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Investigating Power Management in a Robot Colony
Meeting of the Minds SymposiumMay 7, 2008
Christopher Mar and
Austin Buchan
Colony Project, Robotics Club
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Colony Project
Ongoing Robotics Club project, started in 2003
About 20 undergraduates– All years represented– Mostly Engineering and CS majors
Weekly status meeting plus work nights throughout the week
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Colony Robot
Bearing and Orientation Module (BOM)
Dragonfly Microcontroller Board
Motors
Sharp IR Rangefinders
Tri-color LED x 2
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Goals
Low-cost Robots (~$350) Homogenous, distributed architecture Develop applications that are robust to non-idealities:
– Noisy sensor data– Limited computation– Communication delays
Use the Colony as a research platform– Emergent behaviors– Path planning– Controls– Cooperation and task management– Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)– ...
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Why Recharging?
Goal is to perform long-term tasks with multiple robots
Tasks completed with minimal human intervention
– On-the-fly task allocation and management
– No humans (or monkeys) changing batteries
Fuel Cells
Obstacle
Warehouse
Charging Station
Factory
Task Model
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Autonomous Recharging
Hardware– Robot
Detect and interface with charging station
Regulate charge cycle
– Environment, Station Supply power Produce homing signals
Software– Robot
Recognize need to charge
Locate and home on charging station
– Environment, Station Manage charging bay
allocation Battery prioritizing
algorithm
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Robot Charging Hardware
Charge Board– High current circuitry– Controlled by dedicated
microprocessor– Communicates with robot
over I2C
Homing Senor
Wireless communication and BOM localization
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Charging Bay
Charging Contacts
Tricolor Orb
Wireless Module
Power/I2C Connections
BOM Segment
Homing Beacons
Bay
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Power Management Topology
…
ATXPowerSupply
Wireless Network
Bay Bay
Power
Data
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Docking with Bay – Procedure
Request charge bay, wait for accept
Locate bay, get in homing range
Home to docking bay
Dock
Wireless
BOM/Wireless
Homing Sensor
Robot Hardware
Autonomous Recharging Video
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IR Beacon Homing
Left
Center
Right
Max pulse width
n
3n
2n
Bea
con
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Charge Board monitors battery, manages charging
– Temperature and Voltage Observation
– Current Control
Necessary for fast, high current charging
Charge Board
Charging Algorithm
•Regulate current into battery to maintain constant 1C (2.6A) charge•Terminate at either
–Voltage Drop threshold–Temperature dT/dt threshold
•Trickle charge an option if robot not needed immediately
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ColoNet
● Remote control and monitoring of the Colony over the Internet
● Global Colony task queuing
● Monitoring and recording of wireless communications
● Web-based Java GUI
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Colony Members
Austin Buchan Christopher Mar
Brian Coltin Siyuan Feng Jason Knichel James Kong Eugene Marinelli Brad Neuman Gregory Tress Justin Scheiner Andrew Yeager Kevin Woo
•Jimmy Bourne•Rich Hong•Victor Marmol•Evan Mullinix•Ben Poole•John Sexton•David Schultz•Bradley Yoo
•Prof. George Kantor
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www.robotcolony.org
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