SD: Autonomous Lawnmower (ALP)

The Autonomous Lawnmower Project (ALP) is a revised version of my Senior Design (SD) I did as an undergraduate. The project was originally called Autonomous Lawnmower for Temple (ALT), wherein my team and I attempted to construct an autonomous lawnmower based on a set of rules prescribed in the ION Robotic Lawnmower Competition's Advance competition, in which a team must construct a lawnmower that can autonomously mow a cutting-field and while avoid obstacles. Because I want another SD team to pick up the project without having to perform any reverse engineering, I decided to redo much of the project as part of ALP, adding more complete documentation and finishing aspects of the project I believe should have been completed. Please read the introductory post on ALT and visit the original project's website for some background on the project. I will regularly update this page with posts that describe what I have completed and what I will be doing next in regards to ALP.

Project Goal: Develop a small-scaled model of the lawnmower that will perform all the required autonomy, including completing the lawnmower cutting-field and avoiding obstacles, while will also be able to perform those tasks outside. I will not focus on the development of the full-size lawnmower but instead will leave that task to another team (I am only one person and I will mostly be focused on the Zynq Project.). With the aforementioned goal in mind, I have, and this is liable to change as the project develops, divided the goal into several sub-projects, which are as follows.

• 1. Remote Control Car, the moving-platform that will perform the autonomy

  2. Path Algorithm, the algorithm that will generate the lawnmower's path

  3. Localization, the way by which the moving-platform will determine it's location

  4. Line Detection, how the cutting-field's line will be detected (I have decided not to complete this part of the project due to more important commitments to other projects)

  5. Integration, adding all the miniature projects together and completing the entire project