SIBA University Robotic platform for Education (SURE)

Robots have been successfully used for educational purposes for decades. The main advantage of teaching Robotics is that it is an interdisciplinary field that involves mechanics, electronics, and programming. Students can learn from all these subjects at the same time while having fun building robot

Project Title

SIBA University Robotic platform for Education (SURE)

Project Area of Specialization

Electrical/Electronic Engineering

Project Summary

Robots have been successfully used for educational purposes for decades. The main advantage of teaching Robotics is that it is an interdisciplinary field that involves mechanics, electronics, and programming. Students can learn from all these subjects at the same time while having fun building robots. In general, a robotic platform should be cheap (to allow one robot per student or work in small groups), easy to repair (since we will be working with a large number of robots), and flexible enough to allow expandability. It is also suggested that educational robots should not only allow education but also provide enough features to allow research, even in its basic versions.  

But the available robot models are not suitable. They are bulkier, difficult to wire, do not have enough space for all the desire sensors and devices, need more power, and very difficult to troubleshoot. Due to manual wiring and embedding of different sensors, most of the student’s time and efforts go useless.
To overcome all these problems, we proposed a novel design of a 3D printed 3-wheeled robot. The robot will be compact and miniature in size. In this robot, we will embed a built-in IR ground sensor, ultrasonic sensors, GPS module, Accelerometer, LDR sensor, encoders, proximity sensor, micro-USB port, and RGB camera. In this project, we will also design libraries and algorithms for the programming of this robot.

Project Objectives

The aim of this project is to provide a cost-effective human-friendly 3D compact robot with built-in sensors for Introduction to Robotic Lab and other research work in the field of mobile robotics. The developed robotic platform can be used in narrow space, having high efficiency in regards to cost as well as power consumption. The designed robot is supposed to perform several tasks which may include following a line following robot, solving the maze, avoiding obstacles, gesture control, with the help of different sensors.

Project Implementation Method

We will develop SURE (Sukkur IBA University Robotic platform for Education) using a novel technique of compact and cost-effective 3D robot. This robot will be consisting of two main parts which are software and hardware.

SOFTWARE: 

Software includes:

•  SolidWork 3D design 
• ESP/Arduino IDE

HARDWARE:

In this section we will work on:

• the PCB designing
• assembling
• debugging 
•  3D printing the chassis of the robot. 

The hardware of this robot should consider to be small enough and house all the sensors. The 3D printing of the chassis will be done in the FAB-LAB Sukkur IBA University.
In addition to this, there are six parts of assembly: main controller, voltage regulating circuit, sensors module, motor driver, USB charging circuit, and encoders. The battery is charged by using a micro USB. The main controller will be SoC based which include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module on the chip.

Benefits of the Project

As we already described that the main objective of this project is to develop a platform for university students so as they can do their lab tasks especially for the "Introduction to Robotics Labs" and for their research work. This compact robot will also help students to get in-depth knowledge of the embedded systems and robotics. Apart from this, in the future, this robot will also help to build aptitude for Engineering technology in college as well as High School students.   

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The final deliverable of this project is a hardware robot with the expected dimensions of Diameter: 70 mm. height will be more or less 50 mm as compared to the available chassis having dimensions of 152x190 mm.

Apart from this, the final deliverable of this project will be a very efficient robot that will help the students to perform all the tasks which may need any of the following:

•  IR ground sensor
•  ultrasonic sensors
•  GPS module
•  Accelerometer
•  LDR sensor
•  encoders
•  proximity sensor
•  micro-USB port
•  RGB camera
•  Bluetooth Module
•  WIFI Module
•  IoT Module
•  Microphone
• Smoke Sensor
• Color Sensor
• Temperature Sensor

Lab tasks that will be performed using this robot include:

• Designing a Basic Mobile Robot
• Obstacle Avoiding Mobile Robot
• Line Following Robot
• Maze Solving Robot
• SUMO Robot
• Wireless Operating mobile Robot
• Hand Orientation Control Robot
• GPS-Guided Robot
• Surveying Robot
• Human Following Robot using Camera
• Robot Charging by LDR
• GPS Path Following Robot

For Speed we will use stepper motors with 20 steps per revolution; about 0.13 mm resolution.

Final Deliverable of the Project

Hardware System

Core Industry

Education

Other Industries

Core Technology

Robotics

Other Technologies

Sustainable Development Goals

Quality Education

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com