Building Intelligent Robots: Exam #2, Spring, 2009

Take-Home Exam, Due Wed., May 13

To be done individually, 100 points

Design a robot dog (or team of dogs) that can fetch the newspaper for you. Assume that your paperboy does not always put the paper in the same place, but it should be somewhere in the front yard, ideally close to the front door. Your robot should also handle the situation where the paperboy forgets your house one day, in which case the robot should inform you that no paper was found that day. You can assume that the paper is wrapped in a fluorescent yellow wrapper.

• Show the sensor configuration: the sensor type, the number and the positioning.
• Show the behaviors and include inputs and outputs for each.
• Show how the behaviors are combined.
• Include diagrams to illustrate the sensor layout and the control architecture.
• Discuss which robot control paradigm you are following for your design and your rationale for choosing it.
• Include any assumptions on the environment and/or operation (e.g., a person opens the front door).
• Discuss how a person interacts with the robot.
• If a team of robots is used, discuss how the robots interact with each other.
• Discuss ways in which your robot design might fail and consider how this could be addressed. For example, consider the case in which yellow flowers are growing in the yard, perhaps even weeds such as dandelions. How would this affect the paper retrieval? Can you devise a design that accommodates this potential problem? Part of your score will be based on how well your design handles unexpected situations.

Note: I am not concerned here about the mechanical design and the method of locomotion. Assume that the robot can readily traverse the yard and can pick up the newspaper. This is your opportunity to incorporate sensors on your wish list, but try to be realistic in terms of what is actually possible.