Session 1

Mobile Robotics

Let the robot move with hands-on experiences

The course introduces students to mobile robotics which can be seen in many areas such as vacuum cleaning robots (iRobot Roomba), delivering foods at restaurants, moving packages at warehouses like Amazon fulfillment Center, self-driving mobile vehicles, medical service robots that deliver materials to save lives and to communicate between doctors and patients and the military. 

Mobile robotics depends on locomotion (propelling to move such as electric motors) and perception (sensing technology).  You will learn about basic electronics, electrical circuits for testing sensors, and basic programming (C/C++) to control robot propulsion to achieve goals such as line tracking, obstacle avoidance, object following or vision sensing for obtaining goals used in many applications.

Curriculum

You will learn from constructing circuits to test sensors and programming (C/C++, or python) to control the robot. The mobile robotics course is a fun hands-on experience that includes:

  • A statically stable robot frame to learn robot mechanisms
  • DC-motors with encoder sensors to measure traveling distance
  • An Arduino (microcontroller)-based programming via a computer-based IDE (integrated development environment)
  • Hardware that instructs the robot to execute commands to move the robot autonomously
  • A breadboard for constructing circuits to learn electronics for robotic systems
mobile robots
Planned Topics

The course has multiple sections using different sensors for robots to:

  • Navigate different terrains including flat floor to Mars-like terrain
  • Track lines (black or white)
  • Detect obstacles
  • Follow objects
  • Use camera vision and image processing technologies
  • Be controlled using remote IR controllers, joysticks or smartphones

Each section includes lab sessions to explore scientific, physics-based learning, to help students understand what goes on behind the scenes when a robot moves.

 

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Dongbin Lee
Faculty Lead
Don Lee

Assistant Professor, ECPE (SOECS)

Ph.D., Clemson University, 2009

Dr. Dongbin "Don" Lee is an assistant professor in the ECPE department in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Pacific. He has expertise and interest in uncrewed robotic systems with control systems and AI/deep/machine learning techniques in application to self-driving autonomous vehicles, smart manufacturing, efficient solar-power systems, farmers-centered sustainable precision agriculture tech, vector control, EOD, drones and ATVs. Dr. Lee advises the solar-powered racing car club, builds student-centered projects at Pacific, advises student competition teams including robotics and supports STEM/MESA outreach. In addition, he was the recipient of several Oregon NASA space grants between 2017 and 2022.

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