The Adaptive Communications and Signals Processing (ACSP) Group of Cornell University is studying the control of autonomous vehicles in sensor network systems and have asked us to contribute a robot vehicle to their research. The end result is the SearchBot, a car that can both be controlled by a user or autonomously search for red balls. In Controlled Mode, a user inputs an angle to rotate and distance to move on a PC terminal and the vehicle, which wirelessly receives the request, moves accordingly. In Autonomous Mode, the robot utilizes an effective searching algorithm to locate red balls on the floor. Upon finding one, the SearchBot pushes it back to a central base and continues searching for others. This project utilizes a commercial robot chassis, a PDA for wireless communication and an optical camera for vision. The SearchBot is an exciting application of many different electrical engineering disciplines and illustrates the practicability of using microcontrollers to making autonomous robots.
Link :The searchBot
Link :The searchBot
