Conceptual Group Design Project - Minutes

MSc Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Group: Project 18

Attendance: 2
Minutes of the Meetings: 3
Meeting 1 3
Meeting 2 4
Meeting 3 (inc Project “supervisor”) 5
Meeting 4 6
Meeting 5 7
Meeting 6 9
Meeting 7 10
Meeting 8 11
Meeting 9 (With Peter) 13

Minutes reported by Mollie Coleman for Team 18

Attendance:

Present

Absent

Team M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10
Member

Mollie ​(Secretary)

Isuru ​(Manager)

Adrian

Kemi

Rezi

1
Minutes of the Meetings:

04/02/19
Meeting 1

Minutes of Meeting 1

Project 13
Pros
- Image recognition looks good on your CV
Cons
- Image recognition is hard to implement
- The suspension will be complicated
Who likes this project: Isuru
Project 15
Pros
- Easier than 17 potentially
- Sounds interesting
Who likes this project: Isuru
Project 16
Pros
- Sounds interesting
- Have some experience with robotics arms
Cons
- A very hard as it requires a lot of precision
- Image recognition is hard to implement
- There are a lot of components which is complicated
Who likes this project: Kemi, Adrian
Project 17
Pros
- Have two people to approach with problems
- Looks interesting
- Simple mechanisms
Who likes this project: Isuru, Rezi, Mollie, Adrian

Summary of Meeting

- Formed the group

- Discussed the available projects
- Listed the pros and cons of the selected ones we liked
- Decided on a project
- Arranged another meeting - date, time and location

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Kemi, Rezi, Adrian

2
06/02/19
Meeting 2

Minutes of Meeting 2

Task 1: Design Platform:

Isuru
Task 2: Build the control mechanism with microcontroller
Adrian
Task 3: Control System:
Mollie
Task 4: Precision locator
Kemi
Task 5: Land-based control:
Rezi

Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Background reading
- Research
- Create a shared document
- Create Trello board
- Book meeting with Tim

Summary of Meeting

- Assigned tasks to each of the members of the groups

- Discussed the approach going to take
- Maybe build a prototype version?
- Decided on tasks to carry out before the next meeting

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Kemi, Rezi, Adrian

07/02/19
Meeting 3 (inc Project “supervisor”)

Minutes of Meeting 3

Tasks that had to be carried out:

- Background reading
- Research
- Create a shared document
- Create Trello board

3
 - Book meeting with Tim

Points from the meeting:

- Use GPS module along with an algorithm to fine tune accuracy
- Bluetooth or RFID could be used, but GPS may be more suitable
- Use foam as part of the physical build as it is light and floats
- We have a budget of £500
- Contact George to ask about swarm robotics
- Starting Ideas
- Consider clear water with no obstacles
- Get the vessels to know where they are
- Develop some form of communication
- Select the components and materials
- Next Stage
- Implement some version of obstacle avoidance
- Know how to operate if no direct path
- Design software to prevent drifting
- Maybe use an already assembled robot to simulate how it will operate
- Look at potential vehicles we can use as a proof of concept
- Discussed idea of collaborative communication
- Need to create a Gantt chart to ensure we stay on target

Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Background reading
- Research
- Create a Gantt Chart
- Add cards to Trello board

Summary of Meeting

- Met up with the project supervisor

- Got directions on where to start and next steps
- Got a development process established

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Kemi, Rezi, Adrian

11/02/19
Meeting 4

Minutes of Meeting 4

Tasks that had to be carried out:

- Background reading
- Research
- Create a Gantt Chart

4
 - Add cards to Trello board

Points from the meeting:

- Discussed the roles of each member of the group
- Created checklists in each of the Trello tasks to break down sections
- Everyone has 3 or 4 tasks that they have to compete for their part to
enable the development of the document to start
- Discussed how these vessels would collaborate
- Have to be between the vessels, not by sending the instructions out
to each of the vessels via the land-based remote
- Have some beacons that are used to position these vessels?

Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Research
- Create a Gantt Chart
- Start developing our requirements
- Bring notes of research

Summary of Meeting

- Very short meeting, only discussed where people were with the research
aspects of the project
- Discussed whether anyone was having any concerns with their part
- Broke the tasks down into smaller chunks

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Kemi, Rezi, Adrian

19/02/19
Meeting 5

Minutes of Meeting 5

Tasks that had to be carried out:

- Research
- Create a Gantt Chart
- Start developing our requirements
- Bring notes of research

Points from the meeting:

- Requirements have been completed by each member of the group
- Access to the document given to all members (some issues)
- Lots of repetitions in the tables at the moment
- Need to remove the repetitions and create a general requirements table
- Discussed with Adrian about the autonomous control system
- What this section should entail

5
 - How it can relate to the collaborative control system
- How the vessels are to operate the movement
- Requires the dimensions of the system
- Measurement calculated for the vessels (but not optimised)
- Width = 106mm, length = 3 * width, submerged depth = 80mm
- Calculations need to be made to get the required measurements for
Adrian's part of the project
- Components/Material for vessels
- Foam
- Low-density materials will be used
- Arduino Mega
- Compass
- Propulsion system
- 2 brushless DC motors
- 2 electrical speed controllers
- 2 Propellers
- Precision locator
- Communication options
- Ultra-wideband which is accurate to 5cm - 50cm
- Visible Light Position is accurate to 5cm - 30cm
- RTK GPS is accurate is accurate to 1cm - 5cm
- £44 (so kinda expensive)
- Discussed the number of beacons that would be required to get an
accurate calculation
- Basing the main concept on the lake on campus
- Decided on four as the lake is 90m and the range of each
beacon has a range of 70m
- Decided on a date to have the first draft completed for the document

Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Create the general table to requirements to remove repetitions

- Research communication method for precision beacons
- Research particle swarm optimisation
- Get the concepts section in the document done as a draft

Summary of Meeting

- Set deadlines for specific areas of the document

- Discussed some key aspects of certain tasks as there was some confusion

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Kemi, Rezi, Adrian

6
26/02/19
Meeting 6

Minutes of Meeting 6

Tasks that had to be carried out:

- Create the general table of requirements to remove repetitions
- Research communication method for precision beacons
- Research particle swarm optimisation

Points from the meeting:

- Still waiting for Rezi to finish his part for the concepts
- Discussed how we can combine the requirements tables
- The draft was not completed by the wanted deadline
- Missing pieces of work from the
- land-based control system (Both concepts and decisions)
- Need to create the general table of requirements
- Decided on that the main draft should be made on the 1st March
- Organised the next meeting for 11am, 01/03/19
- What communication medium are we using for the separate parts
- Bluetooth for vessels to vessels
- Bluetooth for the beacons
- Using trilateration for the position of the vessels
- Need to find out how to localise the position (X and Y)
- Land-based system needs to set the origin of the coordinate system
- The system is not flexible with the current beacon idea
- Consider the content covered in Rob’s navigation lecture
- Need to look into other methods of localising
- Collaborative control system
- Remove some of the literature parts and discuss the block diagram
instead - (Needs a page to be clear)

Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Have a draft of document completed by 1st March

- Condense the requirements tables into one general table
- Look through the parts added to the document
- Email Peter about the due date

Summary of Meeting

- Decided on data of next meeting

- Discussed areas of concern
- The flexibility of the precision system
- No work in the document for land-based system, yet.
- Set finish date for the draft of the document

7
Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Kemi, Adrian

01/03/19
Meeting 7

Minutes of Meeting 7

Tasks that had to be carried out:

- Have a draft of document completed by 1st March
- Condense the requirements tables into one general table
- Look through the parts added to the document
- Email Peter about the due date

Points from the meeting:

- Should the land-based system be an application or webpage?
- Ready-made apps for Arduino
- Use an application
- Send the document to peter or Tim to ask for feedback
- Get a time on Monday later in the day
- To go through stuff
- Probably need to reconsider the form of communication for land-based
- Bluetooth will not be enough as only goes up to 30m
- Wifi, not always a connection
- Mobile connection - 4G/3G
- Reduce word count
- Remove literature stuff and add more theory content
- Remove parts from the requirements table
- Have meeting 04/01/19 with Tim
- Have meeting 05/01/19 with whole group

Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Book a meeting with Tim to go through the document

- Look through the parts added to the document
- Reduce the word count
- Remove parts from requirements that are doubles/not needed

Summary of Meeting

- Next stages of the project

- Try to get some feedback about the report so far
- Need to reduce the word count as we are already over

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Kemi, Adrian, Rezi

8
04/03/19
Meeting 8

Minutes of Meeting 8

Tasks that had to be carried out:

- Book a meeting with Tim to go through the document
- Look through the parts added to the document
- Reduce the word count
- Remove parts from requirements that are doubles/not needed

Points from the meeting:

- Met up with Tim
- Illustrations are important
- Break up some more of the block text with images
- Use of beacons is good
- Consider safety protocols - loose connection with the master vessel
- What should happen in this situation
- Consider the safety protocol
- What to do if vessels are lost
- What to do if there is a collision
- How to implement the precision location
- Tracking
- Consider the different algorithms to use
- Look at simplified versions of swarm algorithms
- Outline how the default formation works with standard instructions
- How we are planning to keep them in formation
- Do it using this technique…
- How the data is going to be transmitted
- Save technical details for the individual report
- Show that other ideas have been considered
- Elaborate in the individual report
- Beacons
- Plant in a stationary place
- Need the exact coordinates of them
- Maybe use differential GPS - more expensive?
- Accurate to 10cm
- The original idea is not flexible enough
- Offer the cheaper option of beacons
- A small area where we never leave

Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Look through the parts added to the document

Summary of Meeting

9
 - Ask Peter about the structure of the document

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Kemi, Rezi

04/03/19
Meeting 9 (With Peter)

Minutes of Meeting 9

Tasks that had to be carried out:

- Book a meeting with Tim to go through the document
- Look through the parts added to the document

Points from the meeting:

- background/context - DONE
- Overviews of the proposed sol - add architecture diagram
- Plan - Gantt chart
- Objectives and deliverables - say what the choices will result in
- Group organisation - who does what
- Need to create a plan
- background/context - DONE
- Overviews of the proposed sol - add architecture diagram
- Plan - Gantt chart - DONE
- Objectives and deliverables - say what the choices will result in
- Group organisation - who does what

- Create a gantt chart(ISURU WAS RIGHT)

- Make it a high-level plan
- A more detailed plan can be placed in the appendix
- The requirements section is very good
- It is clear
- Replace overall concept with “background to the problem”
- Make the headings the objectives
- Refer to the requirements, what it is fulfilling
- Decisions and conclusions
- Overview of the proposed solution
- Clear
- Tim Johnson!!!!!
- We are project 18 and MSc robotics and auto systems under the
title
- PID control
- Need to consider the tolerance that we need to work to
- Need to be a bit more specific
- Highlight how we have interpreted the requirements

10
Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Make changes to the document

- Finalise the document

Summary of Meeting

- Ask Peter about the structure of the document

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Adrian

04/03/19 Meeting 10

Minutes of Meeting 10

Tasks that had to be carried out:

- Make changes to the document
- Finalise the document

Points from the meeting:

- Made all the change required to have a final document
- Finish the executive summary
- Created a Gantt chart
- Found a template to use and decided on deadlines
- Highlighted dependencies
- Added plan to the document
- Inc Gantt Chart
- A brief explanation of what is to come
- Power management added to the document
- Finalised document
- Reduced page count to 10
- Word count < 3000
- Added references

Tasks to carry out before the next meeting

- Submit the conceptual design document

Summary of Meeting

- Ask Peter about the structure of the document

Attendees: ​Mollie, Isuru, Adrian

11