The monitoring robot concerns the development of an autonomous robot that is able that patrols in office premises or in industrial environment and that applies radio mapping technology of Partner in Innovation Here Technologies to find its way in- and outdoor, with a focus on indoor postioning and navigation. The robot has a soundcamera of Sorama on top. This “acoustic camera” perceives, locates and analyzes sound and is able to detect sound leaks ranging from 0 to 100kHz, which make this device suitable to detect leaking problems in industrial environments, like in warehouses, or assembly. The camera might detect and report abnormal situations. Depending on the source and the nature of the sound, the robot should take further action, such as e.g., logging and sending a report to a central server. The mobile robot platform is provided by MWLC that is suitable for indoor and outdoor use. This robot navigates automatically indoor using its AI-model for vision.
The challenge of the project is to integrate three components: tracker, robot and sound camera. During the first iteration of the project the student group has defined a software architecture based on mqtt broker model of exchanging data. A demo of this iteration shows that the robots patrols at the Strijp TQ premises of Fontys ICT in Eindhoven. A successor student group has taken over the results of the first group and continous to enable a robot that also can enter the elevator in the building and pass through doors.
Strijp TQ is a mix of office and factory buildings and open space consisting of gardens and paths. The mobile robot must therefore be able to find its way both indoor and outdoor, the robot should have in- and outdoor navigation, starting with indoor. The robot also drives around in environments where the amount of people differs. Sometimes they are sitting at their workplace and moves between offices and from the inside out and vice versa. The mobile robot should take these people into account. Furthermore, the platform should be able to move in corridoors and along static objects, like walls, cupboards and tables.
These projects are part of a joint investation effort (as discussed during the panel discussion at ICT in Practice 2021) of HERE Technologies, Sorama and MWLC which aims at a prototype monitoring robot.
Iterations of student projects:
- Fall 2019 - Minor Embedded Systems
- Fall 2020 - Minor Embedded Systems - Demo project at ICT in Practice 2021.
- Spring 2021 - Semester 6 - ICT & Technology
