C-AAM Turret
For our project, we designed a functional 2-axis turret with several control capabilities:
- Automatic Color Tracking (Via OpenCV)
- Speech Control (Via HAM Radio)
- Keyboard Control (Via USB Input)
Featuring innovation in radio, mechanical, electrical, and AI Engineering. As a group of four, we each focused on one of these topics.
Meet the Team
Despite being an entirely freshman team, we took on quite an ambitious project. As for the leads for the different technological spaces, Karmanyaah (CS) led the Radio control side, Reed (CS) led the mechanical side, Colby (ECE) led the electrical design portion, and Sarthak (CS) led the AI side.
However, given our similar interests, we were all able to help each other out a little bit and bring fresh perspectives to each other's problems. Except Reed, because he is the punching bag of our group, and no one else knew/wanted to do the CAD 3D modeling and assembly.
Technological Focuses
In bridging all of these disciplines, we had to stay organized and did so through GitHub, where we not only hosted all of our code but also all of our CAD 3D models. Through GitHub and Discord, we communicated ideas and potential design inspirations and cross-checked our implementations.
Radio Design
One challenge we were uniquely well versed in was the radio challenge, and we decided to pass voice commands through a HAM radio to control our turret system.
Mechanical Design
The mechanical design was relatively simple, however, we ran into issues as far as manufacturing capabilities went. The issue is that our design requires some large plates which are typically ill-advised to do on a 3D printer (something we brought to the hackathon), as they take a long time when they can be made in other ways. However, we unfortunately did not have any additional methods of manufacturing such as a CNC or laser cutter.
ECE Design
The two major sides of the ECE challenge were designing the motion control and designing a method of controlling the Orbeez blaster firing. To control motion, we opted for 2 Nema17 stepper motors and a compliant PSU and stepper drivers. Then to control the firing of the Orbeez blaster, we initially were interested in using a servo before eventually opting to use an electric relay to integrate directly with the electronics in the Orbeez blaster.
AI Design
Using Python's OpenCV library, we were able to create a program that detected a color blob of a pre-defined color and could form a bounding box around it. Using this bounding box, we determined the center of the detected blob and therefore the direction in which we needed to turn our turret. When the detected target got close to the center of the camera frame, we fired it.
Inspiration & Applications
We were inspired by the CRAM (Counter Rocket Artillery and Missile) system largely used in military applications and wanted to bring a 2 axis turret platform to the non-military world for multi-purpose applications.
Construction / Mental Health: One major application we can see for this kind of technology is its potential usage in the construction world, and in doing so we wanted to target the source of these mental health-related issues. One harrowing statistic in the construction field is the fact that suicide causes more deaths than every other workplace-related fatality combined. One large cause for this is the poor and rough working conditions, which can be solved with the C-AAM platform. By shooting ambient dust in a workplace with the turret and a water hose attachment, the turret platform will mitigate dust within the environment and thus increase the working conditions and mental health of construction workers. This Wet dust mitigation tactic is already used in demolition projects throughout the world, however, existing turrets lack the kind of technological control with the C-AAM platform provides. The color detection system is capable of targeting construction equipment and machines, while other methods of control offer intuitive and easy methods of control over long distances (via the HAM radio).
FireFighting: An extremely positive application for this project can also be seen in Firefighting. Our C-AAM platform is capable of recognizing large blobs of colors as seen in fires and triggering a firing mechanism, which in this case may also be a water hose. Similarly, the intuitive control will enable firefighters to target fires faster and with greater efficiency.
Agriculture: Considering the importance of water management in agriculture, it would be a very realistic possibility to target water-ridden sections of land with a turret, considering "stupid" water turrets are already used in many agricultural applications. With a smart turret like the C-AAM, the blob detection ability will let us target dry areas of a field (which may be due to a lack of proper watering).
DoD: The final potential large application of this turret can be seen in the Department of Defense, something already implemented with the C-RAM system.
What's next for C-AAM Turret
Despite our success in making a turret, we as a team still have an interest in making a fully fleshed-out and working turret with a better structural design and better potential targeting software.
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