Autonomous Delivery Robot

Team 65 – Jue Ni, Ningyuan Du and Wuwen Wang

ECE445 Design Document – Spring 2019
TA: Zhen Qin
1 Introduction
1.1 Objective
Robot is so called the next generation technology and indeed has been brought to our life
in many aspects such as education, military and so on. With the occurrence of robots in
varieties of areas, a new revolution is happening in real life since robots have their own
advantages – low labor cost and stable working performance. In a word, robots have been
part of the society in a deep level but there is still a lot improvements needed to enhance
the performance. For example, in the coffee shop in the future, not only does the robot
make coffee, but also delivers safely by itself. An autopilot robot that is able to deliver food
will save a lot labor cost, but the way to its destination is not always smooth and safe,
therefore, a solution is needed to deal with different kinds of special situations and potential
obstacles. It is difficult for robots to recognize the surrounding objects and react as it
supposed to but failure of avoiding obstacles raises the concern of safety. High performance
detection, analysis and controlling systems are capable of decreasing the failure rate.
However, it would cost too much to be afford for industrial applications. Due to this reason,
delivery robot is still far away to daily life.

Our goal is to find a low-cost solution so that delivery robots becomes applicable in the
real life. We will use combinations of 2D lidar and other sensors to lower the cost but keep
the functionalities. These sensors will collect data and communicate with processor. After
processing the data and calculate the desired actions, the robot will adjust the motor to
avoid the obstacles. After dealing with all the problems it encountered, the robot will
navigate to the destination in the end.

1.2 Background
YummyFuture has been part of the revolution in food industry by robots and they had a
prototype of robot coffee stand which still need improvement in delivery system. Many
previous solutions for detection use 3D lidar with camera to recognize the surrounding
areas. This solution works well but a 3D lidar costs more than $1000 and need a high-
performance processor, making the solution cost too much for industry.
We are going to use 2D lidar about $200 instead to drop the cost significantly. Many other
sensors such as sonar and infrared detectors are used to make up the functionality of
detection and increase the accuracy. In this way, using the combination of sensors, we can
achieve a low-cost solution with an equivalent accuracy of output.

High level Requirements

1. Robot must be able to detect the standing and moving obstacles in its path in 50cm
using its sensor and adjust motors correspondingly.
2. Robot must be able to navigate to the destination.
3. Robot must be lost-cost comparing to the existing solutions, the cost should be lowered
by $500.

2. Design:
The entire project consists of four functional sections: Power supply system, sensor system,
control unit and the driving & navigation system. The power supply is designed for keeping
the project working properly including achieving all the expected functions. The sensor
system is used for collecting the data from the surrounding areas, especially the potential
obstacles. The control unit will be able to analyze all the data collected from all the sensors
and make decisions for the driving system to execute. The driving & navigation system is
supposed to make the corresponding actions according to the commands received from the
control unit, and then make the vehicle approaching the pre-assigned destination.

Block Diagram
Physical Design:

Physical structure description: Our chassis will contain two batteries as DC power supply,
two motors, two ultrasonic sensors, a 2D LiDar and an IR receive for beacon, and all
components are connected to the PCB with microcontroller in the middle of the chassis.
The motors are installed adjacent to the two rear wheels. Two ultrasonic sensors are on the
both sides of the chassis and a 2D LiDar is at the front of the car to detect the potential
obstacle. There is also an IR receiver can locate the IR transmitter beacon so that the car
can drive towards the destination.

2.1 Power Supply

The power supply is providing all the energy that whole project needs. It consists of two
lithium-ion batteries and a voltage regulator.
2.1.2 Voltage regulator
This component is used to generate the corresponding desired voltages that the electronic
components in other modules require. It should be providing 5.6~6.4Volts and max current
1A.
Requirement Verification
1. It should provide voltage in the range 1. Connect the voltage regulator to two
of 5.6 ~ 6.4 V and max current 1 A Li-ion battery each providing 3.2 V.
2. The maximum Temperature at 2. Measure the open-
maximum current and voltage should circuit voltage with a voltmeter,
be below 140 °C. ensuring that it is below 6.4 V.
3. Add a resistive load to circuit such that
the voltage drop is 5.6 V.
4. Ensure the current through the load is
below 1 A in series.
5. Observe the temperature and ensure it
does not exceed 140 °C.
2.4 Sensors system
The sensors system manages navigation and obstacle detection of the robot, it will send
feedback from different sensors (IR, LiDar, Ultrasonic) as data to the control unit.
2.4.1 LiDar
Requirement Verification
 1. It must emit laser in range 0- 1. Connect the lidar to a power supply
30m with accuracy +/- 10cm at and resistive load, ensure the input
distances greater than 1m and +/- voltage is in the range of 4.75-5V.
2.5cm at distance less than 1m. 2. Change the current in series to
2. It must be powered by voltage 105mA and ensure the lidar is in idle
4.75-5V with current 105mA in mode.
idle mode and 130mA in working 3. Ensure lidar is in working mode with
mode. current of 130 mA in series.
4. Put laser sensors at distance at 1m
and 30 m to ensure the working
range.
5. In the range of 1m – 30m, move laser
sensor 10 cm backwards and
forwards, and check the output of
lidar to ensure the accuracy.
6. In the range of 0m – 1m, move laser
sensor 2.5 cm backwards and
forwards, and check the output of
lidar to ensure the accuracy.

2.4.2 Ultrasonic sensors

HC-SR04 is chosen to be our ultrasonic sensors. They will be put on the side of the chassis
to check surroundings and measure distance of close obstacles. These sensors basically
support the 2D-LiDar in the sensor systems so that the robot is able to make right decision
on turning left or right while encounter obstacle in front of it.
Requirement Verification
1. It must work under 4.5-5V DC power 1. Connect the Ultrasonic sensor to
and current below 2mA Requirement a power supply and resistive load,
2. It must detect obstacle in range from ensure the input voltage is in the
5cm to 20m with resolution 1cm. range of 4.5-5V.
 2. Ensure the maximum current is
below 2mA in series.
3. Put an obstacle at distance of 5
cm and 20 m to ensure the
detection range.
4. Move the obstacle 1cm, 10cm and
1m to ensure the resolution of
output is 1cm.

2.5 Tolerance Analysis

Since our original purpose was to use 2D lidar along with other sensors to achieve 3D
detections, there must be many limitations existing in some specific situations. Then the
tolerance for the sensor system might be the major potential problem in our project. The
sensitivity for the lidar and the ultrasonic sensors to get information from the obstacles will
also has to be set a particular level. For example, since we are using 2D lidar and multiple
ultrasonic sensors to detect the obstacles and the landforms, then we have to set a threshold
value to define if a slope is ok for the vehicle to pass by or not, the angle of the slope we
expected that the vehicle will be capable to take over will be below 10°.

3 Ethics and Safety

This project is pitched by Yummy Future because they want to find out a low-cost solution
for the delivery system. After finished our project, we will share the outcomes with them
to improve their understanding. This action is an implementation of #5 of the IEEE code
of Ethics, “to improve the understanding by individuals and society of the capabilities and
societal implications of conventional and emerging technologies, including intelligent
systems” [1]. We would like to share our outcome with anyone who is looking to improve
their robots.

We are open to accept all criticisms with regarding to the delivery robot and in case it has
defects or necessary improvement, we are willing to work on it to adjust. We designed our
robots to have many replaceable parts so that we could improve it by placing more suitable
parts. This is described in #7 of IEEE code of Ethics, “to seek, accept, and offer honest
criticism of technical work, to acknowledge and correct errors, and to credit properly the
contributions of others” [1].

The most common ethics issue of robotics is that robots may hurt people’s health and
property because of its failure of reacting properly. It is possible that a delivery robot
navigates at a high speed and hit people or their property. This goes against #9 of the IEEE
code of Ethics, "to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false
or malicious action." [1]. During the process of designing our robot, we have carefully
examined the design and make sure the ethics codes are followed. There is no harmful parts
such as piercing parts in the structure of our robot, which prevents the potential hazard. In
this way, the action of robot is more human-friendly.

Malicious actions that will hurt people are our biggest concern of safety and we have tried
to prevent it by applying the solutions mentioned above. There is a safety standard
ANSI/RIA R15.06-2012 for the industrial robot and many of the terms are relevant to our
robot. For example, there is one standard that says, “Incidental contact between robot and
person will not result in harm to person” and “Power and force limiting” [2]. Our design
has carefully followed these standards by removing dangerous parts and adjusting speed.
This delivery robot is designed to serve people, and should never have safety hazard. If
there is any accident occurred because of our robot, we would accept the responsibility
honestly and improve accordingly.
Reference
[1] Ieee.org, "IEEE Code of Ethics", 2019. [Online]. Available:
http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html. [Accessed: 07- Feb- 2019].

[2]robotics.org,“ANSI/RIA-R15.06”,2019.[Online].Available:
https://www.robotics.org/robotics-standards. [Accessed: 07- Feb- 2019].