TASSA-X

CONTENTS

1.Who are we?

2. Our plan

3. Our team

4. Our Motive

5. Technology(Basic)

6. Technology (Advanced)

WHO ARE WE?

TASSA-X is a project initiated by a group of students from MIT, Manipal.

TASSA-X promises safer mines for tomorrow with the application of advanced technology that can help transform the mines from what we know them as today.

Our Plan

TASSA-X plans to build an advanced mobile robot equipped with numerous sensors for detecting changes in the underground mine atmosphere, map the changes in the structures of the mines in real time in 3D and help reduce human risks by easily learning about inaccessible or dangerous regions of a mine.

Our Team

Our team comprises of engineering students:

Mayank GuptaDept. of Mechatronics,MIT, Manipal

Aadarsh MehndirattaDept. of Mechatronics,MIT, Manipal

Anirban Ghosh,Dept. of MechanicalEngineering,MIT, Manipal

Satish ReddyDept. of MechanicalEngineering,

MIT, Manipal

Our Motive

• Many mine accidents in India including the worst Mine disaster (Chasnala Mine accident, which resulted in the death of 375 workers) are a result of improper mapping or failing to update the maps regularly and absence of advanced mobile sensor feedback systems.

• Our motive is to make the mines a safer place and at the same timeincrease productivity by not lettingraw material get wasted due to risksinvolved by intrusions of humans inthese areas.

Technology(Basic)

• Advanced RGBD camera onboard for 3-D mapping and visual odometry. Novel algorithms for calculating the volumetric dimensions around the mobile robot.

• Numerous gaseous sensorsfor air quality checks in theenvironment of the robot. The sensors shall include CH4, CO2, CO, NH3, NOx, etc. to name a few. 3-D point cloud of an underground mine

Technology(Basic)

• The Robot comes with the state of the art control panel to monitor and drive the robot from the control room wirelessly.

• Strong, durable and intelligently designed advanced mechanicaldesign to ease out locomotioninside the mine while enduringthe dust, water and externalstrains/impacts. Sample view of monitoring interface

Technology(Basic)

• Android interface for monitoring data on the go. The Mine shall be covered with Wifi network for communication purposes.

• IR cameras on board whichwill not hinder video feed even in darkness.

• Small sample collector mechanism for collecting and saving samples of the regolith for future analysis.

Technology(Basic)

• Piggy-back amphibian robot of a small dimension to enter through small crevices and gaps or water flooding with onboard wireless cameras and major sensors.

Technology(Advanced)

1. Electronics

2. Computer Vision

3. Electrical

4. Mechanical

5. Mining

Electronics

The major inspiration behind our electronics subsystem is to use off the shelf hardware yet technologically so advanced, that the future changes and modifications can easily be adapted.

Consumer’s comfort in the ease of running and modifying the equipment has been given extra attention.

Electronics

The major inspiration behind our electronics subsystem is to use off the shelf hardware yet technologically so advanced, that the future changes and modifications can easily be adapted.

Consumer’s comfort in the ease of running and modifying the equipment has been given extra attention.

Electronics

Basic Requirements

1. Windows Platform – We plan to use a simple windows platform so as to run softwares like visual c++, MATLAB, Labview, python etc. Simultaneously if required without the need for special expertise. This ensures, engineers with basic programming background can customize the software according to their mining company and mine requirements.

Electronics

Basic Requirements

2. MicroController- We plan to use off the shelf Arduino Due microcontrollers(Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3) for monitoring data from the sensors. The data is then sent to the onboard computer for number crunching through UART.

Electronics

Basic Requirements

3. Sensors – We require industrial grade, dust proof sensor encased in sealed packages to avoid misread of data.

4. Cameras- We plan to use a Microsoft Kinectfor RGBD video feed coupled with a high fps Pointgrey Flea3 1.3mp camera.

Electronics

Windows Platform

Windows is proved to be one of the most flexible operating systems around for developers around the world.

Our platform will use a Windows 7 operating system for the on board computer.

Electronics(Windows)

Windows PlatformThe Windows OS is to be mounted on an Intel Core i5-3337u Processor.Reasons: The 3337u is a low clockspeed(1.8GHz) dual core processor with turbo boost technology 2.0. This will ensure that in an idle state, the processor needs much lower power and save battery power. With the turbo boost technology the processor can reach speeds upto 2.7GHz.

Electronics(Windows)

MotherBoardWe plan to go with a high qualitymotherboard to perform withhigh durability. Gigabyte GA-H87N-WIFI is a 4th

generation intel supporting motherboard.GIGABYTE uses All Solid Caps (Capacitors) and Low RDS(on) MOSFETs which are rated to work at higher temperatures to provide a longer lifespan.It is categorized in the Ultra-Durable motherboards.

Electronics(Windows)

RAMCorsair Vengeance DDR3 4 GB (1 x 4 GB)4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 DIMMSSDIntel 520 120 GB SSD Internal Hard Drive (2.5 inch) . SATA 6.0 Gbps ( Compatible with the motherboard)Reason : In a rough terrain, a lot of vibrations are present. This makes the optical disk drive very tough to operate smoothly and computer crashes often.GPUThe motherboard comes with 1Gb integrated shared graphics memory. We shall add an additional dedicated graphics card if required in later stages.

Electronics(MicroController)

Microcontroller – Arduino DueThe Arduino Due is a microcontrollerboard based on the Atmel SAM3X8EARM Cortex-M3 CPU. Arduino is anopensource hardware that comes with pre-installed libraries to simplifythe interaction of physical units suchas sensors and actuators with thesoftware.

Electronics(MicroController)

Microcontroller – Arduino Due

The arduino Due comes loaded with 54 digital I/O pins, 12 pwm digital I/O pins and 12 analog Input pins.

It has an 84MHz processor and a 96KB SRAM.

Electronics(MicroController)

Kinect for Windows 2.0The Kinect for Windows sensor is a physical device with depth sensing technology, a built-in color camera, an infrared (IR) emitter, and a microphone array. The v2 sensor’s color camera is enhanced with full 1080p video.Depth sensing 512 x 484 30 Hz FOV: 70 x 601080p color camera 30 Hz (15 Hz in low light)New active infrared (IR) capabilities 512x484, 30 Hz

Electronics(MicroController)

PointGrey Cricket 1.3 MP Color IP (Sony IMX139)

PointGrey got this amazing product for industrial use at an entry level. It needs to be used to give a high quality crisp video feed/record to investigate the mine more clearly. Being an IP camera, it can easily feed video through common softwares like VLC. Here are the technical specifications:• Sony IMX139 1/3" CMOS• 1280 x 1024 at 60 FPS• Color• CS-Mount• RJ45 100Base-TX for data and power(PoE),

4-pin DC auto-iris connector• 88.1 x 44 x 32 mm

Mechanical Design

Basic Considerations• The Chassis needs to be built using a light weight aluminium alloy to keep the

weight of the robot under 30kg(inclusive all components). The weight needs to be set low for keeping convenience of transportation inside and outside the mine.

• A High ground clearance is kept for avoiding boulders from hitting the robot often. The casing of the robot helps prevent the components in any case.

• To allow maximum traction on the wet and marshy regions inside mines, a tank belt drive needs to be used instead of standard wheel design.

Mechanical Design

Basic designs

Mechanical Design

Basic designs

Mechanical Design

Basic designs

Mechanical Design

Secondary shaft

The secondary shaft is usedto eliminate direct shocks tothe motors in case of impacts.

The secondary shaft is containedin a bearing housing with collars as shown in the figure.

Mechanical Design

Motor Vibration Control

The motors can give out huge vibrations on full load. Balsa wood has been used to suppress some vibrations. Balsa is a light weight addition known to take a few shocksand has high strength to weight ratio.

Mechanical Design

Double Gear system

The Robot is driven through a double gearsystem where the primary motor shaft drivesthe compound secondary shaft. The biggergear/sprocket on the secondary shaft drivesthe tank belt drive. This assures maximum power transmission in case of getting stuck inmushy/marshy regions.

VISION SYSTEMSVision approach

In the general trend of robotics, LIDARS are extensivelyused to make point clouds of accurate measurementsand high densities.

While LIDARS are the ultimate option for the 3-D mappingof any mine, our current approach is to make it more affordable as a student project.

We intend to use the high quality RGBD Microsoft Kinect 2 cameras. These can provide a very accurate RGBD pointclouds as compared to its contemporary competitors .

VISION SYSTEMSVision approach

The approach to the 3-D mapping of the mine is divided into 2 main categories:

1. Visual Odometry

Visual odometry is a relatively new concept in the imagingindustry. RGBD cameras give a great advantage for carrying out odometry using camera vision in a confined space.

2. Plotting of various points into the 3-d map

Knowing our position inside the mine relative to the origin/ starting point of the mine, the next task is plottingthe current points returned in real time to the location andorientation in the 3-D map. This is done through calculatingthe depth of feature detection points in our algorithm.

MINING SYSTEMSMining approach

The approach to the mining systems is unique and advanced in this project. The main reason being, the current sensory applications of the mining survey departments take place through conventional methods set decades back in India, and the industry is still not exposed to the technological advancements and method of retrieving data.

Another lacking sub system in the mining industry is the interpretation of the data returned by such robots.

While such data has previously been retrieved from the conventional systems such as tube bundle systems and samplers, the time taken for the analysis of this data is conventionally in hours sometimes. With the advanced sensors installed on the robot, the data will be interpreted quickly in the controlling system and displayed through conventional results. This simplifies the transition of engineers into the new technology, while they get the information almost instantly from interiors of the mines without manually accessing it.

MINING SYSTEMSMining approach

For easing the transition of the mining engineers our analysis systems visualize the data results instantly in some known formats such as :

1. Coward methane diagram

The Coward methane representation of the methane readings ensure an easy to read andquick to interpret graph for detecting dangerous levels of methane in the atmosphere. It relatesto the direct oxygen levels in the surroundings thatsupport the combustion of methane in that particularenvironment.

MINING SYSTEMSMining approach

2. Strang and Wood interpretation

The Strang and Wood interpretation for the levels of CO affecting the human body is anothervisually efficient way of detecting dangerous levels of toxication of the blood. Our Robot shall ensure a surveillance system takes a check on the minersand their fatigue. This shall then cross reference with the actual CO readings from the sensors and developan intelligent system for saving tragedies.

MINING SYSTEMSMining approach

3. Setting threshold limits for multiple gasses:

The literature often explains thresholds for singlegas in the atmosphere depending on the humanbody reaction to these thresholds. We adopt a simple threshold setting algorithmfor multiple gasses depending on their site of actionon the human body and their threshold individually.