Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
1 Dynamic Legged Robot
Northrop Grumman Best Project Award
Ahsan Qureshi
Joseph Byrnes
Kanyon Edvall
David Hanley design_document1.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pptx
proposal1.pdf
video
We plan to create a dynamic robot with one to two legs stabilized in one or two dimensions in order to demonstrate jumping and forward/backward walking. This project will demonstrate the feasibility of inexpensive walking robots and provide the starting point for a novel quadrupedal robot. We will write a hybrid position-force task space controller for each leg. We will use a modified version of the ODrive open source motor controller to control the torque of the joints. The joints will be driven with high torque off-the-shelf brushless DC motors. We will use high precision magnetic encoders such as the AS5048A to read the angles of each joint. The inverse dynamics calculations and system controller will run on a TI F28335 processor.

We feel that this project appropriately brings together knowledge from our previous coursework as well as our extracurricular, research, and professional experiences. It allows each one of us to apply our strengths to an exciting and novel project. We plan to use the legs, software, and simulation that we develop in this class to create a fully functional quadruped in the future and release our work so that others can build off of our project. This project will be very time intensive but we are very passionate about this project and confident that we are up for the challenge.

While dynamically stable quadrupeds exist— Boston Dynamics’ Spot mini, Unitree’s Laikago, Ghost Robotics’ Vision, etc— all of these robots use custom motors and/or proprietary control algorithms which are not conducive to the increase of legged robotics development. With a well documented affordable quadruped platform we believe more engineers will be motivated and able to contribute to development of legged robotics.

More specifics detailed here:
https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=30338

Filtered Back – Projection Optical Demonstration

Tori Fujinami, Xingchen Hong, Jacob Ramsey

Filtered Back – Projection Optical Demonstration

Featured Project

Project Description

Computed Tomography, often referred to as CT or CAT scans, is a modern technology used for medical imaging. While many people know of this technology, not many people understand how it works. The concepts behind CT scans are theoretical and often hard to visualize. Professor Carney has indicated that a small-scale device for demonstrational purposes will help students gain a more concrete understanding of the technical components behind this device. Using light rather than x-rays, we will design and build a simplified CT device for use as an educational tool.

Design Methodology

We will build a device with three components: a light source, a screen, and a stand to hold the object. After placing an object on the stand and starting the scan, the device will record three projections by rotating either the camera and screen or object. Using the three projections in tandem with an algorithm developed with a graduate student, our device will create a 3D reconstruction of the object.

Hardware

• Motors to rotate camera and screen or object

• Grid of photo sensors built into screen

• Light source

• Power source for each of these components

• Control system for timing between movement, light on, and sensor readings