Fire Fighting Robot Theta Group

1
Fire Fighting Robot (Theta Group)

• Team Members
• Randy Balkaran
• Ki-hing Chan
• Oladayo Odina
• Advisor Dr. Martin Fox
• Sponsored by ECE Department

2
Background

• 12th annual Trinity College Fire Fighting Robot
  Contest held on April 9th, 2005.
• Robot must be autonomous, computer controlled.
• The robot must
• find its way through an arena that represents a
  model house
• find a lit candle that represents a fire in the
  house
• extinguish the fire in the shortest time.
• Website http//www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/

3
Objectives

• Build a robot that competes in the Senior
  Division of the Trinity College Fire Fighting
  Robot Contest.
• Win!

4
Contest Rules

• The robot must be autonomous.
• The dimensions of the robot must not exceed 31 cm
  long by 31 cm wide by 27 cm high.
• There are no weight restrictions.
• The robot must find the candle and extinguish the
  flame in under five minutes.
• Robot cannot touch the candle.
• The robot must not use any destructive or
  dangerous methods to put out the candle.
• The robot cannot damage the arena.

5
Arena
6
Scoring

• There are three different runs.
• Robot tries to extinguish the flame as fast as
  possible, under 5 minutes.
• Time reduction if
• Robot returns to home base under two minutes
  after extinguishing the flame.
• Robot does not use a fan to extinguish flame.
• Robot is sound activated.
• The robot with the lowest Final Score is the
  winner.

7
Robot Design

• Divided into 3 parts
• Microcontroller
• Sensors
• Mechanical parts

8
Microcontroller

• PIC 16F874
• Brains of the robot.
• Assembly language programming
• Allows multiple inputs and outputs
• Up to 8 analog inputs
• Pins as inputs or outputs

9
Sensors

• Distance
• Flame
• Heat
• White Line

10
Distance Sensor

• SHARP GP2D12 Infrared
• Ranger (3).
• Provides robots position to program.
• Detection range 10cm to 80cm.
• Analog output A/D converter needed

11
Flame Detection

• Hamamatsu UVTron Flame Detector
• Detects UV radiation in the 185 - 260 nm range.
• Insensitive to visible light.
• Not too accurate, light from candle bounces off
  the wall and makes it hard for good detecting.

12
Heat Detection

• Eltec Pyroelectric detector
• Detection capability over an extended temperature
  range of -40 to 70C
• Applications
• People/Object Detection
• Intrusion Detection
• Lighting Control
• Robotics
• Motion Sensing
• Automatic Door Control
• Safety Warning
• High Stability Industrial Military Applications

13
White Line Detector

• QRB1114 Phototransistor
• Used to detect the white lines in the arena.
• White lines are located
• at home base
• in the doorways
• 30cm from the candle
• Filters out daylight.

14
Mechanical Parts

• Two DC motors
• High torque, low current, low voltage
• Wheels
• Large enough to climb staircase.
• Base
• Light weight Plexiglass

15
Extinguishing the Flame

• Fan?
• There is a 15 decrease in time if you do not use
  a fan.
• Water?
• Easy to get parts wet and ruin robot.
• Refill after each trial.
• CO2?
• Expensive
• Refill after each trial.

16
Budget
17
Timeline
18
Questions

• ?