Columbus, Ohio
June 24, 2017
June 24, 2017
June 28, 2017
Computing & Information Technology
Diversity
14
10.18260/1-2--27515
https://peer.asee.org/27515
3154
Stephen Wilkerson (swilkerson@ycp.edu) received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1990 in Mechanical Engineering. His Thesis and initial work was on underwater explosion bubble dynamics and ship and submarine whipping. After graduation he took a position with the US Army where he has been ever since. For the first decade with the Army he worked on notable programs to include the M829A1 and A2 that were first of a kind composite saboted munition. His travels have taken him to Los Alamos where he worked on modeling the transient dynamic attributes of Kinetic Energy munitions during initial launch. Afterwards he was selected for the exchange scientist program and spent a summer working for DASA Aerospace in Wedel, Germany 1993. His initial research also made a major contribution to the M1A1 barrel reshape initiative that began in 1995. Shortly afterwards he was selected for a 1 year appointment to the United States Military Academy West Point where he taught Mathematics. Following these accomplishments he worked on the SADARM fire and forget projectile that was finally used in the second gulf war.
Since that time, circa 2002, his studies have focused on unmanned systems both air and ground. His team deployed a bomb finding robot named the LynchBot to Iraq late in 2004 and then again in 2006 deployed about a dozen more improved LynchBots to Iraq. His team also assisted in the deployment of 84 TACMAV systems in 2005. Around that time he volunteered as a science advisor and worked at the Rapid Equipping Force during the summer of 2005 where he was exposed to a number of unmanned systems technologies. His initial group composed of about 6 S&T grew to nearly 30 between 2003 and 2010 as he transitioned from a Branch head to an acting Division Chief. In 2010-2012 he again was selected to teach Mathematics at the United States Military Academy West Point. Upon returning to ARL's Vehicle Technology Directorate from West Point he has continued his research on unmanned systems under ARL's Campaign for Maneuver as the Associate Director of Special Programs. Throughout his career he has continued to teach at a variety of colleges and universities. For the last 4 years he has been a part time instructor and collaborator with researchers at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (http://me.umbc.edu/directory/). He is currently an Assistant Professor at York College PA.
Jason Forsyth is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at York College of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD from Virginia Tech in May 2015. His major research interests are in wearable and pervasive computing. His work focuses on developing novel prototype tools and techniques for interdisciplinary teams.
Cara Sperbeck (csperbeck6@gmail.com) is currently an undergraduate senior pursing her BS in Computer Engineering from York College of Pennsylvania. She has worked at Northrop Grumman as a Digital Technology FPGA firmware designer (co-op) and Intelligent Automation Inc. as a Robotics and Software Control Engineering Intern. Cara has received the Who’s Who Among Colleges and Universities Award in January 2017 and was inducted into Alpha Chi National Honor Society for being in the top 5% in York College Junior Class in October 2016. She has also received the Engineering Society of York (PA) Award for being the top Sophomore Electrical/Computer Engineer in April 2016. Cara’s current research interests include Digital Design, FPGA design, Robotics, and Computer programming.
Major: Computer Science
Minor: Mathematics
Areas of interest: machine learning, web development
In this student led undergraduate research paper we present a robotics project using the Robot Operating System (ROS). The purpose of this student paper is to document their learning path and steps taken for a project using three related, but independent student projects so that others might benefit from the details. The students worked together initially to learn enough about ROS and it's development environment so that they might employ it. Thus far the use of ROS has primarily been focused on graduate studies where improvements to the underlying algorithms and techniques have been made. In this undergraduate approach no such attempts are made in improving the foundation algorithms already developed by top researchers and schools. Rather, the students employed published techniques to provide the foundation of their work. Specifically, the project used the Turtle-bot architecture and modules within ROS to create the components of a cooperative robotic mission. The crux of the mission is for one of the robots to autonomously explore and map an area of the engineering building while leaving bread-crumbs behind for another robot to follow. A third robot comes behind the second and uses the information from the first two to locate tags distributed throughout the building. Each student made a portion of this project, that could stand alone, so that others could use these individual modules and details for their own projects without redoing what had been done here. The three parts were broken into mapping, tag recognition with robot leader follower operations, and object location and RF tag reading. It enabled students to use the existing sensors on the turtle- bot, while incorporating new devices to complete their particular missions. In this paper the students detail the learning path that was required to bring their individual technologies for their sub project to fruition. Using their initial code and techniques will enable others to duplicate and expand at a quicker pace. We have already seen this in the second semester as new students are tackling tasks of increased difficulty building on what was done here. Furthermore, the students detail the methods used and the code that they wrote to accomplish the tasks described. Finally, the students identified the technologies required to learn and the research they did as a criteria of merit. Additionally, a series of Youtube instructional videos and a file repository are available for others to use. All of the code developed is given on google drives and GitHub for others to use and is referenced at the end of this paper.
Wilkerson, S. A., & Forsyth, J., & Sperbeck, C., & Jones, M., & Lynn, P. D. (2017, June), A Student Project using Robotic Operating System (ROS) for Undergraduate Research Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--27515
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