Autonomous vehicle navigation is a research area that has recently advanced to the level of self-driving cars. In past few years, the Union College Robotics Crew has been participating in annual “micromouse” competitions, where robots use autonomous navigation to find their way through a maze. Using sensors, motors, microcontrollers, and mechanical structures, students design and program their robots to navigate through a random maze in a timed race. In the micromouse competition, teams are given 12 minutes for their robot to traverse from the starting point to the center of an approximately 9’ x 9’ maze. Within this time period the robot will complete one “exploring” run where it learns the paths of the maze, and then one or more “speed” runs, where it travels as quickly as possible from start to center. The minimum run time is used as the official time for that robot, and the robot with the shortest official time wins the competition.
We were able to host and win the IEEE competition in the Spring of 2022. This year, one major part of the project and a significant step for us to improve the performance of our current design is to implement a novel image recognition and tracking system.