Raspberry Pi based object tracking robot

• Main Author: Pang, Si Yuan.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/53308
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Object tracking robot was developed with the purpose of carrying loads for the user and follow user to his destination. Various hardware components was assemble together to form this robot. Raspberry Pi, a credit card size microcomputer has been selected as the microcontroller of the robot. Similarly as a personal computer CPU, Raspberry Pi requires input and output hardware such as mouse, keyboard and monitor connected to it in order for it to operate. With Wi-Fi and other network connectivity establish between Raspberry Pi and a remote device, such input and output hardware can be omitted while still capable of functioning in its full potential. Raspberry Pi like any other microcontroller, have numbers of GPIOs pins build-in with different functionality having basic analog and digital GPIOs pin as the most interactive pin of all. Unlike other microcontroller, Raspberry Pi coding does not require to be coded from a computer and downloaded back in order to get it working as it itself is a computer. Therefore various programing software such as Python, WiringPi and etc can be installed to do coding. Overall, Raspberry Pi is a small in size computer capable to function both as a microcontroller and a computer and therefore it is convenient and suitable to be used for controlling the object tracking robot. The chassis used as the base of the robot is a rugged, 4-wheel-drive chassis from Dagu Electronics with the capability of travelling through traversing rough terrain. It requires power supply from a 7.2 sub C battery and with the usage of high power motor controller 18v15, power flow from the battery to the motors of the 4WD chassis can be controlled based on the signals from Raspberry Pi board. Lastly, control buttons from the developed GUI panel and keyboard controls were developed for remote controlling the movement motion of the robot chassis whenever the user want to.