10th IEEE UAE STUDENT DAY
2014-2015
Common Design Project (CDP) Competition
Mobile Robot Assistant
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
For the past decades robotic systems have been successfully used in various
environments to perform specific tasks with various degrees of intelligence.
Robots popularity stems from their ability to perform tasks define as the
“DDD” (dull, dangerous and dirty), that humans don’t like to perform; can’t
perform it as well as robots; or don’t have the time to perform them.
Nowadays, commercial robotics solutions are focusing less on industrial
robotics, and more on personal robotics. Personal service robots are special
type of robots designed with mobility and manipulation capabilities allowing
them to operate in wide range of environments providing a service to humans.
This kind of service can range from health care services, educational services,
domestic chore services, entertainment services, rehabilitation services etc.
These personal robots have to perform various tasks and duties in challenging
indoor environments that are usually of an unstructured and unpredictable
nature. The presence of humans in these environments adds more challenge to
these robots due to safety and comfort concerns (robots have to stay within a
safe proximity of humans; interact with humans in natural yet safe manner;
and perform the service in an efficient manner).
Technologies needed to realize such systems already exist, but the challenge
lies in: the complexity of integrating robotic systems and components; the
ability to develop a modular system that can perform well in various
environments; and how easy they can be adjusted to perform different various
tasks and skills.
1.2 Readability
This document is submitted as part IEEE CDP project specification. The
information presented here is only relevant within the context of the
competition. Please be aware that further modifications to this document
might occur in the future so insure that you have the most updated version of
this document.
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2 Competition Project
Teams from different IEEE Institutions (maximum 5 students per team) will
compete to design, construct and develop a mobile robot system with different
simple human assistance capabilities. Each designed robot should consist of
two independent components that communicate together to form the mobile
robotic assistance system. The two components are:

A mobile platform which consists of a robot base on wheels that can be
controlled wirelessly or through a wire, and has some sensing
capabilities to avoid obstacles (bumpers, sonar, laser range finders,
RGBD sensors …)

An interface module (Phone, or a Pad) that contains the smart
assistance application.
The phone/pad will be mounted on a pole attached to the mobile platform to
give an ergonomic appealing shape. Performance of each team will be
evaluated based on the criteria explain in the sections below.
The aim of this project is to motivate students from different disciplines to
collaborate together in order to develop a complex engineering system.
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3 Platform Hardware Specifications
The system to be developed should adhere to a certain set of specifications.
The overall cost of the platform should not exceed AED 3000.
3.1 Mobile Base
The mobile base consists of a wheeled that can be controlled via software.
Participating teams should use the standardized platform “Kobuki” shown in
Figure 1 with the specifications listed in the sections below.
Figure 1 Kobuki mobile base
3.1.1
Size
The wheeled base size:
3.1.2

Width: 354mm

Length: 354mm
Speed
The maximum speed for this mobile base is 0.65m/sec
3.1.3
Power
The mobile base is powered by a 2200mAh Li-Ion battery.
3.1.4
Sensors
The Kobuki mobile base has the following sensors built in:

Encoders: 25700 counts/second or 11.5 ticks/mm
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3.2

3x forward bump sensor

3x cliff sensors

2x wheel drop sensors
Communication
The wheeled base should be controlled wirelessly, or through a wired
connection by the interface module. This can be achieved by using an onboard
microcontroller, or a small P.C board that communicates with the interface
module via Xbee, standard 802.11 wireless standards, or even a cable
connection (RS232, I2C, Ethernet …).
3.3 Additional onboard sensors
Teams are recommended to use other onboard sensors, but this might not be
feasible due to cost or communication bandwidth limitations. Professional
engineering judgment should be made by each team to assess their
competition strategy, and decide on the hardware. Addition proposed sensors
that teams can consider:

Sonars

Infra-red proximity sensors

RGBD cameras (Kinect or Xtion Pro)

Laser range finders
3.4 Interface Module
The interface module acts as the brain of the system where all the processing
and the decision making are being made. The interface module is an
independent module that runs the software needed to operate the mobile
wheeled base according to the competition scenario.
3.4.1
Hardware
No restriction on the type of hardware to be used for the interface module, but
we recommend the usage of Android/Ubuntu/IOS tablets or phones because
of their small size, long battery life, and software capabilities. Teams are in
general free to decide on what platform to adapt in their entry after assessing
the available options and their skill set.
3.4.2
Size
The size of the interface should not exceed 35cmx30cm. The interface module
should be elevated to a height around 160cm +/- 10cm above the ground.
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3.4.3
GUI
A GUI depicting a human face should be displayed on the interface device to
demonstrate a high level of intelligence to the person interacting with the
robot.
3.4.4
Communication
The interface module should be capable of communicating with the mobile
base and sending motion commands.
3.4.5
Software
There are no specific requirements for the software or the development
environment to be used in developing the robot’s intelligence. The software,
however, should be capable of executing the tasks required for this
competition accurately.
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4 Evaluation Criteria
4.1 Arena
A specific arena for this competition will be constructed for this competition.
The estimated arena size will not exceed 4mx5m. Walls will be constructed in
this arena to simulate walls inside buildings. More information about the
arena will be available closer to the competition date.
4.2 Rules and Regulations

Safety: An emergency stop button should be present on the mobile
robot that switches off the power completely to the system in case of an
emergency

Autonomy: the robot is completely autonomous, no operator is
allowed to control the robot at any stage without an explicit permission
from one of the judges

A software watchdog should be installed on the wheelbase to stop it if
no commands are sent due to a communication loss
4.3 Scoring Points
The scoring will be distributed among two scoring sections. In the first scoring
section “Functional Design”, competing teams have to demonstrate their
mobile service robots, and the functionality of the basic components. This
section’s score is 30% of the total score awarded to the teams.
In the second scoring section, the competing teams will have to perform a set
of tasks in order to accumulate points and ultimately score the most. This
section’s score is 70% of the total score awarded to the teams.
4.3.1
Engineering Design
The first scoring criteria will be based on the following criteria

Functional Design:
o
Functional mobile base: teams will have to demonstrate that
this base can be controlled, and responds to velocity/position
commands.

Move forward at speed 0.1m/sec

Move backward at speed -0.1m/sec

Rotate in place at speed 0.1 rad/sec

Rotate in place at speed -0.1 rad/sec
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
Move forward and backwards 1m
These commands should be issued via a laptop, phone or
joystick connected directly to the mobile base. Judges will
verify that this base works as expected during evaluation. (4
points)
o
Functional Interface module: the module should display a
humanoid face in the main GUI that displays simple
animations. The interface should also be capable of sending the
velocity/position commands described in the previous section
to the underlying mobile robot base. Judges will check this
unit and decide on the appropriate score. (4 points)
o
Safety: the safety of the mobile robot will be evaluated based
on the following criteria (2 points):

An emergency button should be clearly visible on the
mobile base, and this button should be capable of
switching the power off in case of an emergency.

No sharp metal edges should be present anywhere on
the body of the robot

No nails or other sharp items should protrude outside
the robot

The robot should not vibrate during motion and should
be well balanced when flat.

Poser: each team has to present a poster during the competition
explaining their mobile platform, and the technical aspects of their
implementation.

Questions & Answers: Judges will ask each participating team a set of
questions related to their entry to assess their technical competence,
and their understanding of the robotics platform they developed.
Teams have to demonstrate their understanding of the robotic
platform they are presenting, and be prepared to answer any questions
asked by the judges.
Design Aspect
Score / 30
Poster
10
Question & Answers (Technical
Competence)
10
Functional Design
10
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4.3.2
Competition Scenario
Inside the area teams will have to perform the following tasks:

Follow a human in a straight line: in this task, the human/judge will be
wearing a T-Shirt with a fiducial marker, as shown in Figure 2, which
the robot will have to identify via image processing. The judge will
trigger the start of this task by asking the team to start their following
task. The team is then allowed to press either hardware or a software
switch to initiate the task; the rest of the task should be completely
autonomous. The task will start with the human 2 meters away from
the robot, the human will then start moving, and the robot should
follow the human but stay 2 meters away from the human (for safety
reasons). The human will walk a total of 3 meters, and the total score
for this task will be based on the distance, and speed the robot
followed the human correctly. The dashed lines found in Figure 3 will
be available in the testing arena, but they are for the judge’s usage only,
no line following is allowed at any stage during the competition.
Scorning criteria :
o
The robot should follow the human for 3 meters
o
If the robot doesn’t finish the following task in 30 seconds, then
the teams loses half the points allocated to this task
o
The fastest three teams will get 10/10, 9/10 and 8/10 points
respectively, all other teams will only get 5/10
Figure 2Fiducial marker to be used for tracking
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Figure 3 Following a human in straight line

Follow a human around a corner: this task is similar to the one above,
but the human will pass through a corner at some stage by either
turning right or left as shown in Figure 4, and the robot will have to
adjust its orientation to follow the human correctly. The dashed lines
found in Figure 3 will be available in the testing arena, but they are for
the judge’s usage only, no line following is allowed at any stage during
the competition. Scoring criteria:
o
The robot should follow the human for 3 meters including the
corner
o
If the robot doesn’t finish the following task in 45 seconds, then
the teams loses half the points allocated to this task
o
The first three teams finishing first will get 10/10, 9/10 and 8/10
points respectively, all other teams will only get 5/10
Figure 4 Following a human around a corner

Find human: in this task a human will be somewhere inside the arena,
and the robot need to explore the arena looking for the human and
stop once the human has been detected. The robot will start from the
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same location, the human, however, will be in different locations.
Figure 5 illustrates one of these scenarios. Scoring criteria:
o
The robot loses one point every time it collides with an obstacle
o
The robot has to find the human in 5 minutes or it loses all the
points
o
The team that finishes first will get +3 bonus points, second
team gets +2, third team gets +1, and the rest of the teams will
get no bonus.
o
This task is considered successful when the robot is within 1
meter radius to the human, and it triggers a sound/alert
indicating that the human has been found. Teams will lose 2
points for each falsely reporting find the human.
Figure 5 Finding a human

Innovative task: this is an open task where teams can demonstrate
extra unique capabilities for their robots. This is where teams can
demonstrate their innovation and creativity.
Task
Score / 70
Follow Human
20
Follow Around Corner
20
Find a Human
20
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Innovative Task
10
5 Reference Systems
Below are some references to the hardware/software components that could
be used while developing the competition entry.
Hardware:

Kobuki mobile base http://garage.yujinrobot.com/robots/kobuki.html :
this is the mobile base currently being used in the Turtlebot project
http://www.turtlebot.com/
Software:

ROS (Robot Operating System) www.ros.org : this is a robotic software
platform commonly used in the development of robotics and robotic
software components.
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