A Robust Platform for Mobile Robotics Teaching and Developing Using Arduino’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Programming the Arduino MEGA 2560

In light of the rapid pace at which development happens with modern technology, mobile robots play an important role in our daily lives. This is due to their great importance in facilitating the affairs of life in various economic, commercial, industrial, scientific, and many other fields. In this research and project, we have restructured the microcontroller and system for one of the mobile robots (CEENBOT) that was designed by the University of Nebraska and replaced it with an Arduino Mega 2560. The purpose of using the Arduino Mega 2560 robot is to provide alternative programming for the CEENBOT platform to support an Arduino programming option. It is an open-source program which makes it easily accessible for developers and programmers. The Arduino Mega 2560 is an open-source electronics platform built on easy-to-use hardware and software. The Arduino Mega 2560 robot provides one of the most accessible ways to install different sensors and can be used in different aspects or applications that can be useful for mobile robotics teaching and development. Following the completion of this research and project, the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln will be able to enhance its existing robotics course offerings using this robot. New laboratories have been created for teaching and development in this research. The laboratories include Simulink Getting Started, Simulink with Arduino Mega 2560, Integrated development environment IDE Getting Started with Arduino Mega 2560, Getting to Know the Robot Hardware, Getting Started on Moving the Robot, Obstacle Avoidance, Wireless Communication, and Create Your Own Lab Adventure. Advisors: Alisa Gilmore and Bing Che

Modular Design of an Educational Robotics Platform

The goal of this thesis is to design a modular educational robotics platform to improve the limitation of current educational robotics platforms, such as limited pins, single programming language, and single programming device. This platform uses an SPI bus for modularity and to solve the problem of limited pins on current educational robot platforms. A Raspberry Pi, which runs a 32bit Embedded Linux System, has been used to build the central control for this educational robotics platform to enable it to use different programming languages and to be programmed by different devices. The modules and libraries for stepper motors and IR sensors have been built for this robot, and the example projects, basic control, obstacle avoidance, and wall following, show that this educational robotics platform can be used as a platform for basic artificial intelligence design. This thesis also shows how to design a custom module, which enables users to design their own modules and put them into their robot projects