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Session 1048

Fuzzy Mobile Robots: A Student Design Workshop Rocio Alba-Flores, Marian S. Stachowicz

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Minnesota Duluth, MN 55812

ralbaflo@d.umn.edu, mstachow@d.umn.edu

Abstract

This paper describes the Design Workshop course offered at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE) at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). This workshop course is one mechanism by which students completing the ECE program at UMD can satisfy the requirement for a senior design project. The design workshop topic for the spring 2002 was the use of fuzzy logic to control mobile robots. In this workshop, students worked in small groups and were required to design, build and program a mobile robot with intelligent behaviors using fuzzy logic. In this workshop no formal lectures were taught, however the students received an intensive review covering the topics of the 68HC12 microcontroller, principles of mobile robots, sensors, and fuzzy logic.

Introduction

In the last decade, the topic of mobile robots has become very attractive to engineering students. It has been shown that students working in this topic show more interest in learning digital electronics, microcontrollers, and analog circuits, and we think that this is because they see an immediate application of the subjects they are learning.

Fuzzy logic has emerged as a practical alternative that provides a convenient method to implement nonlinear controllers. Fuzzy controllers work differently than conventional controllers; expert knowledge is used instead of differential equations to describe a system. This knowledge can be expressed in a very natural way using linguistic variables, which are described by fuzzy sets.

Fuzzy logic-based systems can be found in a variety of applications such as the controlling of subway systems and complex industrial processes, as well as for household and entertainment electronics, diagnosis systems and other expert systems. Fuzzy logic has been used primarily on large-scale computing systems and personal computers. The introduction of Motorola's

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Stachowicz, M., & Alba-Flores, R. (2003, June), Fuzzy Robots Design Workshop Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--11403