Difference between revisions of "S15: Connect Four - Robotic Player"

Revision as of 10:58, 23 May 2015

Grading Criteria

Artificially-Intelligent Connect Four Robot

Robo Dance: Robots have feelings too.

Abstract

Connect Four - Four in a Row, Column, or Diagonal

Play Connect Four against an Artificially Intelligent robot with variable difficulty. Prepare to test your ability to think into the future and your proficiency at connecting your pieces against an ideal player. Connect Four

Objectives & Introduction

The objectives of this project is to implement a robotic connect four player with the same capabilities as a human being with respect to the task of connecting pieces by inserting them into one of seven columns at the top of the board. Just as a human can see where his opponent has played his move and can insert his next move into the board, this robot will implement imitations of these basic human abilities.

Team Members & Responsibilities

   Matthew Carlis   (Jack of all Trades) - Hardware/Mechanical, 
                                           Artificial Intelligence,
                                           System Architect,
                                           Technical Writer.
                                                                
   Alexander Koumis (Image/Driver Guru)  - Drivers,
                                           Image Processing,
                                           Software Interfaces.

Status Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txRglMCjcsI&feature=youtu.be

Schedule

Parts List & Cost

Give a simple list of the cost of your project broken down by components. Do not write long stories here.

Driving a Stepper Motor

Design & Implementation

System Diagram

The following graphic provides a high-level representation of the system's various software/hardware/human interfaces:

Hardware Design

Discuss your hardware design here. Show detailed schematics, and the interface here.

Hardware Interface

In this section, you can describe how your hardware communicates, such as which BUSes used. You can discuss your driver implementation here, such that the Software Design section is isolated to talk about high level workings rather than inner working of your project.

• Physical Layer Interfaces
  • SPI - Pixy Camera
  • Bluetooth - Laptop Communication
  • PWM (stepper) - 1 Wire PWM with 2 Control Signals.
  • PWM (servo) - 2 Wire PWM.

Software Design

The system's software interfaces are comprised of the following components (organized by their respective hardware hosts):

• Laptop
  • Bluetooth socket interface (Python) Github
  • Connect 4 AI (Python) Github
    • MiniMax Algorithm with Alpha/Beta Pruning
• SJSU One
  • GameTask (C++) Github
  • MotorTask (C++) Github
  • PixyTask (C++) Github
    • PixyBrain (C++) Github
    • PixyEyes (C++) Github
    • PixyMouth (C++) Github

Bluetooth Socket Interface

Connect 4 AI

GameTask

MotorTask

PixyTask

Drivers for the Pixy were designed using Ozmekian system principles (every machine characteristic/action has a corresponding human analogue). The Pixy's primary tasks as part of Konnector is to send the location and coordinates of human-inserted Connect 4 game chips to the SJSU One board. This involves recording location/coordinate information of incoming blobs, performing statistical analysis on said blobs, and subsequently notifying other system components once a human chip-insertion has been detected. The Pixy's software interface is therefore comprised of the classes PixyBrain, PixyEyes, and PixyMouth, each one encompassing the corresponding facilities that would be required of a human assuming the same role.

Following the same analogy, PixyTask can be thought of as the "consciousness" of the system, interfacing directly only with the 'Pixy' class, defining actions for the individual components to take in response to recorded state/external input, using the templated 'FuncMap_t' utility class to define arbitrary responses to a specified datatype (State_t in this context):

template<typename KEY_T, typename FUN_T, typename ... ARG_T>
struct FuncMap_t
{
    map<KEY_T, function<FUN_T(ARG_T ... xArgs)>> fpMap;
    void vSetHandler(KEY_T xElem, function<FUN_T(ARG_T ... xArgs)> fnHandler)
    {
        fpMap[xElem] = fnHandler;
    }
    function<FUN_T(ARG_T ... xArgs)>& vResponse(KEY_T xElem)
    {
        return fpMap[xElem];
    }
};

A function is defined to respond to each of the following system states (Github):

enum State_t
{
    RESET=0x01,          // SW(1)
    EMA_ALPHA_UP=0x02,   // SW(2)
    EMA_ALPHA_DOWN=0x04, // SW(3)
    SW_4=0x08,           // SW(4)
    CALIB=16,
    WAITING_FOR_HUMAN=17,
    WAITING_FOR_BOT=18,
    ERROR=19
} eState, eLastState;

The system typically alternates between states 'WAITING_FOR_HUMAN' and 'WAITING_FOR_BOT', defined by the following (pseudo-code) functions:

xFuncMap->vSetHandler(WAITING_FOR_BOT, [&] ()
{
    PixyCmd_t xBotInsertCmd;
    if (xQueueReceive(getSharedObject(shared_PixyQueue), &xBotInsertCmd))
    {
        PixyBrain->lBotInsert(xBotInsertCmd);
        eState = WAITING_FOR_HUMAN;
    }
    else
    {
        eState = WAITING_FOR_BOT;
    }
});

Functions are involved during FreeRTOS' implicit 'void run(void)' function by calling the following helper:

    
bool run(void *p)
{
    pPixy->vAction(SW.getSwitchValues());
    return true;
}

PixyBrain

PixyBrain functions are invoked to handle processing of incoming data from PixyEyes, converting raw data into messages of interest to deliver to the higher-level (Python) AI code. The handler set for the 'WAITING_FOR_HUMAN' state exhibits this relationship, with the 'PixyBrain' pointer dereferencing 'PixyEyes' to use the blocks it has 'seen':

    
xFuncMap->vSetHandler(WAITING_FOR_HUMAN, [&] ()
{
    pPixyBrain->lSampleChips(pPixyEyes.get());
    if (/* Human inserts chip */)
    {
        eState = WAITING_FOR_BOT;
    }
    else /* Insertion not detected */
    {
        eState = WAITING_FOR_HUMAN;
    }
});

PixyEyes

PixyEyes handles parsing raw Pixy input to the SJSU One. Example code [was provided] for this purpose but, unfortunately, did not function correctly under FreeRTOS' memory constraints.

PixyMouth

Implementation

This section includes implementation, but again, not the details, just the high level. For example, you can list the steps it takes to communicate over a sensor, or the steps needed to write a page of memory onto SPI Flash. You can include sub-sections for each of your component implementation.

Relationship between PWM frequency and wheel velocity. i.e lateral translation.

Testing & Technical Challenges

Describe the challenges of your project. What advise would you give yourself or someone else if your project can be started from scratch again? Make a smooth transition to testing section and described what it took to test your project.

Include sub-sections that list out a problem and solution, such as:

My Issue #1

Discuss the issue and resolution.

Conclusion

Conclude your project here. You can recap your testing and problems. You should address the "so what" part here to indicate what you ultimately learnt from this project. How has this project increased your knowledge?

Project Video

Upload a video of your project and post the link here.

Project Source Code

• Sourceforge Source Code Link (Project Baseline)
• Connect Four:
  • release - Final implementation of combined features.
  • Feature Branches:
    • motor - Stepper motor driver implementation.
    • pixy - Pixy camera driver implementation.
    • xbee - Bluetooth xbee driver implementation

References

Acknowledgement

Any acknowledgement that you may wish to provide can be included here.

References Used

List any references used in project.

Appendix

You can list the references you used.