Design of a low-cost swarm robotic system for flocking


Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Middle East Technical University, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Turkey

Approval Date: 2019

Thesis Language: English

Student: ÇAĞRI ATA DEMİR

Co-Supervisor: Kutluk Bilge Arıkan

Supervisor: Ali Emre Turgut

Abstract:

Swarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of large numbers of robots. The main motivation of this thesis is to study a robotic system designed to do flocking both indoors and outdoors. A walking robot is designed parallel to this purpose. In the first part of thesis, a leg is designed to minimize the displacement of center of mass of robot in vertical axis to eliminate mechanical noise. Mechanism analysis and Matlab optimization tools are utilized in this process. Then, electronic components of robot are determined and mechanical design of robot, which is applicable to leg designed in previous stage and selected electronics, is done as first prototype in Solidworks platform. The controller of robot is written in Arduino platform. Parts are produced by using Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer and assembled afterwards. Assembled robot is run to test its obstacle avoidance and light detection skills.In the second part of thesis, the first prototype is improved and a smaller robot is designed mainly to decrease its production time. An encoder embedded motor is utilized in second prototype to implement different gaits. In second prototype, robot reaches to a size and mobility for flocking.