Fully autonomous game

[EricH]

I wasn't going to jump in on this... but then I remembered back between the 2010 and 2011 offseasons, someone threw out a challenge to make a fully-autonomous FRC robot. A bunch of folks were seriously thinking of taking him up on it.

Now I'd go into the technical details of what even a fairly simple FRC robot would need for full autonomy, but I don't want to take too long. I'll simply point out that my senior design project in college (a robot) was supposed to be fully autonomous, for a simple (single-purpose) task, and even with only 8 sensors (4 drivetrain encoders, 2 location cameras with defined targets, 2 current sensors, IIRC) and a very simple robot (4 wheels, 1-joint arm with a wrist) we couldn't do it in 2 semesters (9 months). Theoretically, it's not that hard to "drive out X distance, lower arm, drive Y, raise arm, locate base and return", but we still couldn't do it autonomously, though the programmers figured that they could probably have finished it given a little more time. (We ended up ditching all the sensors except maybe the current sensors and just driving manually--which code was done pretty quickly.)

Can it be done? I'm not saying it can't, particularly on a "do this when instructed and I don't want to have to control it all" level. But it is going to take some serious commitment, or a game that requires autonomous operation outside of the 15 seconds, to get more than a few dreamers to make the attempt. And in 6 weeks? I think maybe some groundwork gets laid well ahead of time.

[scooty199]

While I am a CS major and was a programmer for my FRC team and love the idea of autonomous and the challenge behind full autonomous competitions, I just don't see the benefit of implementing it in FRC.

While FRC has to make a challenging platform for its participants, it also has to make some form of an attractive showing for the spectators it does have. That comes in the form of human interaction and driving. As said previously, there's an exhilaration and excitement factor when you add the human element. FRC thrives on it as I've seen.


That said if they ever want to lengthen the time of autonomous to 30 seconds I'd love to see what the future members of the team I'm mentoring can do.

In addition, I believe the competition that does it best in terms of autonomous might be VEX U, 1 whole minute for autonomous allows a lot of freedom and capabilities out there.

[evanperryg]

Although driving and a few functions of the robot are human-controlled, many features are autonomous. On my team's robot, these include shooter angle adjustment (PID), shooter angle brake(allows us to fix our shooter in a single position, very useful), full court alignment, shot timing(robot won't fire unless the angle and wheel speed are right). Some teams made their climb autonomous, just drive up and press a button and the robot does it all itself.

[Invictus3593]

Originally Posted by scooty199

...if they ever want to lengthen the time of autonomous to 30 seconds I'd love to see what the future members of the team I'm mentoring can do.

I think making autonomous 30 seconds would require more revision that FIRST wants to do right now. With that kind of time and these same sort of games, robots would be sitting idle for about 15 extra seconds, including the ones who went and grabbed other frisbees for a 7-throw autonomous.

[yash101]

Originally Posted by Hypnotoad

By defenition, a robot is "A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically." (with google as my witness). Now, Traditionally, FRC "robots" operate on their own for fifteen seconds and are controlled by human operators for the rest of the match. We know that autonomous mode is not often very complex in robots, and the complex task of moving to the feeder station, loading frisbees, finding a suitable firing position, aiming, firing, and later climbing, are not being performed automatically.

What I am getting at is that the machines we build are not "robots", but are instead really fancy RC cars. Now, that doesn't make them any less awesome (these are some REALLY fancy RC cars), but it does make them less... well... robotic.

This is not a problem on the mechanical side of things as whether or not the robot is fully autonomous or not does not affect their learning of CAD, power tools, milling, etc. This does, however, limit the programming because there simply isn't anything to code that the driver and operator won't do better. Why make a PID loop if humans are already the best PID controllers you could have.? Why make vision tracking code when humans are faster than code at lining up shots and firing?

This could be just a personal complaint that only I have, but I want to know from you guys.

So what is keeping us from making our robots fully autonomous as things are right now? If people really want to make autonomous robots why not just make them? Absolute position tracking, or rather lack thereof. The robot cannot on it's own know its exact position. GPS deprived navigation is not even a fully developed military technology yet, let alone tech that our robots can use. If the robot were to know its actual position on the field, both rebound rumble and ultimate ascent would be perfectly playable as is by a fully autonomous robot.

The actual methods of doing this can be discussed on the technical forum if the idea catches on. I suspect a localized gps style system would do the trick quite easily, but there are always multiple ways of doing something.

Yes. I agree!
Please do not feel offended by this, anyone. Our "robots" are not robots. They are more-or-less remote controlled cars meant to carry out a special function

[EricH]

Originally Posted by yash101

Yes. I agree!
Please do not feel offended by this, anyone. Our "robots" are not robots. They are more-or-less remote controlled cars meant to carry out a special function

We've discussed this before, on a couple of occasions. Consensus says:

They ARE robots--but they are a special class of robots known as "telerobots". They fall into a similar category as bomb disposal robots, possibly some drones, and any robot operating under a "learning" mode that is being directly controlled by a human, as well as Mars rovers. These robots are mostly under operator control, but are also capable of running autonomously (and to one degree or another, they all have some autonomy).

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Hypnotoad

By defenition, a robot is "A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically." (with google as my witness). Now, Traditionally, FRC "robots" operate on their own for fifteen seconds and are controlled by human operators for the rest of the match. We know that autonomous mode is not often very complex in robots, and the complex task of moving to the feeder station, loading frisbees, finding a suitable firing position, aiming, firing, and later climbing, are not being performed automatically.

What I am getting at is that the machines we build are not "robots", but are instead really fancy RC cars. Now, that doesn't make them any less awesome (these are some REALLY fancy RC cars), but it does make them less... well... robotic.

Originally Posted by yash101

Yes. I agree!
Please do not feel offended by this, anyone. Our "robots" are not robots. They are more-or-less remote controlled cars meant to carry out a special function

Originally Posted by EricH

We've discussed this before, on a couple of occasions. Consensus says:

They ARE robots--but they are a special class of robots known as "telerobots". They fall into a similar category as bomb disposal robots, possibly some drones, and any robot operating under a "learning" mode that is being directly controlled by a human, as well as Mars rovers. These robots are mostly under operator control, but are also capable of running autonomously (and to one degree or another, they all have some autonomy).

Eric is correct—and unfortunately, you two are not. The Wikipedia article describes the nuances much better than the simple dictionary definition that forms the premise of this thread.

If that's not good enough, consider that autonomy can be expressed in both large and small scales. Even a feedback control system like a PID loop is to some degree autonomous, even if the overall direction is being provided by a human.


As for making FRC robots fully autonomous in a game similar to past ones, it could be done—at the cost of most of the teams after the first year, and a dramatically lower level of competition. Barring a much more capable basic software and hardware platform, situationally-aware robots are really hard to build. One of the most important characteristics of that awareness would be a grasp of strategy, but that may well require knowledge of the state of the game in real time—something which isn't yet passed to the robots by the field, and which is very hard to sense directly.

Another way to solve it is to play a different kind of game. Perhaps something like FLL, where there is no opposition to add randomness to the game. I don't think I'd like that.

[Hypnotoad]

I guess the game creators disagree with me, as evidenced by this even simpler (programming wise) game.

[Ernest314]

I wouldn't go as far as to want a fully-autonomous game--but the few seconds we do have seems rather pathetic (no offense). I really don't know what the GDC should do, but the current situation seems inadequate. Sure, we need "the human element" and excitement; the fact that FRC is a spectator sport is a good thing. But to accomplish FIRST's mission:

"[...] to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership"

requires more than making students and the public feel like robotics is "cool." There needs to be something more. I get that many teams already struggle with the challenge of the game, but that doesn't mean we should set a limit on how much students can accomplish. Instead, there should be easy tasks as well as difficult ones--I think FIRST is doing a great job with this, for example having part of the autonomous be simply "drive forward".

Back to the definition of "robotics." Notice how the mission statement doesn't even mention that word? FIRST is interested in STEM, not robots in specific. "Robotics" is simply the medium (if you will) that they chose to spread their message. I do agree with OP on the definition of robotics though: even though there are ways to argue for what is and isn't a robot (and teleoperated robots are robots, kinda), current research into robotics is mostly in the autonomous realm. Just take a look at the articles on IEEE Spectrum! So autonomous operation of robots definitely should be emphasized, not just swept under the rug. This could be a selling point; imagine FIRST advertising that they were inspiring students to build robots that performed advanced autonomous tasks. FIRST really can't say that right now.

How should this be done? I don't know. I'm sure the GDC can come up with something though. Give robots more difficult tasks, along with easy ones. Vision targeting is cool, but that hasn't changed from year to year. And the algorithms that students have to use is very simple, compared to some of the mechanical things that students have to accomplish. (Maybe I'm overstating this because I'm a programmer.) Whatever happens, students shouldn't ever be limited by the program.

That was a long first post.

(On a side-note: I realize what people mean when they say that PID is an automated thing, but come on...)

[wilhitern1]

Sorry I haven't read the whole thread. Anyway, here's my view. Perhaps 30% of teams have an effective autonomous at the regionals that I've been to. You'd basically be eliminating 2/3 of the teams. They might as well stop coming.

Instead, how about having a separate contest each year. Teams could sign up for it. unopposed scoring. Highest score wins.

Neal