AUTONOMOUS LITTERCOLLECTING ROBOT FACULTY OF ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY FACULTY

AUTONOMOUS LITTER-COLLECTING ROBOT FACULTY OF ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY FACULTY OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE HAKO GERMANY & NETHERLANDS DEMCON ADVANCED MECHATRONICS SITCHTING NEDERLAND SCHOON RAI VERENIGING LEO ROBOTICS

BACKGROUND § Started as a theme for an education project: § Third year students Industrial Design Engineering § 5 groups of 12 -15 students § Stichting Nederland Schoon stepped in: § Litter is a serious problem § “Can we build that? ”

PHILOSOPHY Solve contradiction § Citizens and visitors demand cleaner environment for the same money Social responsibility § Partial solution for urban litter § Relieve cleaner’s work Image building § Innovative product provides media attention

FINAL AIM

COOPERATION § Multi-faculty cooperation: § Control Engineering (EWI) § Design Engineering (CTW) § Partners found in: § Hako (market leader in cleaning equipment) § Demcon advanced mechatronics § RAI vereniging § LEO (Labora et Obedira; previously Caiser)

CURRENT STATUS

Robot architecture Autonomous object detection: • Scanning Laser Range Finder Identification: • Camera • Computer vision software. (Semi-)Autonomous navigation: • Robot follows operator • Robot is monitored by an operator • Social aspects are included: no one needs to get fired Manoeuvrable because of Mecanum wheels New collection mechanism: • Plastic fingers • No sand water is collected • No Suction → no (fine) dust is created & quiet • No (water) filtering is needed → usable in winter

Robot in the media

ROBOT SPECIFICATIONS BASED ON ROBUST AUTONOMY

RA RELATED SPECIFICATIONS DESCRIBED BY COSTUMER The robot must not turn over or break during normal operation The daily maintenance should be short and low cost The machine should be all-weather proof The machine should be idiot proof The cleaning system should not get blocked

RA SPECIFICATION BASED ON COSTUMER WISHES The robot must be reliable Maintenance cost must be low The robot should be easy to use and maintain Daily maintenance should take less than 30 minutes Emptying the litter storage should take less than 1 minute Use and maintenance should not require precise actions

STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT AT WHICH THE RA SPECIFICATIONS BECAME CLEAR

ROBUST AUTONOMY FROM DESIGN

TEAM COMPOSITION Menno Bouma – Electical Engineering-bsc Rogier Kauw-A-Tjoe – Industrial Design-msc Alexandros Frantzis-Gounaris – Mech. -msc Koen van der Heiden – Computer Science-msc Ruben Nahuis – Mechanical Engineering-msc Hans de Boer – Mechatronics-msc Douwe Dresscher – Electrical Engineering-msc

APPROACH § Organised as student project: § Bachelor assignments § Master assignments § Individual assignments § Multidisciplinary cooperation! § Many interfaces and interactions

DEVELOPING A LITTER-COLLECTING ROBOT Mechanical Engineering Mechatronic Engineering Electrical Engineering Successful Systems Industrial Design Engineering Software Engineering System Design & Engineering

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS Meetings: Weekly meeting Weelky reports Technical revieuws (One for every milestone) Project meetings (With stageholders, Monthly)

MILESTONES March 2009 May 2009 Now Startup • Requirements • System Architecture Functional model • First hardware system • To show what it does Proof of Principle • Functional system • To show it works Full Proto • To be developed • Robustness and reliability

DELIVERIES May 2009: "Robot" that shows the behavior of the final product to the public Oct 2009: Robot that should show all functionality of the final system, it has to prove that the concept is feasible At the technical reviews: Every student presents his/her plans for the milestone.

DEVELOPING A LITTER-COLLECTING ROBOT § Risk assesment & risk handling § Planning & management § Documentation (often in the form of diagrams)

DESIGN TOOLS

WORKING SPACE ORGANISATION All parts of the robot have been designed simultaneously As a result the robot was mostly not available for testing during development Most of the testing was done using simulations Only during integration the complete system was tested

INCORPORATING CHANGES IN THE REQUIREMENTS DURING DEVELOPMENT 1: Someone sees the need for a change in the requirements 2: Motivate the proposed change to the rest of the team 3: Feedback to stageholders in project meeting for approval

FEATURES AND SOLUTIONS THAT INCREASE ROBUST AUTONOMY Detection of abnormal stressing The robot behavior can be overrided manually Should contact the operator in case of an error Basic electronical safety must be assured The obstacle detection function consists of three layers: The first is based on path planning The second checks for obstacles in the direct area of the robot The third is a safety layer: If the robot rides into anything the motors stop immediately.

BARIERS TO ACHIEVE THE REQUIRED LEVEL OF ROBUST AUTONOMY "All weather proof" very difficult to realize in sensor part of the system Sensors are not as reliable as was expected