Project Summary
The objective of this project was to build a collaborative and distributive sensing set of rovers to magnetically map the field under the rovers. The rovers use Raspberry Pis for their path-finding algorithm,D* lite (which is the same algorithm used for UCSC Autonomous Rover). The coordinates and magnetic data are then logged in an SD card so they can be post processed.
This platform may be used for landmine detection and because of their low profile and light weight, the rovers would be less likely to detonate land mines while scanning the specified area. Another use-case is for paleomagnetic mapping for scientists and researchers.
The rovers communicate using the Zigbee protocol and inform each other of the mapped field. Each rover scans the field using specific sensors (Geiger counter, magnetometer, …), while the others contribute to the overall scanned map as well. They are able to sense the field synergically to optimize the timing of their operation.
New State Machine
Old State Machine
The state machine from the UCSC Rover project was then re-designed to accommodate the extra modules required for the multiple rovers communicating. An event handler was added to the state machine logic and the higher level communication language was changed to include the additional requests and responses.
Skills Required: C, C++, State Machines, Linux, Wireless Networks, RF Communication, Zigbee protocol,UART, Analog Circuit Design.
Mentor