Orbiter

Design and construct a self-contained land robot that can orbit a passive land agent that moves on a straight path in an arbitrary direction with a nearly constant unknown velocity. The minimum speed of the agent is 10cm/s. The maximum distance between the robot and the agent should not exceed 40 cm while orbiting. Initially, the positions of the agent and the robot will be arbitrary but the robot should be able to catch up with the agent from an initial distance of up to 100 cm. The robot should complete at least 2 tours around the agent within 30 seconds including the detection and catch-up time.

You should be able to demonstrate the performance of the system in variable environments for multiple scenarios with arbitrary initial positions and orientations of the agent and robot.

Home Security System

This project aims to design and implement an autonomous smart home security system that monitors a residence (house/apartment) in order to detect possible intrusions. The system should: 

  • Recognize residents (including pets, if necessary) and be able to introduce new residents to its database,
  • Distinguish between residents, visitors, and intruders,
  • Detect anomalous activities, entries/entry attempts of intruders and send a warning message to residents and/or service providers,
  • Allow users to remotely control sensor field-of-view(s), 
  • Keep a log of entries and exits to the residence in a database and provide residents with a user-friendly access to this database,
  • Respect the privacy of the residents in any of the monitoring and logging activities.

Intelligent Agriculture at Home

Many individuals are interested in growing edible plants at home, which may be cumbersome in general. An automatic system could help people to this end. Such a system should sense the current condition of the plant automatically by using sensors (e.g. moisture, temperature, light, etc.), and then take necessary actions at appropriate times. 

In this project, you are asked to design an intelligent home agriculture system for an edible plant of your choice. The system is expected to:  

  • Continuously monitor plant development (such as ripeness) and health (such as plant diseases and insect infestation),
  • Water the plant as necessary,
  • Add necessary nutrition/fertilizers, 
  • Take appropriate countermeasures and provide remedies for pests, fungi, and diseases,
  • Provide appropriate lighting, heating, and ventilation.

“Cısss!”

Design and construct a device to help keep pets away from designated locations.

Many people refrain from having pets in their house due to difficulties in preventing the pet from behaving undesirably. We don’t want our pet to flee from any open door to play with the “bad kids” on the street, to climb the kitchen countertop to taste the food before we do, to sleep in our babies’ cradle, to get too familiar with other pets like hamsters or birds in a cage, a parrot on a roost or fish in the aquarium.

Your company has decided to enter the market with a new and innovative device to control a pet’s behavior around the house. According to preliminary design decisions already made, the device will consist of two types of units:

  • a single mobile (wearable) smart “MASTER” unit, and
  • several (as many as necessary) identical “TAGS”.

The MASTER unit is a mobile, self contained, smart device, wearable(*) by the pet (probably on the collar), to help detect the pet’s position relative to designated locations, and to “WARN” the pet about violations. “WARN”ing the pet should be done by proper (mechanical, electrical, acoustic, etc.) means, selected to disturb the pet, but not to hurt or give bodily harm.

“TAGS” are to be placed at the “forbidden” locations so that they can be detected by the main unit. Since several of them are to be used, they should be of low cost, and small in size.

Your task in this project is to design and construct such a system for a pet or pets of your choice, and demonstrate its performance for at least one point (zone) and one passage (door) of width not less than 90 cm. Means or a test jig to test the performance must also be provided.

(*)Wearable devices are “smart electronic devices (electronic devices with micro-controllers) that are worn close to and/or on the surface of the skin, where they detect, analyze, and transmit information concerning e.g. body signals such as vital signs, and/or ambient data, and which allow in some cases immediate biofeedback to the wearer.” (Wikipedia)

Wearable devices should be non-bulky (i.e., small in size and light in weight) to be comfortable to wear, and battery-operated with little power consumption. They may detect risks and immediately warn the wearer, or keep a log of accumulated risk for future assessment of risks, or both.

Smart Shopping Cart

A self-contained smart shopping cart would take some of the burdens off the shoulders of the shopper.

One of the most obvious burdens in market shopping is to push and maneuver the cart between the aisles. Therefore, a self-powered cart that follows the shopper autonomously is required.

Another burden in market shopping is waiting in the cashier’s line, emptying the whole cart in front of the cashier and reloading it to make the payment. Ability to recognize and register an item while it is being placed in the cart and to calculate the total amount to be paid at the end is required. This feature should be mostly automatic; it can resort to semi-automatic solutions only for limited cases when automation fails. 

Your task is to design and construct a scaled-down model of such a cart as a proof of concept. The model should:

  • Have a 15-litre container,
  • Be capable of handling,
    • at least 10 different kinds of goods,
    • a total weight up to 2 kilograms,
  • Allow for item removal,
  • Present precautions against illegal use of the system,
  • Follow the shopper autonomously,
  • Provide collision avoidance,
  • Be completely self-contained except for a possible interaction with the shopper.

The final product must be demonstrated for a store plan consisting of at least 2 parallel shelves, reachable from both sides.