Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
84 AutoServe (Automated Room Service Bot)
 Ethan Jiang
Johan Martinez
Nikhil Vishnoi
 Po-Jen Ko design_document1.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
video
**AutoServe (Automated Room Service Bot)**

**Team Members:**
- Nikhil Vishnoi (nikhilv4)
- Ethan Jiang (ethanj4)
- Johan Martinez (jmart454)

**Problem**

In hotels, apartments, and dormitories, guests or residents often request small amenities such as snacks, toiletries, chargers and more. Fulfilling these requests often requires manual labor, such as a staff member traveling long distances across hallways and between floors which is time-consuming, inefficient, and labor intensive. While some automated delivery robots exist, commercial solutions are extremely expensive, and often impractical for smaller deployments or retrofitting existing buildings. There is a need for an affordable yet flexible indoor delivery system capable of autonomously transporting small items within multi floor buildings while operating within existing infrastructure constraints.

**Solution**

We propose a small autonomous indoor delivery robot capable of transporting items between locations in a multi-floor building such as a hotel. The robot will navigate hallways autonomously and use an elevator to travel between floors, allowing it to deliver items from a central base location such as the hotel lobby snack bar to a specified destination room. The robot will move autonomously and be monitored wirelessly by staff through a remote UI that can display status updates on deliveries, or when the robot is ready in the elevator to be transported by hotel staff calling the elevator from the lobby. Elevator actuation is assumed to be externally triggered by the building as is most common in real hotels, while the robot will autonomously handle entering, riding, and exiting the elevator at the correct floor with sensor detection. This design choice reflects realistic constraints of existing building logistics while allowing the project to focus on autonomous navigation, system integration, and practicality.
An ESP32-based controller located on the central unit and the navigation unit will coordinate wireless connection between each other with the integrated Wi-Fi module. We would also incorporate graphed routes that are optimized for avoiding obstacles, with a proximity sensor to detect obstacles such as people and send the appropriate warnings. Items will be transported in a box with a rfid lock that can only be opened by residents such as with a hotel keycard or something of similar nature. This system would reduce staff workload, improve response time for guests, and demonstrate how embedded robotic platforms can be useful to automate common but repetitive manual logistics tasks.


**Subsystem 1: Microcontroller Unit**

- Two ESP microcontrollers will be used, one for the Central Base Unit and one for the actual Robot Navigation Unit.
- Both microcontrollers will communicate with each other using their integrated Wifi connection modules with transmitters and receivers.

**Subsystem 2: Robot Base Unit**

- Will have USB keyboard input (DS_FT312D) and Display to allow user input commands to robot
- Display (NHD-0216KZW-AB5) will show a UI for user to see robot status (charge, where it thinks it is, connection)

**Subsystem 3: Robot Unit**

- 2 Stepper motors (17ME15-1504S) to accurately move robot with predetermined distances.
- Will be 3D printed or machined with the machine shop
- Motors will be driven using motor driver (A4988SETTR-T) with MCU
- Display (NHD-0216KZW-AB5) for robot unit to communicate with nearby people

**Subsystem 4: Navigation and Sensing**
- Position Tracking sensor (TLV493DA1B6HTSA2) to track x,y,z motion data of robot. Actual map data and floor data will be hardcoded into the robot; this data will be used to make sure that stepper motors are moving correctly.
- Proximity sensors (TSSP40) for MCU to tell when it is being blocked by an obstacle and if it is boxed in it will communicate with the Base Unit for help.

**Subsystem 5: Robot Charging Station**
- The robot will have battery charge detection and will be able to inform the central base Unit when it is low on power.
- When delivery is completed and robot is done working it will dock into a base charging station that will flow a reverse current into the Lithium Ion batteries using a charge management controller (MCP73811).

**Subsystem 6: Security Subsystem**
- RFID based lock system for storing delivered items that opens for residents (Either from base station or with smart lock)

**Criteria for Success**
- The central base station can send commands to the navigational robot unit which is able to use predefined data to go to programmed/stored locations accurately.
- The navigational unit is able to identify its location, calculate the route to its next destination, and then move precisely towards it and stop correctly.
- Robot unit can avoid obstacles and send back status messages to the central base station indicators.
- The robot unit can operate through the elevator and can tell when it is at the right floor and when to exit.

Remotely Controlled Self-balancing Mini Bike

Will Chen, Eric Tang, Jiaming Xu

Featured Project

# Remotely Controlled Self-balancing Mini Bike

Team Members:

- Will Chen hongyuc5

- Jiaming Xu jx30

- Eric Tang leweit2

# Problem

Bike Share and scooter share have become more popular all over the world these years. This mode of travel is gradually gaining recognition and support. Champaign also has a company that provides this service called Veo. Short-distance traveling with shared bikes between school buildings and bus stops is convenient. However, since they will be randomly parked around the entire city when we need to use them, we often need to look for where the bike is parked and walk to the bike's location. Some of the potential solutions are not ideal, for example: collecting and redistributing all of the bikes once in a while is going to be costly and inefficient; using enough bikes to saturate the region is also very cost inefficient.

# Solution

We think the best way to solve the above problem is to create a self-balancing and moving bike, which users can call bikes to self-drive to their location. To make this solution possible we first need to design a bike that can self-balance. After that, we will add a remote control feature to control the bike movement. Considering the possibilities for demonstration are complicated for a real bike, we will design a scaled-down mini bicycle to apply our self-balancing and remote control functions.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1: Self-balancing part

The self-balancing subsystem is the most important component of this project: it will use one reaction wheel with a Brushless DC motor to balance the bike based on reading from the accelerometer.

MPU-6050 Accelerometer gyroscope sensor: it will measure the velocity, acceleration, orientation, and displacement of the object it attaches to, and, with this information, we could implement the corresponding control algorithm on the reaction wheel to balance the bike.

Brushless DC motor: it will be used to rotate the reaction wheel. BLDC motors tend to have better efficiency and speed control than other motors.

Reaction wheel: we will design the reaction wheel by ourselves in Solidworks, and ask the ECE machine shop to help us machine the metal part.

Battery: it will be used to power the BLDC motor for the reaction wheel, the stepper motor for steering, and another BLDC motor for movement. We are considering using an 11.1 Volt LiPo battery.

Processor: we will use STM32F103C8T6 as the brain for this project to complete the application of control algorithms and the coordination between various subsystems.

## Subsystem 2: Bike movement, steering, and remote control

This subsystem will accomplish bike movement and steering with remote control.

Servo motor for movement: it will be used to rotate one of the wheels to achieve bike movement. Servo motors tend to have better efficiency and speed control than other motors.

Stepper motor for steering: in general, stepper motors have better precision and provide higher torque at low speeds than other motors, which makes them perfect for steering the handlebar.

ESP32 2.4GHz Dual-Core WiFi Bluetooth Processor: it has both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity so it could be used for receiving messages from remote controllers such as Xbox controllers or mobile phones.

## Subsystem 3: Bike structure design

We plan to design the bike frame structure with Solidworks and have it printed out with a 3D printer. At least one of our team members has previous experience in Solidworks and 3D printing, and we have access to a 3D printer.

3D Printed parts: we plan to use PETG material to print all the bike structure parts. PETG is known to be stronger, more durable, and more heat resistant than PLA.

PCB: The PCB will contain several parts mentioned above such as ESP32, MPU6050, STM32, motor driver chips, and other electronic components

## Bonus Subsystem4: Collision check and obstacle avoidance

To detect the obstacles, we are considering using ultrasonic sensors HC-SR04

or cameras such as the OV7725 Camera function with stm32 with an obstacle detection algorithm. Based on the messages received from these sensors, the bicycle could turn left or right to avoid.

# Criterion For Success

The bike could be self-balanced.

The bike could recover from small external disturbances and maintain self-balancing.

The bike movement and steering could be remotely controlled by the user.

Project Videos