Capstone Projects: Quad Rotor

Autonomous Quadrotor Helicopter
by 1/C Fouquette, Griffith, Miller

We were inspired by videos like this (UPenn), to make our own quadrotor.

Here is the version we built for our capstone project. The quadrotor helicopter utilizes differential thrust to hover. For its control, the system utilizes an IMU, altitude sensor, and a combo of range sensors and a CMUcam (for translational motion).

Ground Vehicle Competion

The mids returned for a second year to the 18th annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition, help in June in Rochester Michigan.

ENS Mitchell represented the other teammates (Hudson, Albrecht, and Bush).

Here is the fully autonomous vehicle on a practice run, staying in the white painted lanes while avoiding obstacles.



In the end we placed 10th or 52 teams, traveling 208 feet before driving off the course. Go Navy! Next year, Mids Mehalic, Burrow, Parrot, Lowe and Albrecht are looking to return and take one of the top 5 spots.



More info at http://www.igvc.org/

Autonomous Surface Vessle Competition

Here is System's Engineering's first entry into AUVSI's (a professional society for unmanned systems) second annual autonomous surface ship cometition in Norfolk VA.

Capstone Projects: Disruptive technologies

Commercial Technologies with Disruptive Applications by 1/C Brad Cash (Class of 2010)


The overall purpose of this project is to explore what type of capabilities a domestic terrorist could achieve using commercial technologies that could prove harmful to the U.S. by supporting asymmetric disruption. For this particular project, we explored how to control a cheap off-the-shelf RC vehicle from considerable distances by using the wireless Verizon 3G network. The vehicle is equipped with a small Artigo Pico ITX kit computer on board and connected to the 3G
network via a wireless modem. The user controls the vehicle via a webpage.

King of the Mountain

One of the first challenges in ES451 Mobile Robot Design is to build a robot that can climb a steep slope. While it might just seem like we're playing with legos, teams must consider the same issues they might consider in any vehicle design: tire material, gearing, location of center of gravity and frame geometry.


To put in perspective just how steep the hills were, driving up a 45 degree incline only gets you a B! Here is an unsuccessful effort:



But with a little more work, the winning teams made it up a 55 degree incline!



Note: The robot's are not able to sense if they are sitting straight on the hill, so "nudges" are allowed, as long as they don't help you up the hill. One of the groups is working on a slef steering version as part of their midterm project.

Capstone Project: Convoy

People have long been interested in the idea of an automated convoy. Iraqi convoy operations are known to be dangerous; but even in the United States the idea of automating trucking is appealing.



In a convoy, the leader can be a manned or autonomous vehicle. The remaining vehicles are autonomous. Their job is to simply follow the vehicle in front of them.



One risk is that if the leader suddenly accelerates or brakes, there is a danger the followers will not be able to maintain their relative position. This disturbance or oscillation propagates down the "string" of vehicles, giving rise to the term "string stability".



Prof. Robertson, Feemster and ENS Henderson investigate how this problem can be alleviated using something called command shaping -- instead of flooring the accelerator or brake the leader smooths his transitions to ameliorate this issue. Here it is in practice (note the robots are covered with cardboard "hats" and reflective tags that enable our motion capture system to record the positions of the vehicles in real time).

Save the Bay!

The United States Naval Academy (USNA) uses a REMUS autonomous underwater vehicle as a sensor platform for research on water quality in local waters.

Originally developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and marketed by Hydroid Inc. of Pocasset Massachusetts, USNA’s vehicles were originally purchased for mine warfare and operated by Naval Special Clearance Team ONE in such operations as clearing of the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr of mines during OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

This REMUS enables researchers and students to map suitable habitats for oyster restoration, crab distribution and submerged aquatic vegetation. Dissolved oxygen is one of the most important water quality parameters because it is the dominant proxy for extreme eutrofication; excess nutrient loading of coastal waters. The Severn River has been identified by the State of Maryland as an impaired waterway for multiple water quality parameters. Round Bay has consistently developed a summer-long anoxic zone (dissolved oxygen concentration less than 0.2 mg/l) for the last four years.

The Photo is from the 25 August 2010 Chesapeake Bay conference, held at USNA. In the photo is a REMUS with an oxygen sensor installed. From left to right: me, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Secretary of the Navy Ray Maybus, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Superintendent VADM Miller (in the back), Andrew Muller (USNA Oceanography department).

Robo-Roaches

Students in Mobile Robot Design (Es451) had to build small mobile robots, that behave like roaches, using their Lego Mindstorm Kits. The robots were supposed to wander around the room randomly looking for "food" (Small Plastic Ball with Infrared LEDs inside). If the find food they should stop and "eat". Just like real roaches they should run away if a bright light shines on them.







Finally, they need to be able to avoid obstacles. That can be pretty tricky when the room is filled with people, chairs, and other robots. Remember, the robots can't "see" and they don't have map of the room. They can only sense obstacles a few inches in front of them. One good way to do that is to use a bump sensor. Building a nice bump sensor can be quite a mechanical design challenge. The robots are programmed in C using something called a behavior based architecture -- the same framework used in the Roomba vacum cleaner.


I leave you with a video taken by a camera strapped to the top of one of the robots. From the robot's prespective turns out the world is an ugly place filled with black shoes, tan uniformed legs and rolling chairs.

(After about 1 minute in there is some cool picture in picture editing thanks to Midn Ihlan!)

Kinetic Display?

The challenge was simple, students in Es201, a new first course in systems engineering, were given a bag of motors, micro controllers, and small plastic toys and told to do something "interesting and aesthetically pleasing".

During the semester, students with no prior programming or electronics experience learned how to program micro computers to move a motor, light an LED, read a sensor, etc. It was amazing to see the things they came up with.

You just never know what you will get. Here is "Flame Bot" which uses a small torch to melt little plastic army guys (?)

The all time crowd pleaser? A tribute to the King of Pop.

Terrain Challenge

A rite of passage in Es451 Mobile robot design is the terrain challenge.

The difficulty of designing vehicles to drive over unforgiving terrain is that there are many types of terrain to consider: steep slopes, bumpy roads, gaps or chasms, sticky surfaces, etc

Worse yet, improving a vehicle's performance in one area, can often hurt is performance in another. For example, shifting the center of gravity forward can help you on the uphill but hurt your chances of making it back down unscathed.

Students in ES451 Mobile Robot Design, as given a Lego Mindstorms kit and asked to build vehicle that can traverse the entire course: (1) a 90 degree turn on super sticky mouse pads; (2) up the bolt studded hill; (3) across the 4" chasm; (5) down the Nastiest Descent You Have Ever Seen; (6) and out the legume pit. On average only 3 of 10 teams can complete the entire challenge.

Here is one of the year's teams. They used a total of 12 wheels (and treads) to make an "active undercarriage" that prevents the vehicle from getting high centered on obstacles, a extra long body to cross the chasm and outriggers to improve stability on the downhill. (It still needs some help on the down hill! )

Sail Bot Sweep

Congratulations are in order. The Sailbot team did it again. The USNA team took 1st AND 2nd place in the North American Sailbot competition, which involved designing and building a fully autonomous sailboat. The Team consisted of Systems Engineers (advised by Prof. Bishop) and Naval Architects (advised by Prof. Miller)

For more information visit this link.
The Mids went on to represent USA at the European competition in Portugal where they fought a variety of technical and logistical challenges but still managed to enter a solid middle of the pack performance.

Swarms, and Flocks and Formations...Oh My!

Both science and science fiction have dreamed up the concept of robot swarms (aka flocks) -- massive groups of robots that perform complex cooperative tasks like ants or bees. Scary things, like this scene out of the Amazon:


Prof. Esposito is working on getting robots to do the same things. In this video the robots are supposed to gather round the object in preparation to push it. The robots have three simultaneous objectives (1) force the distance between the box and themselves to zero; (2) do not collide with other robots; (3) contact the box at the location that maximized their moment arm (their ability to exert torques on the object). A navigation function is created that incorporates all of these objectives in a provably correct fashion. This results in paths where the robots bow away from each other and try to contact the box on the far facets of at the corners of the box.


In this video, the robots cooperate to push the box across the room. They use a remarkably simple control law that requires no explicit communication between the robots.


We use the Matlab Tolbox for the iRobot Create (MTIC) to control the robots from a base station, and the Vicon Motion Capture system as an indoor GPS.

Systems Engineer Participates in SAE Formula 1 Car Design

May engineering schools participate in the Society of Automotive Engineer's annual student automotive design competition and race. This is typically the domain of Mechanical Engineering departments.



But what many people don't realize is that these days, your average car is stocked with more microcomputers that your average Best Buy. Today's cars use hundreds of feedback control systems, the heart of the systems engineering cirriculum. Everything from cruise control, to anti-lock breaks, an electronic stability control is regulated automatically using sophisticated sensors, and microchips.




Systems Engineer Midn Castenda's original Design Project was to design and implement an automatic, pneumatic shifter into the USNA Formula 1 car. The concept was to have a faster better shifter for the car that was always optimized to the engine and to relieve the driver from another chore that could be automated, and thereby let the driver concentrate on driving. The design worked well on up shifts, with Castenda getting inside the engine’s (Honda 600cc motorcycle engine) ECU and programming it to interrupt fuel for a few microseconds to relieve stress on the gear train to enable smooth up shifts.


For more on how instrumented car have become see for example NYT: 2007 Mercedes-Benz: Leave the Driving to the Microchips ...OK the article starts negatively, but just keep reading onto page 2

Autonomous Resupply Vehicle

Mids Carlton, Jewett and Scarborough (Advised by Prof. Feemster)

Systems Ball 2009

Before there was Battle-Bots, there was System's Ball, this year marked the 19th annual System's Ball robotic combat event.

And it was particularly special. For one of its founders, now retired Prof. Knowles, it was his last Systems Ball (at least in any official capacity). After a particularly eventful round of combat he gave his a humorous last lecture on the engineering principles behind some long secret weapons technology. Farewell Knowles!

Be sure to check out the 2010 Event, which takes place on the last day of class, in Rickover 103.

And the winner is...the T-shirt Canon!

The 2009 Marsh Award for the Best Capstone Design Project went to Mids Argonne, Sipel, Combs and McAdams and for the T-Shirt Cannon (advised by Prof. Bishop). It is a heavy duty remotely operated vehicle which uses compressed air to launch T-Shirts hundreds of feet. The idea was to make something that could be used at football games to get the crowd excited about football and engineering. The construction on this one is top notch.

The World's Smallest Soccer Match

For the second year in a row, USNA participated in the Robot Cup Nanogram Soccer competition. A soccer match in which the robotic players are so small the entire match has to be see througha microscope. USNA Placed Second and was featured in Popular Science online.

Mids from Electrical Engineering (advised by Prof. Firebaugh) and Systems Engineering (advised by Prof. Peipmeier) collaborated on the design and control of these scrtach-drive style robots.

"That there is one souped-up John Boat!"

As part of their Swarm Manipulation Project, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Prof. Feemster and Esposito are exploring technologies that could lead to the development of teams of autonomous tuboats. Mids Eric Regneier (USNA 2008), and Erik Smith (USNA 2007) helped outfit this standard 10 ft JohnBoat with a suite of navigation equipment. Here we are testing on College Creek.

ES451 Midterm Projects

For the Mobile Robot Design course, midshipman are allowed to define their own challenge and invent a project description. Here is a funny one from the archives... (Thanks Midn Dobichesky, USNA 2008)