Autonomous Delivery Robot
Computer Engineer
As part of my Computer Engineering degree, I am working with a team of engineers from different backgrounds to build an autonomous delivery robot, which will be used mainly indoors within factories or other compounds to deliver materials from one area to another.
Being one of the computer engineers in this team, my tasks are to write software to allow the robot to navigate without the use of a controller, which entails good path planning as well as obstacle avoidance.
My Contributions:
Implemented robust pathfinding algorithms to optimize the robot's navigation in various environments.
Integrated mapping software to enable real-time generation and updating of maps, facilitating accurate localization and navigation for the robot.
Engineered sophisticated object avoidance algorithms, utilizing sensor data fusion techniques to detect and evade obstacles, enhancing the robot's safety and autonomy during operation.
What I learned:
While not necessarily game dev-related, throughout this project, I learned a lot about robotics and automation that also applies to game development, specifically in programming AIs in games. For example, I gained hands-on experience in implementing robust pathfinding algorithms and mapping techniques to enable the delivery bot to navigate complex environments, avoiding obstacles and optimizing delivery routes - something I had done many times in game engines but never for a physical robot.
In addition, I had the opportunity to work with people from a variety of different fields, and I had to adapt to communicating with teammates who had different ideas of how things worked and who had different vocabulary for similar concepts. For example, though I was strictly a programmer for this project, I learned of many mechanical or electrical concepts that also apply to automation, in the same way I’d learn about how art or sound might work in games from people of those disciplines.