Agribot XII

Agribot XII

This is a video on how the agribot was constructed:

Agribot XI

Agribot XI

A few days ago, we demoed different tools on the Agribot in a vineyard on a small farm. We tested both a fumigation and hedge trimmer tool by strapping it on to the Agribot, and then controlled it with motion sensing technology from a cell phone. Both of these tools worked successfully, although some tweaks may be necessary for the future.

Trip to the vineyard

 Agribot with fumigation tool attached:

 Agribot with hedge trimmer tool attached:

Agribot X

Agribot X

A few days ago, we could finally build a prototype of the Agribot. It's based on a wheelchair, and we removed some hardware from our previous testing car and incorporated them into our agribot prototype. 

The video below showcases the new joystick control of the Agribot.

The video below demonstrates successful GPS-guided movement in a circle.

Agribot IX

Agribot IX

The team demoed the agribot today at TI. (Juan, Guang, and Alex above)  Progress on the Android and iPhone apps is looking good as you can see from the screen shot below. The collision avoidance worked "OK" in this hallway - although the metal in the environment kept throwing off the e-compass. The GPS was a little bit off - but in the right general location.

Agribot VIII

Agribot VIII

Our Agribot team has been making good progress. In this video, Juan Wu(who has recently joined the team) is putting obstacles in front of the small scale robot as it tries to navigate to a specific GPS location.  As you can see, there are still some improvements to be made, but the bot keeps going. 

Once the team is satisfied with the performance of the small scale robot, the work will focus on the larger scale robot in an agricultural setting(row crop).  One of the issues we're hoping won't be an issue in the field is e-compass error due to metal in the environment.

Agribot VII

Agribot VII

We had two new members join the team today. Kelvin, who will be working on the server side of things - and Alejandro, who will be working on the Android version of the app.  Our  team is excited about the project and is focused on building a complete UI demonstration with maps and selectable navigation points within a few weeks. We're working on a DRV8432 boosterpack (with Masterspy) that should be capable of driving larger motors (14A peak) in parallel.

Agribot VI

Agribot VI

Guang Zhou and Seungcheul Kim(from UTD) are holding a miniature version of the agribot they've built for testing their navigation software and iOS app.  Their app enables any iOS device to control and share resources(such as GPS/maps/etc.) with the agribot via the CC3200's Wi-Fi connection.(making it a "phone drone")  They are using the boosterpack developed by the Wi-Fi IoT team with integrated motor drivers to control the car and interface with a servo mounted ultrasonic sensor.

Once we complete development of their GPS + Ultrasonic navigation software for the agribot, we plan to launch a Kickstarter project(with some other contributing students) offering an agribot controller(with application) and a hardware kit (to build a full scale agribot).  You can find our opensource navigation software project here: https://github.com/gzhou358/Agribot_v1.0