
This approach has some benefits, but also major drawbacks. Next to the benefits detailed above, drone technology has become mainstream. It could be possible to simply adapt an existing drone frame for this purpose, speeding up development. However, the main drawback would be sound. If the lecturer wants the board to be cleaned during the lecture, the drone might drown out their voice. Safety is also a big concern which would need extra attention during development.
RPCs
The following RPCs have been formulated based on the interviews conducted. Some values like the maximum cost still need to be found out.
Requirements
- Cleans 90% of total area, 100% of area used for teaching (middle, circumference minus offset)
- Innovates or improves upon previous products (Either: keep designated parts uncleaned, scan contents + summarize, etc)
- Able to withstand max-force dependent on situation
- Design is blackboard-dimension-agnostic
- Under 35 decibels during lecture time
- Can be used during lectures
- Should clean 1/34 m^2/s on average
Preferences
- Idiot-proof, simple interaction
- 15-20 dB of noise during lecture time
- 1/15 m^2/s speed
- Wet cleaning option
- Should put less dust into the air than a normal chalkboard eraser
- CO2 neutral for the university
- Automatically cleans board at end of day/lecture
- Can connect to phone/device where lecturers can control it
- <1 hour setup time
- Can be carried by 1 person (<25 kg)
- Costs less than X€ per lecture room
Constraints
- Cannot cost more than X€ per design
- Cannot interfere with normal functioning of lecture (i.e. blackboard sliding down because of weight)
- Should not block any of teachable area (defined in requirements)
Design choice based on RPCs
In this section, we will go over all of our possible designs to see how well they satisfy our RPCs.
Car wipers design
The car wipers design does not satisfy our requirement of being able to selectively clean areas of the board. It would also be difficult to make it clean well without being too big, which would in turn block part of the teachable area.
Drone design
The drone design does not satisfy our noise requirement and likely cannot be used during lectures due to safety concerns. A drone would also interfere with normal functioning of a lecture as its very loud and distracting. Apart from these issues, it would also be difficult to properly implement a drone based design, due to the precision required to make it function.
Crane design
The crane design likely satisfies our requirements and constraints, although we cannot guarantee the cleaning speed without doing testing first. We believe this design might be too slow for our requirements. The design also would have to be tweaked for different blackboard sizes.
Traditional design
The ‘traditional’ design satisfies our requirements and constraints, though we would need to carefully implement it to ensure it is not too loud. The problem with this design is that it already exists, meaning that we would need to work on something to improve upon this design. The design also would have to be tweaked for different blackboard sizes. For the traditional design the improvement we wanted to look into was selective cleaning. At the end the traditional design was considered to not be innovative enough and be too bulky to our liking.
Cable car design
The cable design does satisfy all requirements and constraints. The cable design could be quiet depending on the motors used and is ideal for selective cleaning. There are some reservations about being able to properly develop it within the time frame and the long term use of such a robot. Even so the cable design is novel and does fit well with the requirements set.
Free form design
The free form design has a wide variety of possible designs. This design does adhere to the RPC’s, but the free form design would be complex and costs would be higher than for other designs. With the limited time and money at our disposal other designs were preferred.
After all these considerations, we choose the cable car design. It fits well with our requirements and is a novel way in tackling the blackboard cleaning problem.
Planning and milestones
| Week | Activities | Milestones |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Decide on subject, start literature research and user study | |
| 2 | Carry out user study, generate RPCs based on responses | RPC list done |
| 3 | Decide on design and start working out design, decide on cleaning path algorithm | Design chosen, cleaning path algorithm chosen |
| 4 | Put together mechanical aspects of prototype, combine software with actuators | Mechanical part prototype finished, software finished |
| 5 | Combine software, mechanical, actuators into one prototype | Prototype put together |
| 6 | Test out prototype on blackboards, prepare presentation | Tests finished |
| 7 | Present, write out improvement points for robot. |
Deliverables
At the end of this project we aim to have a robot which is able to clean a blackboard automatically.
Task division
| Name | Task |
|---|---|
| Dev | Mechanical design |
| Geert | Mechanical design |
| Michiel | Electrical design |
| Merlin | |
| Haochen |
Time division
| Name | Total | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| Dev | 9h | 4h reading papers, 2h additional research (blogs, videos, ideating), 1.5h designing concepts, 1h meeting, 0.5h writing docs |
| Geert | 8h | Intro lecture + meeting after [2.5h], researching papers [3.5h], update meeting [1h], adding planning and drone explanation to wiki [1h] |
| Michiel | 5h reading and finding papers, 1h writing problem statement and objectives, 1h meeting | |
| Merlin | 10h | 4h reading papers. 1h watching videos. 1h meeting. 1h thinking of ideas. 3h discussing with fellow students/getting feedback. |
| Haochen | 8h | 5h finding and reading papers, 1h brain stroming with reaserch result, 2h discussing and summerizing. |
| Name | Total | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| Dev | 4h | 1h interview, 2h meetings and RPC formulation, 1h designing concepts |
| Geert | 4.5h | 2h interviews and working out results, 2h meetings and RPC formulation, 0.5h updating wiki |
| Michiel | 3h | 1h interviews, 2h meetings and RPC formulation |
| Merlin | 4.5h | 1h meetings, 1.5h work on cable design, 1h reading, 1h discussing with other students |
| Haochen |
| Name | Total | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| Dev | ||
| Geert | ||
| Michiel | 6h | 3h meeting, 1h research designs, 1h updating wiki, 1h interview |
| Merlin | 7h | 1h watching videos on whiteboard cleaners, 1h evaluating designs, 1h meetings, 1h editing wiki, 1h self study on cable design, 1h discussing with other students, 0.5h miscellaneuos. |
| Haochen |
Papers:
Michiel:
Prashanth Pai Manihalla, Yathin Krishna, Nagaraja Anand Naik, Naveen Kumar, Rakshith, Rakshith Billava Ramappa; Design and fabrication of an electromechanical system to clean the blackboard. AIP Conf. Proc. 20 May 2020; 2236 (1): 050006. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0007099
V. Mohanavel, C. Kailasanathan, T. Sathish, V. Kannadhasan, S. Vinoth Joe Marshal, K. Sakthivel, Modeling and fabrication of automatic blackboard dust remover, Materials Today: Proceedings, Volume 37, Part 2, 2021, Pages 527-530, ISSN 2214-7853, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.487.
Junyu Hu, Xu Han, Yourui Tao, Shizhe Feng, A magnetic crawler wall-climbing robot with capacity of high payload on the convex surface, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Volume 148, 2022,103907, ISSN 0921-8890, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2021.103907.
https://patents.google.com/patent/CN203184863U/en
Geert:
T. Kusnur and M. Likhachev, "Complete, Decomposition-Free Coverage Path Planning," 2022 IEEE 18th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), Mexico City, Mexico, 2022, pp. 1431-1437, doi: 10.1109/CASE49997.2022.9926483.
Could be used for finding the optimal cleaning path without being too computationally intensive.
TIANLEI WANG, NANLIN TAN, et al; "Global-Equivalent Sliding Mode Control Method for Bridge Crane"
Could be used for controller if we decide to go the direction of cranes. Instead of wind resistance we can use the resistance of the cleaner against the blackboard. Unsure if still applicable when using two wires to hang something from, but should be fine.
C. -Y. Lin and T. -C. Hu, "Development and Locomotion Control of a Horizontal Ledge-Climbing Robot," 2021 7th International Conference on Control, Automation and Robotics (ICCAR), Singapore, 2021, pp. 60-64, doi: 10.1109/ICCAR52225.2021.9463324.
Interesting way to do locomotion on the top of the blackboard. Depending on execution might be widely usable, also over handles like in the lecture hall in Gemini-south.
Patent automatic blackboard cleaner: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3731335A/en
Spans the entire height of the board, not very adjustable.
Y. A. Maruthi 1 & S. Ramprasad 1 & N. Lakshmana Das 2; Trace Elemental Characterization of Chalk Dust and Their Associated Health Risk Assessment
Reason besides labor saving to make the robot: might prevent some chalk from going into the air. Would need scientifically supported better method of cleaning then.
Haochen:
1.intelligent and Automatic Blackboard Cleaning Nacgube
FENGYIBAO, RESIN XIAODAN, WU SONGZUE, XU HAO, SU HAILONG, FUMIN
(School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin 300222, China)
The design of a vertical column-shaped blackboard-erasing robot was demonstrated, which uses roller felt for cleaning and a dust collection module that uses static electricity to prevent dust from flyiny around.
2.M. Umbarkar, S. Kattitharayil, and F. Rozario, "Design & Fabrication of Smart Board Cleaner," International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET), vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 1645-1650, Apr. 2019.
This is a design that divides the blackboard into four different areas, and has the function of connecting and controlling via mobile phone Bluetooth. Based on Arduino, it can be used as a reference.
3.V. A., N. Abinesh, J. Abiram, C. Abishack, and V. A. Kumar, "Design and Fabrication of Blackboard Cleaner," International Journal of Engineering Applied Sciences and Technology (IJEAST), vol. 5, no. 11, pp. 229-237, Mar. 2021.
This is a six-rod mechanism designed to imitate car wipers. Considering the long-standing successful design of car wipers, referring to this solution for improvement may make our design more eye-catching.
Merlin:
Jagtap, S., & Tuljapure, S. (n.d.). DESIGN OF BLACKBOARD DUSTER CLEANING MACHINE.
Paper shows a specific design of a blackboard duster machine that aims to prevent dust particles getting into the air. Paper can also be a useful reference when we write down our own design.
Tang, L., Tang, X., Jiang, X., & Gosselin, C. (2015). Dynamic trajectory planning study of planar two-dof redundantly actuated cable-suspended parallel robots. Mechatronics, 30, 187–197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics.2015.07.005
Paper explores different designs of two-dof (degrees of freedom) actuated cable-suspended robots. If we choose to do a cable implementation for our robot, the systems would almost be the same, except for the (electro)magnet. Our robot would be a statically determined, cable-driven, parallel robot.
German, J. J., K.W. Jablokow, & Cannon, D. J. (2002). The cable array robot: theory and experiment. 3, 2804–2810. https://doi.org/10.1109/robot.2001.933047
This paper shows some of the mathematics behind cable arrays, or actuated cable-suspended systems. They also demonstrate that this can be done well in practice, with small error margins, which would be fine for our robot.
Dev:
Review of advancements in wall climbing robot techniques: Junru Zhu, Yongqiang Zhu, Pingxia Zhang
This paper provides a detailed overview of the current advancements (as of 2024) in the field of wall climbing robots. This provides multiple options for different adhesion, locomotion and control strategies for a freely moving blackboard cleaning robot.
Building a Better Snail: Lubrication and Adhesive Locomotion: Brian Chan, N. J. Balmforth, and A. E. Hosoi
This paper proposes two designs for adhesive locomotion (relevant for vertical locomotion on a blackboard) based on the biomechanics of a snail.
Albagul, Abdulgani & Asseni, A & Khalifa, Othman. (2011). Wall climbing robot: Mechanical design and implementation.
This paper details a wall climbing design from end-to-end using a vacuum pump and suction pumps. Design can be incorporated with a duster to provide utility for the task at hand.
VertiGo - a Wall-Climbing Robot including Ground-Wall Transition: Dr Paul Beardsley
This paper provides a innovative design for using propellors to provide force along with wheels for multimodal locomotion.
BLACKBOARD CLEANING ROBOT: Akshay Rajeev, K Dinesh Raj, Ria Augustine, S.K Yukta Swamy
This paper details a side-to-side blackboard cleaning robot using Arduino as a microcontroller and DC motor for actuation. Can be incorporated with sensors for additional functionality.