Reach Out and Touch Something

One of the ways humans learn about their world is through touch. They can determine an object's temperature, shape, roughness, etc. Nick Dadds focused his Honors project on trying to give robots the same capabilities.




The three selected object properties to be determined are material type, surface roughness and surface temperature. The data is collected using a sensor suite that is positioned using a robotic manipulator. This project spanned over two semesters in which the first semester was used to research state of the art sensor technology, specify desired object properties, acquire necessary parts and begin development of the sensors. The second semester was used to continue development of the sensors while also designing a sensor suite.

On great thing about the project was that it pulled together a lot of the technologies covered in his courses. Material type is based on the dielectric constant of the object and is determined through the use of a capacitance sensor (sounds like EE301). Surface roughness is determined through signal analysis obtained from a phonograph cartridge and stylus. Surface temperature is based on the heat energy emitted from the object which is determined through the use of an infrared temperature sensor (1/C do that in ES405). The target objects are located in the workspace using a Fixed Camera Tracking system developed in Advanced Robotics (ES452)... who says you never use all the things you learn in your courses?

Rollin' Sentry - Mids. Hixson, Savoie, Florea and Ramos

These midshipman designed a novel locomotion scheme to make a robot sentry vehicle. They designed an advanced feedback control system that shifts the robot's center of gravity to cause it to roll forward, stop and change direction on command. They were the winners of the Marsh Award - the departmental prize for the best 1/C design project.


It's never too early to start dreaming up your 1/c Design Project....

Painting with Pixels: A Computer Vision Art Show

The ES453 Introduction to Computer Vision class created art pieces for their 6-week projects. Students were challenged to manipulate or create an image using MATLAB. Some samples from 1/C Kayla Johnson & 1/C James Santelli




Their work can be viewed in the Nimitz Library Coffee Bar along with a collection of books on image processing and art!

Mars is easy, Maury 201 is tough… - by Prof. Bishop

Modern mobile robots are required to traverse increasingly challenging terrain, from the surface of an alien planet to the depths of a collapsed building. Building robots to move through these extreme environments requires a new way of thinking about mobility.

Students in ES451, Mobile Robot Design, face a rite of passage each Fall as Maury 201 is transformed into one of the most difficult navigation challenges imaginable. Robots are subjected to a tortuous obstacle course comprising bolt-studded hills, steep inclines, deep, obstacle-strewn sand, and the dreaded gap (into which at least one hapless robot tumbles every class period).


Students whose robot can make it unaided through the entire course receive the ultimate accolade from the instructors: a perfect score on the challenge and excusal from writing a lab report.

The task is not for the faint of heart, and more than one robot has met its untimely demise at the bottom of heartbreak hill or dug its own sandy grave in the pit of despair.


But for those students with determination, engineering savvy, and some serious hardware design chops, the terrain challenge offers an unparalleled sense of accomplishment and a chance at immortality, enshrined alongside those happy few whose robots have faced down this ultimate test of machine vs. terrain.

Check em out!

Courtney & Doliente


Vegel, Healey

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - perspective of Ens Enloe

As you probably have heard the USNA team took 5th place of 25 teams in this August's conpetition. The competition is stiff, including teams from engineering powerhouses like MIT, Maryland. Here is the prespective of Ens Mike Enloe Class of 2008:

Going to San Diego is always a good time. Getting paid to go to San Diego is even better. Finishing in the top 5 in a technical competition, well, that's downright sweet. Once we got to the competition site with a vehicle that
had sustained some significant damage in transport, we realized that everyone else was in the same boat as us. Walking around the site was a great time - talking with other engineers, looking at designs, figuring
out how other people tackled the same problems. Everyone was very friendly - when our vehicle flooded (AAAAAHH!), UC-Boulder lent us a heat gun to dry out the electronics. One of the teams helped us troubleshoot our sonar.

In the end though, it's all about the competition. With San Diego being a Navy town and the facility being a Navy
facility, a lot of people were rooting for us. Most other teams had post-grads working on their respective vehicles - we had two undergrads, a 2/C, TSD's Joe Bradshaw, and CAPT Nicholson. 5th place isn't bad. But the best part was watching my senior design project - a system of sensors, computers, thrusters and who knows what else - work as best
as it could. There's nothing quite like the feeling when your vehicle performs as it's supposed to. What was the
second-best part, you ask? Getting one of those huge checks. Where would you endorse it, I wonder?