ECE.27 – Autonomous Quadruped Robot
Team Members Heading link
- Alexander Domagala
- Emily Hernandez
- Jon Perthel
- Pranay Singh
Project Description Heading link
Autonomous systems are becoming increasingly prevalent and have an expected market growth of ~20% annually through 2027. With advances in technologies such as computer vision and machine learning, autonomous systems can be applied to many different industries including automotive, manufacturing, and agriculture. UIC’s Robotics and Motion Laboratory is looking to upgrade their Unitree A1 quadruped robot with an autonomous navigation system to assist with automated testing of the robot. We have designed a computer vision based autonomous system capable of detecting and avoiding objects in the robot’s path of travel. This system mounts and interfaces directly with the quadruped robot. Testing showed that we exceeded our goals of identifying static and dynamic obstacles in the robot’s path and maneuvering away from those obstacles to prevent collisions. As an added feature, we also implemented an object following algorithm where the robot can be set to follow an object of a certain color.