Congratulations to TES-i’s University of Arizona Engineering Interdisciplinary Capstone Team!
May 25, 2022
Congratulations to TES-i’s University of Arizona Engineering Interdisciplinary Capstone Team!
TES-i would like to congratulate our University of Arizona Engineering Interdisciplinary Capstone Team for completing their senior project. The team helped to create a lab scale robotic platform to help simulate autonomous vehicles and their interactions on Arizona public highways and intersections. The inclusion of GPS RTK technology along with a precision IMU allows for incredibly accurate positioning and kinematic details for the vehicle. This data will be used by partner teams at the Arizona Commerce Authority’s IAM (Institute of Automated Mobility) to train and calibrate video analytics to provide safety and performance predictions of how vehicles interact on the road.
TES-i Chief Engineer Jonathan Schwab mentored the team, building on previous autonomous vehicle projects sponsored by the company. Each year adds new capabilities in sensor aggregation, vehicle dynamics, and new end use case scenarios. The student team balanced the current worldwide resource constraints and shipping restrictions to design, modify and fabricate a robotic platform, and integrate multiple electronic sensors and power systems. A visual calibration pattern was tested against real world traffic cameras, and high-resolution positional data was collected. The students included sensors for future autonomous vehicle algorithms, including LIDAR, sonar, steering, and throttle encoding sub systems.
An internal team of engineers helped to integrate Robot Operating System (ROS) onto a raspberry Pi 4B based processing core, along with a GPS-RTK base station to provide the critical RTCM data. TES also successfully utilized our new Tormach 1100MX CNC machine to take the students’ prototype 3D printed mechanical components to final machined aluminum pieces. Our prototype machine shop allowed the students to design and construct the robotic chassis, learn the basics of machining and welding, and see their design come to fruition. Our electronics lab was used to integrate COTs processors, power and sensor components while the team designs a multi-use circuit card assembly to upgrade this and previously designed robot platforms.
UArizona team members Dani Tronz, Vincent Tran, and Mike Higgins, were led by Connor Reed. TES-i interns Elliot Zuercher and Logan Behnke provided crucial software and electronics skills, while a team of TES-i employees helped scope, review and mentor the students toward the final goal.
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