Autonomous Robots Competition

• Post by: Marco Bertoni
• 28th May 2015
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Developing competitive, unique, robust, and easy to use systems delivering value to the user are put in focus on the product development agenda of BTH engineering students.

Second year students in mechanical engineering have during the spring semester been dealing with a mechatronic challenge. Their task was to design and build an autonomous multipurpose vehicle able to travel a race course while overcoming obstacles and performing specified types of tasks along the way.

The main platform for the builds were LEGO Mindstorms, providing a system of software and hardware to create flexible, programmable robots.

The students committed to the quest and spent a lot of time on the project, having fun while learning about mechatronics, design, how to manage projects, and lots more…

Final presentation of the project was Friday 22 May, starting with a traditional presentation of what’s been done and ending in a race. Nine design teams competed in the race, of which eight used the Mindstorms platform and one invited wildcard team used an Arduino based vehicle.

Producing a robust fully autonomous system capable of dealing with six different types of tasks using a limited number of sensors and actuators really put demands on the design teams. Their solutions also needed to be able to self-adapt to a race course revealed at the very start of the race. Great effort was spent on preparing to manage the given challenge; run by a single click on a start button.

All groups showed fighting spirit and great progress in their development work. At the end of an extensive battle with display of several unique solutions, thrilling moments of joy, and occasional setback disappointment, a winning team was finally announced. For the given task it was concluded that robustness was the hardest part to achieve.