Ideally, any of these would be driven by what you are interested in (that's one place where the "independent" comes from!). But, here's some ideas that I have in mind that I'd love to have an interested student (or more) working on. Notice that several of these are better suited for our half-credit independent course option; this is especially the case if the project is more of an implementation one.
I have maintained a large collection of equipment for research. Some of the pieces which are available for students to use include:
| Research equipment | |
|---|---|
| Equipment | Overview |
| GROVER | The oldest robot in the Horde. A B12 from the mid-90s, equipped with 12 sonar sensors, odometry sensors, and a nice synchro-drive system. Currently, GROVER also has a Kinect sensor, a laser range finder, and a camera on-board. |
| Tyrion | A Dr Robot X80 SVP system. He has 12 sonar, 7 active IR sensors, 2 passive IR, odometry, and a pan/tilt camera. |
| Chuck | An Evolution Robotics ER-1 system. Three active IR sensors + one or two cameras. |
| Bosch | A Sony AIBO ERS7 dog. |
| Gamera | This is a turtlebot from AutonmousAI. It has an ASUS RGB-D camera, a nice 192 core processor, and a Roomba-like base. It also is fully integrated into the ROS environment. |
| Microscribe 3d Digitizer | not usable on new systems |
| Makerbot Replicator 2x 3d printer | |
| Makerbot Replicator 5th Gen 3d printer | |
| Ultimaker 2 3d printer | |
| 3DSystems Projet 460 Printer | Full color, powder-based 3d printing! |
| Makerbot Replicator 3d Scanner | |
| XBox Kinect, used for 3d scanning of humans | |
| Project Ideas | ||
|---|---|---|
| Title | Descriptions | Notes |
| Cluster building and programming | Build a 16 node cluster out of Raspberry Pi's | We have an old cluster that is severely outdated |
| ROS integration | Write low-level nodes to completely integrate Bosch, GROVER, Chuck, and Tyrion into the ROS framework | Large pieces of this have been done for Tyrion |
| AIBO Navigation | Using the Tekkotsu environment, work on navigation systems suitable for the sensors available on Bosch. | |
| GROVER reactive control | Implement a reactive control system on GROVER, the old B12 system in the lab. In particular, implement a good technique for goal acquisition without adding large computational overhead. One suggestion: A spherical camera view of the area with a brightly colored goal. | Potential for hardware development as well as software |
| Personal Life | Microsoft and others are working on something similar to this---a recording of everything you do during the course of the day, indexed in a way to help you retrieve it as needed. | |
| Genetic algorithms | An open-ended idea: Use genetic algorithms to solve a real-world problem, possibly with the help of the cluster. | Depending on the level of complexity, this might be a better half-credit course. |
| Facial animation | Implement a virtual face for the robotic platforms of Grover and Chuck. Use emotion theory to drive the face. | |
| Kinect integration | Combine a Kinect sensor with Grover | |
| Campus map | Using a 3d Game Engine, create a rich map of the Transy campus | |
| Developing a user manual for programming Chuck, GROVER, Tyrion, Gamera, or Bosch | Definately aimed at a half-credit course | |
| OpenBSD/SGI | Set up the OpenBSD system on one of our surplus SGI O2s. | Another half-credit project |
| Tyrion Safe Navigation | Integrate autonomous obstacle avoidance into the Tyrion remote control app | |
| Origin of language | Study the role of navigation on early language origins | Needs more than one semester |
| Computer Science Museum | Develop a comprehensive listing of the equipment in the TUCS Museum collection. | 1/2 credit |