Articles from April 2010



Prometheus Presented to the WPI Public

On April 22nd, Team Prometheus presented the current progress of their vehicle to the WPI public on the senior project presentation day. Below are a couple of images from the event. Spectators gathered around the vehicle inquiring about everything, as excited about the project as the team!

Added Hardware and Skins

The vehicle now has a new power distribution board located in the back behind the motors. It also has the electronics and sensors mounted. The top and sides have been covered with a thin sheet of polycarbonate to protect against rain water.

Prometheus Is Moving!

Today was the first time running the vehicle under manual control outside of the lab. During the test, we decided to try and move up a steep incline. The link below will open the video file.
Video: prometheus_vs_hill

Also, here are a few pictures of the robot with the top cover in place.

Chassis Base Ready for Testing

The Chassis base is now functional and ready to do test drives.At the rear, two sets of custom sprockets was CNC machined in house and mounted on each drive motor and rear wheel. The rear wheel assembly was modified to accommodate the added sprockets. Optical encoders were attached to the drive motors at the rear end of [...]

Disparity Map

We have successful created a disparity map from our two Stereo images.  An initial estimate of the disparity between the left and right images was attained using a sum squared difference algorithm.  This algorithm attempts to match 5×5 blocks of pixels in the left image to the right image.  If a good enough match is [...]

Software Team Update

These past few weeks the software development team has been preparing for the project presentation day. The following requirements have to be met in order to reach our goal of having a qualifying robot for the IGVC.

Making sure the Control Center (CC) and joystick work on the laptop which will be used during the [...]

Functioning Chassis Wheels

The steering front wheel is completely constructed (it works!) and the back wheels are attached. The only thing left to do is attach the motor encoders to the motors and we are ready to do some drive testing.
Here’s a picture of the team testing the front steering because we were to eager to see [...]