Using the Website

Project Page

The Project Pages were created in an effort to help promote student projects. The Project Pages provide a showcase where employers, other students, and friends can see what UIUC students are capable of. Many employers, in particular, consider a good Senior Design Project to be just as valuable as internship experience. The Project Pages will develop over time into a valuable library of practical engineering knowledge. Some of the best projects will be identified each semester and placed in the Senior Design "Hall of Fame," while the rest will be accessible by semester and search engine.

Updating Project Information

Once your project has been approved on the discussion board by the Instructor, you should promptly update your project information. In order to do so, find your project on the Project page, and click its title. When a frame expands, click on "Edit." Next, enter your UIUC netid and password. The system will lookup your project and prompt you for information such as your project's title. Please fill in the information that you wish to have appear for your project, and then click on the submit button. The required fields are marked so. You can update this information at any time. We strongly urge you to keep a backup of all of the information, and we would like to caution you of one scenario in particular. If multiple people attempt to edit this information at the same time, the second person to submit the changes will overwrite the first person's changes. Also, be sure to logout when you are done by closing the web browser. It is important that you provide a project desciption. It should be a brief overview of your project and explanation of why it is worth doing. Please provide this information as soon as possible and try to limit the length to about 250 words.

Submit Schedule

After updating your project information, you should proceed to the Submit Schedule page. Here each student should submit his/her schedule so that your TA can schedule a weekly meeting time. We know that there are a lot of boxes to check, but we need this detailed information because of how difficult it is to match schedules. The information is displayed in a convenient way for TAs when it is time for them to schedule meeting times. The system is very intuitive so instructions are not needed. NOTE: Please be sure that the schedule you submit is as accurate as possible, since you won't be able to edit it later!

After submitting your schedule, you should familiarize yourself with the "Upload Files" page.

Uploading Files

This area is used to upload files such as the Proposal, the Final Paper, Images, and additional files. When a file is uploaded, it is renamed and limited to a specified size. Special documents such as Proposals and Final Papers should be uploaded into the appropriate slot and will automatically be added to your Project Page. Images and other files can be uploaded into any other slot such as "file1." To upload a file, simply select which slot to place it in, and then select the file from your computer using the "Browse" button.

Antweight Battlebot Project

Jeevan Navudu, Keegan Teal, Avik Vaish

Antweight Battlebot Project

Featured Project

# Antweight Battlebot

Team Members:

- Keegan Teal (kteal2)

- Avik Vaish (avikv2)

- Jeevan Navudu (jnavudu2)

# Problem

In order to compete in Professor Gruev’s robot competition, there are many constraints that need to be met, including:

- Maximum weight (2lbs)

- Allowed materials (3D-printed thermoplastics)

- Locomotion system and fighting tool

- Wireless control via Bluetooth or Wifi

The main goal of this competition is to design a Battlebot that is capable of disrupting the functionality of the other Battlebots with our fighting tool while maintaining our own functionality.

# Solution

For the project, we plan to build a battlebot with a custom electronic speed controller (ESC) that can independently control three brushless motors: two for the drive system, and one for the fighting tool. This ESC will be controlled by an STM32 microcontroller, to which we will add a Bluetooth module to connect to it and specify how much power we want to send to each motor. To communicate with our robot, we will use a laptop that can connect to Bluetooth.

# Solution Components

## Vehicle Controller

The main subsystem of the robot will be a combined vehicle control board and ESC. This subsystem will contain an STM32 Microcontroller that will serve as the brain for the whole robot. With this MCU, we’ll be able to flash our whole software package that will be able to control the speed and direction of the robot, the robot’s weapon, and the Bluetooth communication.

## Power Module

This subsystem includes the battery, the voltage regulators/converters needed to power the electronics, and the necessary battery monitoring circuitry. Specifically, for the battery, we will use a 14.8V 4S2P LiPo pack to power all the components. There will also be a voltage short detection circuit for the battery that will shut down the robot in case of a short to ensure safe practices. This subsystem also contains a 5V linear regulator and 3.3V linear regulator to power the low voltage electronics.

## Drivetrain/Powertrain

This subsystem includes the motors and H-bridges needed to control both the wheels and weapon of the robot. The H-bridges will be made with regular N-MOSs that will be controlled by a PWM signal sent from the STM32 MCU. This H-bridge setup will be able to control the voltage and polarity sent to the motors, which will be able to control the speed of the wheels or weapon. This subsystem will also include the mechanical wheels of the robot and actual hardware of the weapon, which will be a spinning object. Since all the wheels and the weapon have the same mechanical motion, they can all use the same hardware and software electronically, with minor adjustments in motor selection and the actual mechanical hardware/peripheral.

## Bluetooth Module

One big requirement for this project is the ability for the robot to be controlled wirelessly via laptop. The STM32 MCU has bluetooth capabilities, and with additional peripheral hardware, the robot will be able to communicate over bluetooth with a laptop. The goal for the laptop is to be able to control the speed, direction, and weapon of the robot wirelessly and also have a display for live telemetry.

## Mechanical Design

The last part of our project would be the mechanical design of the robot chassis and weapon. For the chassis and weapon material, we decided to go with PLA+ as it offers a blend of being strong and robust but not being too brittle. The drive system will be a 2-wheeled tank style drive with one motor controlling each side of the robot. For the weapon, we are looking to utilize a fully 3D-printed drum that will have a 100% infill to maximize the rotational inertia which can lead to bigger impacts.

## Criterion for Success

We would consider our project a success if we are able to communicate with the robot from our computer as in sending throttle and steering commands to the robot, if those commands are then processed on the robots microprocessors and the motors are sent the according power needed to move and behave in the way that we want during a match.

## Alternatives

The most commonly used electronics in current antweight battlebots consist mostly of RC drone parts. We plan to create a very similar ESC to those on the market but it will have an integrated Bluetooth wireless capability as well as telemetry monitoring. We also want to focus on minimizing packaging size to lower weight and increase flexibility as much as possible.

Project Videos