Bravobot: Robotic Tours

During admission season, Oliners give tours around campus to visiting prospective students and their families.

However, the number of tours are limited by student guide availability.

Bravobot is intended to make self-guided tours interactive.

I developed Bravobot over the course of one year with a team of 7 fellow students.

I designed Bravobot in Solidworks, and manufactured the chassis on a 3 axis wood mill using 1/4 in plywood. Metal hardware was ordered as needed from McMaster. Plastic parts were 3D printed on a Stratasys Origin.

Bravobot uses a sliding electronics tray and a hatch opening design to simplify debugging. 

It runs on a fused 12V battery and uses a Roboclaw 2X7A Motor Controller, Arduino Mega, and ODROID for robot control.

Bravobot is equipped with the following sensors:

• Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01 LIDAR (for person detection)

• Microsoft LifeCam Cinema 720p HD Webcam (for person detection)

• Ameridroid USB GPS (for outdoor state estimation)

• Phidgets Precision 3 Axis Compass/Gyroscope/Accelerometer (for state estimation)

• 313 HD Gear motor with Encoder (for odometry)

• Two Sharp 2Y0A02 IR sensors (for stair detection)

• XLMaxSonar AE Ultrasonic Rangefinders (for glass rangefinding)

Bravobot uses a three-tier software stack:

1. Low-level sensor feedback and actuation (motors and encoders, Sharp IR based elevation change detection, etc)

2. Mid-level behavior controls (Sensor fusion based leg detection, obstacle avoidance, etc)

3. High-level localization/mapping (SLAM, location-based tour, etc)