UWE Bristol Engineering showcase 2015

Sef Riaz
BEng
Project Supervisor
Dr Mokhtar Nibouche
Design and implementation of a firefighting robot
Three different types of sensors were implemented these were proximity sensors for the purpose of obstacle avoidance of the robot,
a smoke sensor to enable the robot to detect is a large fire is giving off emissions, and an IR sensor that is tuned to the wavelength of
fire. The sensors will be interfaced with the commonly used robot platform in the labs called the MARCO. The brain of the MARCO Is
a DE0 Nano board which contains an FPGA.
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Project summary
The purpose of this project was to design
and implement different types of sensors and
interface them with an FPGA and a robot
platform. Using VHDL and C programming, a
firefighting functionality was implemented.
Project Objectives
Design and implement different types of
sensors that will be useful for mobile robots
and fire detection systems i.e proximity ,
near-IR, UV, Smoke. These sensors need to
be tunned and filtered such that they can
function effectively when interfaced with the
FPGA
Figure above shows a waveform of
the proximity sensor that was
implemented . It works by using a
collpits oscillator to pulse IR LEDs
at 1KHz and a high-pass filter with
a cut-off frequency of 500Hz was
used to filter out all voltage signals
produced from ambient light.
Using VHDL a different hardware configuration
was implemented on the FPGA such that the
hardware/sortware control of the robot could be
optimised.
On the right is a 2DOF robotic
manipulator which the sensor will be
mounted on . This will allow the robot to
scan the room for IR emissions that may
correspond to EM radiation emitted
from a flame.
Figure above shows the voltage drop produced when a
low pass filter of very specific cutoff frequency is
implemented and the output of a flame sensor is passed
through it . The cut-off frequency was 6Hz this attenuated
weak signals which entered the sensor at an angle hence
producing a highly directional flame sensor
Project Conclusion
This was a relatively successful project which
involved the implementation of three
different types of sensors and successfully
integrated them with the MARCO. However
the robotic manipulator was only
implemented with one degree of freedom
however there is a lot of further work that
can be done on this project . For example
implementing a machine to machine
communication system between different
robot units such that a swarm of firefighting
robots can be used to patrol a large area or
building.