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Meet the Wifi Robot Team
August 9, 2005
A section of the website has been added to show the people working on the Wifi Bot Project.

>> meet the team

Parts have been shipped
August 8, 2005
EZL-80 from Data Flow Systems has arrived so our parts requirements are almost met.

>> new parts

Website Debuts
August 8, 2005

Thanks to NWACC for the support to explore the feasibility of wireless robots...

>> read about the NWACC Grant
 


Welcome to the Wireless ECE Bot Project

A project submitted by Dr. Richard Wolff, ECE professor at Montana State, it was awarded an NWACC Grant in May 2004.
>> Read the grant proposal here

  The goals of this NWACC grant are to develop an 802.11 b/g wireless interface for the Montana State University mobile robot, to install the complementary wireless infrastructure in our teaching labs, and to modify the curriculum of our microcomputer software engineering course, EE371­ Microprocessor Hardware and Software Systems­to incorporate robot-centered instruction. This will enable the students to program and control the mobile robot in real time over the wireless network and to measure outcomes in real time. These additions will be leveraged by other courses in communications and control systems in the future.
The mobile robot is currently used in our basic first year introductory engineering course, EE101, where students learn engineering skills by constructing and testing the roving robots.   Our intention is to actively engage promising young engineering students in the fields of electronics, robotics and embedded computer systems­-areas of ever-increasing importance to this nation's goals in communications, transportation, and space exploration.  Since Because each of our students will now have a mobile and programmable robot, we can capitalize on their experience by utilizing the robots as a teaching platform in subsequent courses.  Specifically, we propose to incorporate wireless communication technology between the robots and laptop or tablet computers to support student learning in communications, embedded systems, and control.

From a related Senior Project:
Overall Goal: Use a mature wireless technology, such as 802.11, to build a radio system and provide robot-to-robot communication and robot-to-stationary controller communication, without being dependent on a base station.
- write software for the stationary controller and any additional hardware to manage IP addresses and allow for an "ad hoc" system.
- establish and document the methods of wireless communication for groups to use in the future.
- software should set up the ability to send simple commands throughout the system to different components.
- an educational tool

EZL-80

Parts Requirements and Project Layout

We've made a number of design desisions to enable the project to go forward.  The EZL-80 from Sollae, a Prism 2.5 compatible PCMCIA card, a PCMCIA socket from Digikey, the CSM12C32 module from Motorola, and a CAN transceiver basically make up the system that will allow us to communicate to the robot microcontroller

>> more information

   
Robot

The ECE Bot Project

The ECE Bot is becoming a major part of the curriculum of the ECE department at Montana State University.  View the EE 101 webpage and see how the robot is being integrated into classroom learning.

>> EE 101 Robot Page

 

 
 
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