Robotics Research Projects for Students

 

 

 

Do you need to be a CS/IS major to carry out a project? No, though you may find some CS or IS background to be of value, especially in the software and combined projects.

 

Will the project count for course credits? That will have to be arranged with the course instructor; please discuss with Dr. Lyons first.

 

What is the ‘Level of Difficulty’? Projects labeled ‘Easy’ can be done in about 4 to 8 hours of work (i.e., a couple of weeks) with little background. Those labeled ‘Easy/medium’ and ‘Medium’ will require existing background or ‘on the job learning’ and will take from 8 hours upwards (a couple of weeks to a couple of months). Those labeled ‘Difficult’ are suitable for semester long projects,

 

Are there other projects that those below? Please speak to me about this. I am open to your suggestions plus there are many cross-disciplinary projects possible, including the role of robotics in disaster recovery, advanced user interfaces (computers that see and hear you), and the role of computer vision and robotics in historical artifact measurement and recovery.

 

The projects are divided into

  • Software projects: which involve writing software,
  • Hardware projects: which involve system building, or mechanical construction, or electronic construction.
  • Combined projects: which involve some measure of both

All of these projects are designed to yield planned, important additions to the Fordham robotics capability..

 

Software Projects

 

  1. Write/maintain lab infrastructure software: backups, web, twiki, etc. (Level of Difficulty: Easy/Medium).
  2. Develop a general software framework for writing test code on the AIBO. (Level of Difficulty: Medium).
  3. Design, write and test software to test and further integrate the PTZ base and stereocams for the DX2 (Sony D100/Videre) and DX3 (Biclops/Videre). (Level of Difficulty: Medium/Hard).
  4. Write and infrastructure software to complete the hybrid architecture between the Linux cluster and the robot control host. (Level of Difficulty: Medium/Hard).

 

Hardware Projects

 

  1. Address interface incompatibility issues with the DX2 and DX3 integrated sensor platforms (Firewire/USB/Serial etc.)  (Level of Difficulty: Easy)
  2. Plan and build multiple camera handoff testbed. (Level of Difficulty: Easy/Medium)
  3. Plan and build robot wayfinding testbed based on US Gov. NIST standards. (Level of Difficulty: Easy/medium)
  4. Conduct a study of hardware updates possible to the Lab AIBO robot. (Level of Difficulty: Easy/Medium)

 

Combined Hardware and Software & System Building

 

  1. Modify Linux PC nodes to add them into the Fordham Beowulf cluster; this is an ongoing task. (Level of difficulty: easy).
  2. Write small ARIA programs for motion and sensor characterization experiments on the DX2/DX3 robot platforms. (Level of Difficulty: Medium).
  3. Bring neural network camera surveillance handoff software back on line and conduct benchmark tests. (Level of Difficulty: Easy/Medium)
  4. Any complementary combination of hardware and software projects already listed (e.g., s/w 2 and h/w 4).