Dodge and Navigate

This project was done with an aim to create an autonomously navigating robot using Texas Instruments Robotics System Learning Kit(Max edition). The project was done as a summer learning project conducted by Texas Instruments University(TI University) and mentored by Mark Easley.

The robot performs a basic navigational task. The task of the robot is to travel a certain distance in a straight path. However, if the robot runs into an obstacle on its path, it should perform a maneuver, moving away from the obstacle and finally creating a new path to reach the predefined destination.

The following figure shows the basic working mechanism of the robot

As seen in the figure above, the robot starts from the Start position and heads to Stop in a straight path. However, if the robot encounters an obstacle, it will travel back a short distance, change its direction, turning 90 degrees to the left, travel for a certain distance, and turn back to its original destination. The robot will then continue in that path until it reaches the stop position or encounters another obstacle. If it does encounter another obstacle in the path, it will perform the same mechanism to change its direction and location, and calculate the new distance to the destination point. This process will continue until it finally reaches its predefined destination.

To be more specific, the robot uses encoder.h library from TI robotics library in order to keep track of angular turns and distance traveled and use those data to make calculations (mostly Pythagorean theorem) needed to successfully navigate the path.

In order to determine if the robot has arrived at it'd destination, it will always keep track of how much it has travelled and keep it on check with how much was needed to travel based on the changes in its path and direction however many times.

And hence, dodge and navigate...

Watch the following two videos on youtube playlist demonstrating the working of the robot: