科达伦的机器人
The 机器人 program in Coeur d’Alene is growing. 我们是 building the Vandal Manufacturing Automation Laboratory (VMAL) and the Center for Intelligent Industrial 机器人 (CI2R) to train Computer Scientists in programming robotic using modern software design and with the use of 人工智能 programming techniques for machine vision and sensor data analysis. Our program is designed to be very much a complement to a mechanical engineering based program, with our emphasis on not building robots, but rather programming robots and building software systems designed for tough manufacturing and vision problems. We have both mobile robots and full size manufacturing robots. We have a heavy emphasis on the use of embedded systems in robotics.
We design our robotics software primarily in python using the ROS2 (Robot Operating System2) robotics framework. This is a multi-vendor compatible package that allows the coordination of numerous sources of data feeding into the robot control software such as cameras, 距离, 振动和许多其他传感器. Then we apply machine learning programs (where appropriate) to accomplish things like task planning, motion execution and the all important inclusion of feedback into the process.
While our high-level programming is done using Python, we use a significant amount of class time learning about the traditional (and still very much in use) robotics programming paradigm, PLC编程. 我们是 using actual PLC controllers with a complex model factory and also with an innovative manufacturing line simulator called Factory I/O.
我们是 initiating undergraduate and graduate Robotic Engineering certificates in 2022, 由先进机器人I组成, Advanced 机器人 II and selections of other courses from Real-Time Operating Systems, PLC编程, 机器视觉, 人工智能, Mechanical Engineering and Data Science Courses.
Our VMAL is located in the Venture Lab inside the Hedlund Building at North Idaho College. Inside the lab is “Larry”, a 784-pound FANUC 50iB materials handling robot. He is housed inside a 17’ x 17’ cage because he is very strong and fast. 在同一栋楼的楼上, the U of I Coeur d’Alene 计算机科学 space is home to 5 mobile TurtleBot robots, two smaller mechanical arms and Baxter, a two-armed general purpose collaborative robot. We also use Raspberry Pi and Arduino systems to build sensors and actuators as part of the class projects.
Thanks to the generosity of Boeing and the Jacklin family we have raised in money and hardware $500,800美元中的000美元,000 needed to fully fund the VMAL project. 我们是 积极寻找资源 剩下的30万美元.
Our second major area of robotics research and education is in the use of robotics for autonomous geolocated underwater environmental sensing (submarines) in lakes and rivers in North Idaho. The Catfish project consists of three submarines, one of which can dive to 1200 feet. We have three graduate students and several undergraduate students working on this program. The program has been sponsored by private donors, 美国地质调查局, the Idaho Water 资源 Institute, and help from the US Naval base in Bayview, Idaho with the goal of automating environmental data gathering. We recently began our first sequence of autonomous dives and are currently integrating a fiber optic gyroscope and a Doppler sonar system for maintaining geolocation data in the absence of continuous GPS data (GPS doesn’t work 200 feet down in the lake, 甚至在地表以下2英尺处).
We currently have a strong undergraduate enrollment in 机器人 and are hosting both Masters and PhD students in our program.