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I have had a long time interest of how computers interact with the physical world through sensors and actuators. I started to investigate this interaction in 2009 with this robotics project.

The project started in the summer of 2009 when I programmed a robot arm equiped with two sonar sensors to locate and pick up objects. The sonar was comprised of a transducer that emitted sound pulses that reflect off of objects and two microphones mounted to the sides of the of the transducer picked up the echoes. The next step was to create a mobile platform to transport the arm to approach distant objects.

The first design for the mobile platform used two motor-driven wheels, and operated by moving forward in a straight line until an object was detected by the sonar. However, this design did not give accurate results because of the inaccurate movement of the motors.

The mobile base was re-designed to implement an edge-finding robot(LINK at the top).

The most effective and accurate configuration for a mobile platform was a 30?x 30?XY table driven by two stepper motors. This configuration is effective because the stepper motors enable the robot to move to a desired position with precision.