Over the course of 10 weeks, we are tasked with designing and developing a small, ambulatory “bug” robot. The goal of the internship period was to design the robot – then to develop a machine learning algorithm that reduces the amount of energy consumed for the robot’s walk. We want the algorithm to allow the microcontroller to receive feedback from power and distance sensors, and to enable it to learn what the correct hardware parameters are for the walk. The walking is performed by a set of servos, with each one controlling a pair of legs.
The work is being done as a Lab Directed Research and Development initiative under the direction of Dr. Steve Xiao in the Research and Development Engineering group at the Savannah River National Laboratory.