Perception and Sensor Integration

This unit covers the design, construction, and software integration of sensing and perception subsystems for robots, including light, temperature, motion, speech, and camera systems. Students build and test sensor hardware, implement embedded and networked software for data acquisition and transmission (tethered and wireless), and apply camera mounting and positioning strategies to support higher-level robot behaviors.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze sensor characteristics and environmental constraints to select appropriate light, temperature, motion, audio, and video sensors for defined robotic tasks, justifying selections by range, accuracy, bandwidth, and latency requirements.
• Design and build functioning sensor subsystems (temperature, motion, light, speech, and camera) including mounting, wiring, basic signal conditioning, and bench testing to demonstrate reliable hardware operation.
• Implement and debug embedded and host software to acquire, process, and transmit sensor data—incorporating basic speech processing and video streaming—and demonstrate real-time data handling over tethered and wireless links.
• Evaluate integrated perception systems in realistic scenarios by testing camera positioning, wireless data link reliability, motion detection accuracy, and overall sensor fusion outcomes, and recommend improvements for performance and robustness.