Week 3: August 8 to August 14, 2011

Micromouse
 
A Micromouse is a miniature electro-mechanical robot, typically consisting of three main subsystems:

1. The drive system
2. An array of sensors, and
3. The control system. 

Airat 2 by Microrobot

Tetra Micromouse

Maze

A competition standard Micromouse maze contains 16 cells north-south, and 16 cells east-west. Each maze cell is 180 mm x 180 mm including the walls, with a maximum space of 168 mm gap in between walls. The walls are 12 mm thick, and are painted white, with a red top. The floor of the maze is painted with a non-reflective black paint. The walls are attached to the baseboard using pegs at the junctions between walls. The rules specify that each peg must have at least one wall adjoining it.

 

Competition standard maze

How it works?

The robots, or ‘mice’, have to find their way from a certain pre-chosen corner cell to one of the centre four cells of the maze, in the fastest possible time. To achieve this, they are allowed to make as many 'runs' from the start cell to the finish cell as they can fit within a 10-minute timeslot. The mouse will need to keep track of where it is, discover walls as it explores, map out the maze and detect when it has reached the goal. Having reached the goal, the mouse will typically perform additional searches of the maze until it has found an optimal route from the start to the centre. Once the optimal route has been found, the mouse will run that route in the shortest possible time.

Design Limitation

The design of the MicroMouse is also subjected to several constraints, as follows:

• Size – The robot must be small enough to fit within a maze cell that is 18 cm x 18 cm. There is no height restriction. 

• Time – The robot is limited to a period of 10 minutes, in which it must solve the maze and make as many speed runs to the centre as possible. 

• Communication – The robot must be fully autonomous whereby no outside communication or any form of physical aid is allowed. 

• Maze integrity – The robot cannot cause damage to the maze or leave behind any debris in its path as well as jump or climb over the walls of the maze.

Citation: 

1. http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/12/tetra-the-micromouse-needs-no-cheese-completes-maze-in-new-reco/ 
2. D. Tondra and H. Drew, The Inception of Chedda: A detailed Design and Analysis of Micromouse. Las Vegas, USA, 2004.