Team 1617: Autonomous Firefighting Robot Katherine Drogalis, Electrical Engineering Zachariah Sutton, Electrical Engineering Chutian Zhang, Engineering Physics Advisor: Professor John Ayers

Overview Project Overview & Contest Background Mechanical Design & Layout (Overview from Fall Semester) Navigation & Routing Flame Search & Extinguish o Mechanical o Software Sound Activated Start Budget

Autonomous Firefighting Robot Trinity International Robot Contest (April 2-3, 2016) User initiated, autonomous start & navigation Search for and extinguish burning candle Design can be extended to real life situations

Trinity International Robot Contest 8x8’ plywood maze Arbitrary start position Competing in 2 of 3 levels Timed trials Unique robot 31x31x27 cm robot Level 1 ArenaLevel 2 Arena

Test Arena

Mechanical Parts / Structure (Fall 2015) Navigation o 360 o Laser Scanner Extinguishing o 16*4 Thermal Array Sensor o Compressed CO 2 Computing o Raspberry Pi - navigation o Arduino – motor control & flame extinguish Movement o DC motors with encoders Power o 16 V, 5500 mA/h rechargeable battery

Considered: SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) o Requires a lot of processing (slow) Speed / simplicity is important Now: Monte Carlo Localization with Grid Map o Start with uniformly distributed “samples” or guesses of robot’s pose o Apply motion to all samples o Compare laser scan observation to sample observations o Weight samples based on similarity to laser observation grid map o Resample from newly weighted sample distribution Routing/Navigation

Global MapMCL Simulation Source:

Runs on Raspberry Pi Performs scheduling/parameter setting for various “nodes” or scripts Mostly prewritten/open source o Saves on programming time Downloaded packages to be used together for navigation o Localization o Laser scan processing o Global path-planning (get to goals) o Local path-planning (obstacle avoidance) o Calculate velocity commands o Communicate with Arduino ROS (Robot Operating System)

ROS Block Diagram

System Block Diagram

Flame Searching (Mechanical) Processing done on Arduino RoBoard 16X4 Thermal Array Sensor o Produces a map of heat values o Able to pick up the difference 1.5m away o Field of Vision: 60º horizontal, 16.4º vertical Scan 360 o o If candle is detected, pivot to center on flame o If centered, move forward to candle o If no flame, Raspberry Pi takes over Total Field of View

Flame Extinguishing (Mechanical) Compressed gas (CO 2 ) o Best option for large-scale fire - bonus points! o Portable Bicycle Tire CO 2 Inflator Pump o Replaceable 16g CO 2 cartridge o Extended nozzle at the front aligned with the sensors Release o Servomotor initializes to push the button of the tire inflator During the whole process o Functions on the Pi and the thermal camera are always on o Motion command from Pi is pulsed or ignored by the Arduino

“Candle Scan” o Creates array of all pixels over 60 o C & locations o Sets “Candle Detect” flag – initializes LED “Flame Align” o Prompted by “Candle Detect” flag o Determines which pixel is the hottest o Calculates how far the robot needs to pivot in order to center on that pixel “Extinguish” o Initializes the servomotor when CandleDetect == 1, MaxValue > 280 o, and -1 < ColumnTurn < 1 Flame Extinguishing (Software)

“Start Board” Contest requires: o Sound activated start (microphone) o Kill power plug o Flame detect LED Microphone Circuit o Buzzer frequency: 3.8 kHz ±16% o Tried: Bandpass filter – bandwidth too large o Decided: Frequency to voltage converter circuit

Questions?