End Course Project - Overview

Project description:
Our idea is to build a flock of agents that are attracted by sound sources.
Any agent wants to be within the range of an audio source, together with some other agents.
An audio source is a localized point in the environment, from which sound is spread at a fixed frequency.
The goal of this project is to simulate an artificial population led by specific motivation (our creatures will be constantly hungry for sound waves!) and not merely to create a device that finds sound sources.

Agent description: an agent is able to

• wander randomly in search of audio sources
• build a partial map of the environment
• communicate with other agents to help them finding audio sources

and possibly

• have different preferences on found audio sources
• look for other agents, when it is alone

Required material:
Each robot should be equipped with two motors, a bump sensor (in order to approximately keep track of directions), and at least two sound sensors.
We cannot be yet sure about the exact number of sound sensors needed, or if we will need to add something to agents.
We will need at least three robots to run the network at the end of the project, but for the main part of our work we will use only one.

The environment should then contain some small audio sources, which we will try to build from a cheap loudspeaker and a Lego^© RCX brick (which are easier to find in the Lego room).

Main challenges:

• Make the Lego sound sensor a directional microphone
  
• Use the microphone to figure out the distance of audio sources
• Build an audio source from a Lego RCX brick and a simple loudspeaker
  
• Collect audio samples to distinguish different frequencies
• Use the bluetooth to make agents communicate

Overall plan (with deadlines):

Bluetooth general tests	06/12
Sound Sensor tests for direction sensibility, distance / amplitude function, frequencies spectrum analysis	08/12
Sound locator robot	13/12
Location saving and map building	17/12
Multi-agent interaction	07/01
Build environment with sound sources	10/01
Final tests	15/01