This robot was my favourite project university, and this course in general was a major factor in my decision to mechatronics. The course was built around a design challenge: build a small rover that would navigate a maze looking for a block, grab the block, and take it to a delivery zone.
I got to do a mix of CAD, mechanism design, electrical component selection and testing, and firmware development.
The robot used its ultrasonic sensors to determine where it was in a known map based on the wall topography. Those readings were transmitted to a Matlab script that estimated the location based on the sections of the maze it had seen. As the robot travelled further, it became more confident in its position and navigated its way to the known coordinates of the target block. While navigating, it used a PID feedback control system to keep a safe distance from the walls.
Here’s the final challenge video; there was a bonus for completing the challenge in 2 minutes, which we just barely missed. But we did get the bonus for no collisions! We probably focused a bit too much on collision avoidance and correctly predicting where we were in the maze, and should have spent a bit more time optimizing the speed. But it was a fun project and a fun course.
