Hi all,

I'm currently having my semester break before going continuing for my last semester for my degree in Mechatronics Engineering.

So.

I've given myself a deadline, that is by the end of this break, I should have decided on what my future path will be.

1. Continues postgrad and my ultimate aim, to be a researcher/lecturer.
2. Grad and work as an engineer, hopefully in an R&D department.

My area of interests are currently .... not quite as refined.

they include.

1. Robotics
2. AI


I like electronics/programming.. and I like to learn more on AI.. machine learning and etc.

But..

This decision will take me possibly 3 -4 years down the road.

So.

I hope to know more about a postgrad's lifestlye. financial opportunities, and responsibilities.

Thank you for chipping in your opinions. =D

My fyp is in the development of a Bio-Inspired Swarm of Mobile Robots that is able to(hopefully) Localize itself and the target.

basically, my project milestones would be

1. Develop self localization ability, with the limitation that the environment is known before hand, by using beacons.
2. Extend the ability for the swarm to be able to know where it is currently.
3. After which it will have a search strategy for a target as a swarm, that it will converge to.
4. That will ultimately give us a rough map/path towards the goal.



The practical applications of such swarms would be seen in disaster scenarios, where rescuers need to search for victims under rubble, as an example. It takes the idea of Swarm Intelligence from nature, such as Ants, Bees, and apply those concepts of co-operation between agents. The idea of a swarm of low-cost agents that has distributed processing means that no single agent is crucial to the mission, which means, throw one bot? it still works. Second bot fails? it still works.


But... currently, I'm still in the 1st phase, where I've overlooked the ... details needed in developing self-localization ability. It's all rosy in simulation and concept, but hardware implementation/algorithm? Nightmare. haha. Localization's a vast area of research on it's on... SLAM is an ongoing research.. even in the military.
Still persevering though. Might consider some lost in accuracy to trade for project completion.


Honestly, I'm a person that have zero interest in mechanics. I'm more of a code/concept guy.
Also my control theory is not exactly sound. I can use it, but I'm not fond of it.

All my semester projects till now have concentrated on electronics and software.
Cheap Pulse Rate Detector that clamps onto ur fingers.
Cheap energy saving controller circuit for automatic lamp posts.(abit lame, but the concept and circuit is sound)
Vision Based Intruder Recognition
and etc..

I'm learning on my own about neural nets and genetic algorithms(GA). Planning to implement it in my fyp, when my fyp's underlying foundations are set.



Any comments?

I have found my way. TQ all. =)....

=)

well, in simulation at least


they are able to have an emergent behavior of path chaining just from simple rules.

imagine releasing a bunch of these micro swarms in future to search for victims in disaster areas. you'll be able to follow the paths created by them to the victim to save them.

now i'm working on getting position information from the path itself, so that before you even follow the path, you already know the coordinates of the victim at the end of the path.

I am currently in midst of indecision. haha.

am in the process of weighing in all pros and cons and future.

I am currently in midst of indecision. haha.

am in the process of weighing in all pros and cons and future.