Robotic Programming NASA Swarmathon Competition Chu J. Jong, PhD Central New Mexico Community College ECC Conference, June 14, 2016

Outline Introduction CNM Participation The Physical Competition Submit Application Recruit Students and Student Committees Special Topic Class The Physical Competition

Introduction – Robots Robots are machines constructed by a variety of parts from three major categories: Effectors Sensors Control Systems The effectors and sensors are mechanical and electronic components. The control systems are mainly the software programs (the brain) that determine the behavior of the robots. Two types of control systems Pre-Programmed – the pre-programmed robots operate in a simple, controlled environment Autonomous – the autonomous robots are able to response in a dynamic changing environment. The Swarmies

Introduction – Swarmies The Swarmies were designed through a collaboration between the Moses Biological Computation Lab at UNM and NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Swamp Works Facility. Study the behaviors of ants foraging for food. They then translated behaviors into adaptive search algorithms which are then loaded onto iAnt robots to search for resources. The NASA Swarmathon

Participation TimeLine 05/29/2015 Received NASA Swarmathon Robotic Competition 09/02/2016 Notified the first annual competition will be held April 18-22, 2016 Application due days: 10/01/2015: Intent to Apply 10/15/2015: Full application 09/30/2015 Submit Intent to Apply 10/15/2015 Submit Full application includes six categories: I. Management Plan II. Student Organization Activities III. Introduction of Home Institution IV. How to form Competition Team(s) V. Coaching/Training methodologies, strategies, and approaches. VI. Steps how to achieve the objectives

Participation TimeLine September 2015 to December 2015 Recruit students 11/06/2015 Application was selected (total 12 physical teams). 11/24/2015 First CNM Swarmathon Team (CNM-ST) meeting 12/01/2015 Draft a Special Topic Class for Spring 2016. 12/16/2015 Second CMN-ST meeting, Class registration. 12/20/2015 CNM-ST Committee meeting for fundraising and PR. 01/19/2016 Class started 02/01/2016 Pick up three swarmies from UNM 02/19/2016 Start Saturday and Sunday team group work 03/20/2016 First all team group work 04/03/2016 Second all team group work 04/11/2016 Upload code to GitHub, final version 04/13/2016 Upload Outreach and Technical reports to GitHub

Participation TimeLine Outreach Activities 02/19/2016 CTE day setup booth demonstrate the project and Swarmies 02/26/2016 Invited Cesar Chavez Community School Laurie Ihm to CIS/CS Advisory Board meeting 03/08/2015 Students travel to Cesar Chavez Community School for a presentation 03/09/2016 Short presentation to BIT 1005 class 04/11/2016 Complete outreach report

The Special Topic Class Tasks and Task Sets Search Algorithm Map: Granularity; Static/Dynamic – location of robots and resources Coverage/Path: primary and secondary distribution Communication Network Coordination of Robots: perdition for the next delta seconds Centralize v.s. Distributed Message Types Protocols (rules and regulations) GPS/WiFi/Optical Sensor Obstacle Avoidance Walls Robots: who takes control GPS/Optical Sensor Optimization Space and speed Resource Identification: reduce duplicate retrieval

Cntl Task Start SYNC message from command center Get the draft map from Map Command from Cntl to Move Centralized processing, swarmies receive the commands from central Cntl Distributed processing, each swarmie receives the command from local Cntl. Move commands are: FORWARD, BACKWARD, TURN, and SPEED (STOP, SLOW, MODERATE, FAST, FULL) Refer to the Control Algorithm for detailed control structures Centralized processing, send to all Map. Distributed processing, send to local Map. SYNC(1) INIT Get the map (2) Send command to Move(3)(4) COMM Time Tick ? Updating complete yes Send all coordinates to Map (5) UPDT

Move Task Start SYNC message from command center Command may come from: The Cntl task The Obstacle task The Target task Need to keep track of who send the command SYNC(1) Get Ready READY Receive Command ? (2) yes Execute Command(3) EXEC Complete ? Send acknowledgement COMM yes

Send coordinates to Map(3) Obstacle Task Start START SYNC message from command center Message to Cntl, send commands to Move for identifying object(s) Send message to Cntl resume activity SYNC(1) Detecting DETE Object Found ? yes Verify object(2) VERY Valid Object ? no Resume Activity(3) RESU yes Send coordinates to Map(3) COMM

Target Task Start SYNC message from command center Message to Move for speed adjustment (STOP). Request Map update coordinates, and get current coordinates of this Message to Move for speed adjustment (RESUME) Message to Map update the new resource coordinates SYNC(1) Detecting Image (2) DETC no(3) (not a resource or a processed resource) yes Arena Grids ? no Process Image PROC New Resource ? acknowledgment from Map (4) yes Compute and report the resource coordinates(4) REPT

Acquire GPS coordinates(2) Map Task Start START SYNC message from Command Center All GPS coordinates plus any others. However start building draft map after all GPS data arrives. After complete the draft, send message to Timer for update map synchronization After completion, either broadcast the new map (centralized processing) or sync map (distribute processing) Refer to BuildMap for the map structure and how to construct map SYNC(1) Acquire GPS coordinates(2) COLL no Done ? yes Build the map(3) BUILD New coordinates ? yes Time Tick ? Cache coordinates(4) Broadcast /Sync map COMM yes Update the map(4) (5) UPDT

GPS (left) Timer(1) (right) Tasks Start START Start START SYNC(2) SYNC(2) Collect/Calculate coordinates Send Time Tick to all tasks(3) Starts internal timer PROC PROC Timer task is a centralized time tick, it reside in the command center SYNC message from Command Center To all swarmies Time Tick ? yes yes Delta millisecond expired ? Send coordinates to Map(2) COMM GPS Task Timer Task

Physical Competition First and Second Round

Physical Competition Semifinal and Final Round

Members of CNM-ST