Goals and Objectives

In this project, we build a mobile robot system that patrols in a predefined environment to detect and follow an intrduer. Primary objectives of this project are listed below.
  • Learn about the architecture of an ATMEL microcontroller and its I/O interface.
  • Get familiar with the development toolchain and hardware platform.
  • Build a simple mobile robot system.
We will describe the setup of the mobile system in Section Setup. In particular, we mention development toolchain, UART, etc. We also provide in detail toolchain setup instructions for (Debian based) Linux environments. We list necessary programs and describe how to install them. We also provide a makefile that can be adapted to suit varying needs of an user. Finally, we provide a simple test program (i.e., LED blinking) to ensure that the development toolchain is installed properly.

In Section Hardware we list and describe hardware components of the mobile platform. We also give test code to ensure that we understand how to enable timers and interrupts. We show how to communicate with a hyperterminal (e.g., RealTerm, CuteCom) using UART. This implementation of UART also forms the basis of the implementation of UART that we use to communicate with the Roomba Discovery robot. We also show how to work with PIR, Sonar, Roomba Discovery and Virtual Walls by providing simple test codes.

The patrolling behaviour of our mobile robot is described in detail in Section Sentry. We also describe the operating environment of the mobile robot in that section. We explain in detail the kind of information collected by the sentry, how it interprets those sensory inputs, and how it decides its actions.

The performance of our mobile robot system in detecting and following an intruder in the predefined environment will be described in Section Discussion. We will also briefly mention some limitations of our approach.

In Section Future Work, we list a number of possible approaches that may solve some of the limitations of our approach.

Sentry Robot

Agent Type Percepts Actions Goals Environment
Sentry: intruder detection and following PIR -- passive infrared, Sonar, Virtual wall Drive Detect and follow an intruder An empty rectangular area


This table is usually called a PAGE description for an intelligent system. We defer detailed discussion about Percepts, Actions, Goals and Environment of the sentry robot in Section Sentry.