5/20/05

                                                                                                        Dima Haddad

                                                                                     

                                                                                                TAs:  William Dubel

                                                                                                        Steven Pickles

 

                                                                                      Instructors:  A. A. Arroyo

                                                                                                         E. M. Schwartz

 

 

 

University of Florida

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

EEL 5666

Intelligent Machines Design Laboratory

 

Draft Proposal

 

My proposal is to have a robot that would react accordingly to a traffic signal on a road way.  The robot will be able to stay between to solid lines (much like a lane on a roadway), avoid collision with other vehicles or objects on the road, and discern between the red, yellow, and green phase of a traffic signal and behave as a real world driver to those phases. The main sensors that I am planning to use would be sonar for proximity detection and object avoidance, CMU cam for vision and color detection, IR for the line avoidance, and bump sensors just incase of a hit the robot will be able to back up and stop.  For the object avoidance the robot will only stop in its path and not turn to avoid objects, because on a roadway swerving into another lane to avoid impact is at times more dangerous to the driver and other road users than the collision would have been.  If an object is detected the robot will stop with in a certain distance and continue to send out sonar pulses until the object is removed and then it will continue along its path.  The IR sensors will be used for the line avoidance.  There will be two or more on either side of the robot so that it stays between the two white lines.  The CMU cam will be used to discern which light (green, yellow, or red) is on so that the robot will be able to have the right reaction to the traffic light. 

 

Obviously the object avoidance will have priority over the other sensors.  For example even though the light is green if there is an obstacle in the way the robot will not move. 

 

This robot will also need an environment that is similar to a roadway so a platform will be built to accommodate it for test runs and demos. 

 

So my proposal is to build a robot that can drive on a roadway and accurately react to traffic signals.  Robot name is T.R.O.N. : Transportation Regulations Obedient Newbie.