Milestone 2

The Plan is to develop a modular robotic swarm system where a new robot can be added at any point during the process. The hardware and software used shall be open source and maintained at a low cost to allow for students and independent researchers to utilize our product

2.1 Project Plan

• Simulate robotic swarm using ROS 2 using a combination of RViz and Gazebo software

• Decide on the necessary electronic hardware required to run an autonomous robot that uses computer vision (central processor, motor controllers, camera, power supply,  and encoders) while also remaining relatively cheap for an average user 

• Design a modular 3D printable chassis to hold the electronics

• Create one (1) working version of the swarm robot to test the control software

• Design a recognition system for robots to be see new robots being added to the swarm

• Create three (3) additional robots to create a swarm

2.2 Concepts

Most of the concepts developed by the team can be divided into software, hardware, and swarm concepts. Regarding each section, the concepts are not so much unique and stand-alone ideas but combinations of different options for robot and system characteristics. 

The concepts for the hardware within the robot (outside of the computer) were compared via price and functionality.

Some common combinations that were brought up within the team were as follows:

2.3 Concept Selection

The third concept was chosen for the following reasons:

• Docker provides more modularity in terms of ROS versions and memory allocation. Using Docker removes the hassle and hardware requirements required to download ROS onto each individual robot. Keeping a singular Docker container also means that each downloaded instance will be running the same software (ROS version and subsequent packages / addons)

• Wi-Fi connection (from previous experiences) is more reliable than Bluetooth modules. Also, most schools / locations where these robots would be used would also most likely have Wi-Fi. Issues might arise depending on Wi-Fi security though

• Raspberry Pi 4 was chosen since most of the team members had them already, and the Pi 4 can run Ubuntu 22.04. Arduino does not have enough processing power and also cannot download ROS. Jetson Nanos are simply too expensive for the scope of the project. Raspberry Pis are also quite common for hobby roboticists and schools

• Decentralized swarm was chosen instead of centralized because the goal of this project is to provide a decentralized system

• AprilTags were chosen as the main method of robot detection since they are easy to add to a robot and are computationally less expensive to recognize

2.4 Design

2.5 Analysis

2.6 Test Plan

• Software

  • Flash Raspberry Pis with Ubuntu 22.04 and ROS2 Humble for testing purposes

  • Develop ROS2 package for robot communicating over Wi-Fi

  • Integrate ROS2 package into Docker container

  • Run Docker container on Raspberry Pis

• Hardware

  • Construct one (1) functioning robot

  • Control one (1) functioning robot over Wi-Fi from another Raspberry Pi

  • Construct the other three (3) robots

  • Control all robots over Wi-Fi using the Docker container developed previously

• Tasks

  • Make 2D shapes using robots (triangle, square) depending on how many robots are connected to the swarm