Designing Obstacle Detection Algorithms | Student Competition: Mobile Robotics Training, Part 4

Learn how to design obstacle detection and avoidance algorithms for a mobile robot.

You will start with understanding ultrasonic or optical ranger finders work in detecting the distance to an obstacle in front of them, and some characteristics specific to the sensor, like sensor operating range and resolution, that you might be using. You will then learn to design On-Off and PID-based algorithms in Simulink to perform obstacle detection tasks such as robot coming to a full halt at a specified distance from the obstacle.

In this video, you will use the Simulink Map Generator App to create an obstacle location map from an actual image of the game field or course. You will learn how to use the generated map for simulating and testing your algorithms within Simulink.

A VEX EDR robot is used to demonstrate the performance of the obstable detection algorithms on the microcontroller and to observe the difference in the results between the On-Off and PID algorithms.

Additional Resources:

• Obstacle Detection using Ultrasonic Sensor with the VEX Microcontroller
• Mobile Robotics Training Toolbox
• Understanding Control Systems
• Simulink Coder Support for VEX Microcontroller
• Obstacle Avoidance Using TurtleBot