Autonomous Ping Pong ball collector

2022 COE Engineering Design Project (TY06)

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Faculty Lab Coordinator

Truman Yang

Topic Category

Embedded Systems

Preamble

Collecting ping pong balls after playing requires a great deal of time and effort. In this project, an AI-based ping pong ball collector will be developed to minimize labor and human intervention. NVIDIA Jetson Nano Developer Kit will be utilized to run multiple neural networks in parallel for needed applications such as object recognition and obstacle avoidance.

Objective

(1) Design and implement an autonomous robot that collects ping pong balls autonomously. (2) Literature review will be conducted. (3) Implement two to three existing neural network models/machine learning techniques to Jetson Nano AI platform and uncover the best approach for the project. Further, make improvement on the best approach you determined.

Partial Specifications

(1) Evaluate object recognition and obstacle avoidance models in terms of their accuracy, efficiency, and complexity.
(2) Build a good size robot so that it can store around 20 balls.

Suggested Approach

(1) Software development in Python.
(2) Make improvements on existing design and implantation.
(3) Idea generation technique with Scamper

Group Responsibilities

(1) Programming on the Jetson Nano development Kits
(2) Design, implement, and document the software as specified above.

Student A Responsibilities

Build the ping pong ball collector.

Student B Responsibilities

Design and implement the 2-3 object recognition models.

Student C Responsibilities

Design and implement 2-3 obstacle avoidance models.

Student D Responsibilities

Evaluate the performance of different models and solutions.

Course Co-requisites

COE318: Software Systems

To ALL EDP Students

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, in the event University is not open for in-class/in-lab activities during the Winter term, your EDP topic specifications, requirements, implementations, and assessment methods will be adjusted by your FLCs at their discretion.