Assignment 2: Braitenberg Vehicles
The goal of this project is to create a Braitenberg vehicle, experimenting
with program and robot design.
Due: September 21
Project Desciption
Create a robot that you will use for creating a Braitenberg vehicle. You
may find the CMU Tankbot or the
Dual-Differential Drive robot useful as a model. Your vehicle must have:
- A robust, sturdy and modular design. The robot base should feel solid
not flexible. We should be able to run your robot for a half hour
without any structural problems.
- Be able to drive straight, that is if the motors are run at the same
speed, the robot should travel pretty close to a traight
line. While it may seem easy, you may find that dealing with
slightly different motors, uneven friction in gear trains, and
radiation from space might conspire to make this task nontrivial.
- Two separate wheels, tracks, or something to drive the vehicle.
- A prominent and secure light sensor.
All members of the group must contribute to and understand the design.
Making a Braitenberg vehicle
- Build a version of the COWARD vehicle (Figure 2a) of Braitenberg using 2
light sensors. You also should have a front bumper on the robot, so
that it will back up upon hitting an obstacle.
- Write programs for the vehicles in Figure 2b and Figure 2c. How dow
they behave?
Grading
You will be expected to show the following:
- Driving straight: does the robot drive straight on a variety of surfaces.
- Structural design: robustness, etc.
Turn-in
For all of the exercises above, you should give your answer along with some
discussion of your impressions.
You will bring your robot to class and give a short talk on your robot
design. You will also write up a description of your robot. Your
writeup should follow the writeup
guidelines and mention all of the tradeoffs that you considered in
designing your robot.
Comments?