Technical Specification for Educational Robots

Transcription

1 Technical Specification for Educational Robots 1. Introduction The e-yantra project, sponsored by MHRD, aims to start a robotic revolution in the country through the deployment of low-cost educational robots in engineering colleges. Through the project we conduct workshops on robotics, provide robots to colleges, develop course material and new variants of these robots and help colleges integrate the open source robotic platform and content into their curriculum. The requirements for the educational robot we wish to source are detailed in this tender. We are looking for a company to supply the robots. The company should: 1. Have expertise in the lifecycle of design-development-manufacture of educational robots or automation equipment. 2. Have a strong technical team to support the Robots sourced. The contract will be for delivering about 400 robots. This project is being undertaken by Department. of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Bombay and sponsored by MHRD. 2. Motivation Project e-yantra wishes to deploy robots in UG and PG levels in courses in Computer Science, Electronics Engineering, Instrumentation Engineering, Mechanical Engineering in subjects like Microcontrollers, Embedded Systems (including RTOS, model based design), Mechatronics, Robotics, etc. In all these courses, concepts are illustrated by using robots. During the course, students may do course projects using these platforms. Students may also do final year projects and would be encouraged to solve everyday problems using these robots. This demands a certain modularity and versatility in the design. 3. Requirements We outline the requirements for the robots as Software Support Requirements, Application Support Requirements, Hardware Requirements and Other requirements Software Support Requirements S1 S2 S3 Real time debugging with JTAG support µcos/freertos support for running real time applications GUI for controlling and monitoring the robot from PC S4 Support for Integrated Development environments including AVR studio / Atmel Studio

2 3.2 Application Support Requirements In addition to the basic software support requirements, the robot should be capable of being used for some key demo projects (or their equivalents) as given below. A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 Automatic Parking Lot PWM Motion Control Robot Micromouse 2 Lane ACC with Overtaking Controlling Robot with the help of TV remote control Detail descriptions of these projects including code can be seen at Hardware Requirements We require a processing platform with the following properties: - Low-power 8-bit RISC microprocessor optimized for cost and power-sensitive applications - Support for variety of RTOSs including Open source ones such as µcos and FreeRTOS We find this may be best achieved by a platform with a processor such as ATMEGA The robot needs to be modular in its design to be able to use a variety of processors such as 8051, ARM-7 and other processors that might either be required for use in current engineering college curricula and also to future proof our investment. This should ideally be done by providing an arrangement for plugging in a variety of daughter boards hosting the main processor of the machine. It should have the capability of mounting and driving accessories powered by servo motors. The experiment titled Tennis ball collector robot in serves as an illustration.

3 Table below lists the hardware components required: H1 Microcontroller: ATMEGA 2560 with plug-in modularity for other processors as mentioned in section 3.3 above H2: Sensors: H2.1 Three white line sensors H2.2 Expansion slot for additional 4 white line sensors H2.3 Eight IR proximity sensors covering all sides of the robot H2.4 Eight directional light intensity sensors H2.5 One 20cm-80cm triangulation based IR range finder or ultrasonic sensor; Five expansion slots for additional sensors H2.6 One TSOP IR sensor (to sense TV remote) H2.8 Two position encoders (shaft encoders) H2.8 Battery voltage sensing H2.9 Battery current sensing based on the hall sensor H2.10 Add on JTAG port H3. Indicators: H x 2 Characters LCD or equivalent H3.2 Bar LED Indicator H3.3 Buzzer H3.4 Smart battery monitoring circuit with audio warning for battery discharge below critical level H4. Operational Modes: H4.1 Standalone H4.2 PC as master and robot as slave H4.3 Distributed (multi robot communication) H5. Communication: H5.1 Support for RC5 IR remote control H5.2 Onboard USB support H5.3 Wired RS232 (serial) communication

4 H5.4 Zig Bee (IEEE ) communication socket H6. Power: H6.1 External power source H6.2 12V, 2.1 Ah NiMH battery pack H6.3 Smart battery charger with battery current and voltage indication H7. Locomotion: H7.1 On-board support for driving four DC motors H7.2 Two DC geared motors (60 70 rpm) and caster wheel at front as support H7.3 Wheel Diameter: 50mm (or clearance of vehicle from ground > 5mm) H7.4 Position encoder: at least 30 pulses per revolution H7.5 Position encoder resolution: at least 5.5mm H7.6 Motor stall torque at 12V: 5.6 Kg-cm H7.7 Dedicated support for driving 3 servo motors simultaneously without altering the processor pin function H8. Miscellaneous: We need support for safety and other features as follows: H8.1 RTC with battery backup H8.2 Provision for interfacing temperature sensor on I2C bus H8.3 At least 256K SRAM on SPI port H9. Additional accessories: These give greater flexibility for robot programming H9.1 H9.2 USB JTAG JTAG expansion card with I2C temperature sensor and SPI 256kb RAM H9.3 USB to true RS232 converter (with level conversion for all the serial pins) for in-system programming H10. Dimensions: Compact size is important. H10.1 Diameter: 10cm 20 cm H10.2 Height: <10cm H10.3 Weight: <=1500 grams (with battery to accommodate accessories as above

5 3.4 Other Requirements Since the robot is meant to be a general-purpose teaching tool, the following requirements seek to verify support for academic use of the robots. O1 O2 O3 O4 The company to have a track record of designing and manufacturing robots and /or automation systems. Detailed documentation including reference manual. Provide designs of the robots and information on the schematics. Vendor must provide demo codes for basic applications for microcontroller and support for RTOS / µcos with complete documentation / manuals. The vendor should provide warranty for a period of 1 year. The vendor should also mention the AMC for periods beyond 1 year. Among technically qualified vendors, L2 will be allowed to match L1. Purchase order will be first issued to L1 supplier. If L1 supplier does not meet the quantity as expected within a given time then only order will be placed subsequently to L2 (who match L1 price) At the time of selection, the interested parties should be ready to demonstrate a prototype of the robot that they intend to supply.