Vision and Scope
This purpose of this document is to remind us of the stakeholders in this project and our overall design vision. (Uses format suggested by Quick-Kill Project Management).
Problem Statement
To dominate all other teams at IGVC 2007 with a low cost, yet effective robot. To help our membership increase in knowledge and leadership ability. To increase the visibility of our club, our school, and our sponsors.
Project Background
In previous years our group concentrated on IARC, an aerial vehicle competition and RoboCup?, a robotic soccer competition. Both of these attempts met with limited success because of poor planning and/or focus. Our club sent a team to Detriot, Michigan to compete in last year's IGVC. We managed to qualify and perform fairly well in both the navigation and obstacle course challenges. We have found over the years that a good robotic competition entry requires a membership that is committed, hardware that is easily configurable, and a software base that very easy to pick up and modify. We have determined that our group currently has enough involvement and infrastructure to compete as a top tier team in IGVC 2007. Hopefully over the course of this project our team will gain membership, prestige, a good code base, and get the next generation of RAS members ready for future competitions.
Stakeholders / Needs
Team Members are the main contributors to the project. They need a fun environment to work in, funding, and equipment. These people want to learn, network with students and professors, build their resume, and most importantly dominate in robotics competitions.
NewPeople are RAS members who have little experience but are allowed to be on our team anyways because they spend way too much time in the trailer. These members will be the future leaders of RAS and need the leadership and technical skills necessary to continue our legacy. These people just want to learn and meet some like-minded folk.
RAS is our group as a whole. In order to improve, RAS needs new members, good leadership, commitment, and a way to keep previous work from being lost.
Sponsors are our beneficiaries. We need to publicize and improve their image by dominating all others in robotics competitions. Our current sponsors are the ECE department and student government. Thank you for your support!
Users / Needs
Team Members need a system with reliable hardware and software so it won’t crash during competition. The system should also be easy to modify and debug to speed the development process.
RAS needs a system that is easy to pick up and modify for future projects.
Vision of the Solution
We expect this project to result in a working robot that we can compete in IGVC 2007 with. Furthermore we expect to dominate all other teams and fulfill the needs of each of our stakeholders through said domination.
List of Features
- Chassis can move at 5mph over rough terrain
- Robot can continuously work for 4 hours before a recharge
- Electronics are protected from shorting and rain
- Drivers for all sensors
- GUI that can send commands to the robot using JAUS
- Autonomous control system for every IGVC competition
- An estimation algorithm that can resolve position with sub-meter accuracy
- A custom built simulator complete with models for every one of our sensors
- A data logging program
- Instant replay from logging data
- Instant replay for camera data
- An image processing algorithm that is able to detect lines with less than a 1% chance of a false-positive read and less than a 20% chance of a false-negative read per frame. This algorithm must also be able to process at 15 frames per second with less than a 0.3 second latency
- A kill switch that meets IGVC rules specifications
- A Nintendo Duck Hunt gun that does something impressive
