Overview

Robobuggy Youtube Channel RoboBuggy is a research platform built to advance the state of human and robotic buggy technology. Our goal is to create an robotic buggy research platform that can autonomously navigate through the Sweepstakes course (for more information about CMU Sweepstakes, see www.cmubuggy.org). This platform will allow us to collect speed, acceleration, location, and visual data during rolls to use for testing purposes. Using the collected data, we will be able to perform tests on wheels, steering, driving paths, weight distribution, and pushing to see which methods give optimal results. Because it will not have a driver, we will be able to perform tests safely and repeatably. Updates: Saturday April 8th, Robobuggy successfully navigated around the Sweepstakes course with full autonomy. This is the first time an autonomous buggy has completed the entire course without any form of human intervention. The Robobuggy team is incredibly thankful to Sweepstakes and the CMU Robotics Club for all of their support and is excited to see everyone on raceday! History of Robobuggy: 1996 It is believed that RoboBuggy started by Matt White as a project in Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. Not much is known about RoboBuggy during this time. 2000-2001 RoboBuggy returned as part of a Arne Suppe's undergrad thesis, with the help of Shafeeq Sinnamohideen, and Maayan Roth. Although the system worked well, it was not able to navigate the entire course. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjs/robobuggy.html 2011 Alex Klarfeld and Nathaniel Barshay along with members of their fraternity, AEPI, worked on bringing the buggy back to life. http://robobuggy.blogspot.com/ 2013-Present Members of the CMU robotics club acquired the RoboBuggy, and have been working on modernizing the project. After a year of testing and data collection using the original robobuggy metal frame (know as Singularity), we built a new carbon fiber monocoque buggy (named Transistor). In 2015, during Transistor's first roll during Carnival, it successfully circumnavigated the course under teleoperated control during the timing heat. In April 2016, Transistor could successfully navigate the buggy course without human intervention at walking speeds. In April 2017, Transistor officially completed a roll around the course autonomously. The Buggies: Singularity Transistor