1. Robotic Programming NASA Swarmathon Competition
Chu J. Jong, PhD
Central New Mexico Community College
ECC Conference, June 14, 2016

2. Outline Introduction CNM Participation The Physical Competition
Submit Application
Recruit Students and Student Committees
Special Topic Class
The Physical Competition

3. Introduction – Robots
Robots are machines constructed by a variety of parts from three major categories:
Effectors
Sensors
Control Systems
The effectors and sensors are mechanical and electronic components.
The control systems are mainly the software programs (the brain) that determine the behavior of the robots. Two types of control systems
Pre-Programmed – the pre-programmed robots operate in a simple, controlled environment
Autonomous – the autonomous robots are able to response in a dynamic changing environment.
The Swarmies

6. Introduction – Swarmies
The Swarmies were designed through a collaboration between the Moses Biological Computation Lab at UNM and NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Swamp Works Facility.
Study the behaviors of ants foraging for food. They then translated behaviors into adaptive search algorithms which are then loaded onto iAnt robots to search for resources.
The NASA Swarmathon

7. Participation TimeLine
05/29/2015 Received NASA Swarmathon Robotic Competition
09/02/2016 Notified the first annual competition will be held April 18-22, 2016
Application due days:
10/01/2015: Intent to Apply
10/15/2015: Full application
09/30/2015 Submit Intent to Apply
10/15/2015 Submit Full application includes six categories:
I. Management Plan
II. Student Organization Activities
III. Introduction of Home Institution
IV. How to form Competition Team(s)
V. Coaching/Training methodologies, strategies, and approaches.
VI. Steps how to achieve the objectives

8. Participation TimeLine
September 2015 to December 2015 Recruit students
11/06/2015 Application was selected (total 12 physical teams).
11/24/2015 First CNM Swarmathon Team (CNM-ST) meeting
12/01/2015 Draft a Special Topic Class for Spring 2016.
12/16/2015 Second CMN-ST meeting, Class registration.
12/20/2015 CNM-ST Committee meeting for fundraising and PR.
01/19/2016 Class started
02/01/2016 Pick up three swarmies from UNM
02/19/2016 Start Saturday and Sunday team group work
03/20/2016 First all team group work
04/03/2016 Second all team group work
04/11/2016 Upload code to GitHub, final version
04/13/2016 Upload Outreach and Technical reports to GitHub

9. Participation TimeLine
Outreach Activities
02/19/2016 CTE day setup booth demonstrate
the project and Swarmies
02/26/2016 Invited Cesar Chavez Community
School Laurie Ihm to CIS/CS
Advisory Board meeting
03/08/2015 Students travel to Cesar Chavez
Community School for a presentation
03/09/2016 Short presentation to BIT 1005 class
04/11/2016 Complete outreach report

10. The Special Topic Class
Tasks and Task Sets
Search Algorithm
Map: Granularity; Static/Dynamic – location of robots and resources
Coverage/Path: primary and secondary distribution
Communication Network
Coordination of Robots: perdition for the next delta seconds
Centralize v.s. Distributed
Message Types
Protocols (rules and regulations)
GPS/WiFi/Optical Sensor
Obstacle Avoidance
Walls
Robots: who takes control
GPS/Optical Sensor
Optimization
Space and speed
Resource Identification: reduce duplicate retrieval

11. Cntl Task Start SYNC message from command center
Get the draft map from Map
Command from Cntl to Move
Centralized processing, swarmies receive the commands from central Cntl
Distributed processing, each swarmie receives the command from local Cntl.
Move commands are: FORWARD, BACKWARD, TURN, and SPEED (STOP, SLOW, MODERATE, FAST, FULL)
Refer to the Control Algorithm for detailed control structures
Centralized processing, send to all Map. Distributed processing, send to local Map.
SYNC(1)
INIT
Get the map (2)
Send command to Move(3)(4)
COMM
Time Tick ?
Updating
complete
yes
Send all coordinates to Map (5)
UPDT

12. Move Task Start SYNC message from command center
Command may come from:
The Cntl task
The Obstacle task
The Target task
Need to keep track of who send the command
SYNC(1)
Get Ready
READY
Receive Command ? (2)
yes
Execute Command(3)
EXEC
Complete ?
Send acknowledgement
COMM
yes

13. Send coordinates to Map(3)
Obstacle Task
Start
START
SYNC message from command center
Message to Cntl, send commands to Move for identifying object(s)
Send message to Cntl resume activity
SYNC(1)
Detecting
DETE
Object Found ?
yes
Verify object(2)
VERY
Valid Object ? no
Resume Activity(3)
RESU
yes
Send coordinates to Map(3)
COMM

14. Target Task Start SYNC message from command center
Message to Move for speed adjustment (STOP). Request Map update coordinates, and get current coordinates of this
Message to Move for speed adjustment (RESUME)
Message to Map update the new resource coordinates
SYNC(1)
Detecting
Image (2)
DETC
no(3) (not a resource or a
processed resource)
yes
Arena Grids ? no
Process Image
PROC
New Resource ?
acknowledgment
from Map (4)
yes
Compute and report the resource coordinates(4)
REPT

15. Acquire GPS coordinates(2)
Map Task
Start
START
SYNC message from Command Center
All GPS coordinates plus any others. However start building draft map after all GPS data arrives.
After complete the draft, send message to Timer for update map synchronization
After completion, either broadcast the new map (centralized processing) or sync map (distribute processing)
Refer to BuildMap for the map structure and how to construct map
SYNC(1)
Acquire GPS coordinates(2)
COLL no
Done ?
yes
Build the map(3)
BUILD
New coordinates ?
yes
Time Tick ?
Cache coordinates(4)
Broadcast /Sync map
COMM
yes
Update the map(4) (5)
UPDT

16. GPS (left) Timer(1) (right) Tasks
Start
START
Start
START
SYNC(2)
SYNC(2)
Collect/Calculate coordinates
Send Time Tick to all tasks(3)
Starts internal timer
PROC
PROC
Timer task is a centralized time tick, it reside in the command center
SYNC message from Command Center
To all swarmies
Time Tick ?
yes
yes
Delta millisecond expired ?
Send coordinates to Map(2)
COMM
GPS Task
Timer Task

17. Physical Competition First and Second Round

18. Physical Competition Semifinal and Final Round

19. Members of CNM-ST