Engineering Commons^™

End Effector For Robotic Strawberry Picker Final Design Review, Marshall Cuffe, Cory Frederickson, Jimmy Jeffery

Mechanical Engineering

In this report, we have outlined the background of the problem and need for a solution to an automated form of strawberry harvesting. The report includes our research findings, defines the scope and objectives for this project, and documents our complete design process. Also included is our final, completed prototype, and a description of the manufacturing, design verification and testing process. Also included is our conclusions and recommendations for further improvement on future iterations.

Visual Servoing For Multirotor Precision Landing In Varying Light Conditions, Jesse Wynn, Tim Mclain

Faculty Publications

The problem of performing a precision landing of an autonomous multirotor UAV in various lighting conditions is studied. A vision-based approach is proposed and consists of varying degree-of-freedom image-based visual servoing (VDOF-IBVS), and a specialized landing marker. The proposed approach is validated through extensive flight testing outdoors in both lighted and dark conditions, and is done using a standard off-the-shelf autopilot system.

A Comparative Study Of Feature Detection Methods For Auv Localization, Andrew Y. Kim

Master's Theses

Underwater localization is a difficult task when it comes to making the system autonomous due to the unpredictable environment. The fact that radio signals such as GPS cannot be transmitted through water makes autonomous movement and localization underwater even more challenging. One specific method that is widely used for autonomous underwater navigation applications is Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), a technique in which a map is created and updated while localizing the vehicle within the map. In SLAM, feature detection is used in landmark extraction and data association by examining each pixel and differentiating landmarks pixels from those of the …

Corridor Navigation For Monocular Vision Mobile Robots, Matthew James Ng

Master's Theses

Monocular vision robots use a single camera to process information about its environment. By analyzing this scene, the robot can determine the best navigation direction. Many modern approaches to robot hallway navigation involve using a plethora of sensors to detect certain features in the environment. This can be laser range finders, inertial measurement units, motor encoders, and cameras.

By combining all these sensors, there is unused data which could be useful for navigation. To draw back and develop a baseline approach, this thesis explores the reliability and capability of solely using a camera for navigation. The basic navigation structure begins …

Trust Based Time-Varying Network Topology For Distributed Co-Operative Control Of Multi-Class Multi-Agent Systems, Ankur Vipulkumar Dalal

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses

With increased levels of autonomy in most of the engineering fields and booms in areas such as swarms, platoons and Internet of Things (IoT), communication and information flow has become a highly researched field. With advancements in autonomous vehicles (AVs) and drones in armed warfare, more and more focus is being laid on intercommunication between these vehicles and its surroundings as well as intra-communication among the fleets/swarms itself. It is easier to deal with individual agents whereas it is quite challenging to deal with multi-agent systems especially with highly dynamic agents. In this thesis, we propose a general protocol for …

Sleep Apnea Monitoring System, Samuel Brown, Quillen Blalock, Doug Aaser, Thomas Turner, Shavoshia Leslie, Matthew Carpenter

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Homography-Based State Estimation For Autonomous Exploration In Unknown Environments, Andres S. Chavez Armijos

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis presents the development of vision-based state estimation algorithms to enable a quadcopter UAV to navigate and explore a previously unknown GPS denied environment. These state estimation algorithms are based on tracked Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF) points and the homography relationship that relates the camera motion to the locations of tracked planar feature points in the image plane. An extended Kalman filter implementation is developed to perform sensor fusion using measurements from an onboard inertial measurement unit (accelerometers and rate gyros) with vision-based measurements derived from the homography relationship. Therefore, the measurement update in the filter requires the processing …

Autonomous Uav Battery Swapping, Reed Jacobsen, Nikolai Ruhe, Nathan Dornback

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

One of the main hindrances of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology are power constraints. One way to alleviate some power constraints would be for two UAVs to exchange batteries while both are in flight. Autonomous mid-air battery swapping will expand the scope of UAV technology by allowing for indefinite flight times and longer missions. A single board computer will control each UAV’s flight software to respond to inputs to align with each other mid-flight. When the two UAVs have joined, mechanical components will exchange a depleted battery on the worker UAV for a freshly charged battery that belongs to the …