Computer Science Honours Project 2009

My thesis is finally complete and all that remains is to put on the finishing touches, and write all my data to the hand-in CD. My thesis and all related project files can be downloaded from the Downloads section.

I have finally completed my thesis draft, and can now being editing and checking it. The draft has been completed a little over schedule, I had hoped to finish it earlier today, however this is no major isssue as I still have enough time for the editing process.

I have done my final project presentation and it went fairly well. Now, all that remains to complete my thesis draft and then begin the process of editing and checking my thesis for errors. Hopefully the complete draft will be done by the 4th, that will leave me with a good five days to make sure it is in the best condition possible.

All the implementation has now been completed all that remains is to complete the thesis write up, as well as do the final testing using the framwork. Results also still need to be obtained from the framework by running carefully constructed tests, and observing the results against the expected results.

Some issues were encountered while trying to implement the framework, specifically a problem with the history system implementation. However this problem has been resolved by using the fact that Python treats functions as variables and thus functions attached to a class can be replaced by new functions by using simple varible assignment. As well, the problem of backtracing was solved by creating dynmically rebinding constants at runtime in the Panther_Constants class.

I chose to do the project poster, instead of the short paper, and I feel it gives a good representation of my project. I tried to keep the poster clean and elegant while getting all the information in. The poster is available from the Downloads section in both the PDF and PNG formats.

The basic implementation has been completed, with the framework base emerging and some more advanced features now in the process of being written. Python has been used along with the umFish40 libraries to have a basic interface to the robot, as well as to provide significant abstraction from the robot inner workings.

The literature survey has been completed and thus most of the background research required for the project has been completed. Both C++ and Python were investigated as possible programming languages, and I decided to select Python due to it being easier to interface with the robot as well as the advantages provided by the language. Design has begun on the framework using an object-oriented model, as well as basic implementation.

The project proposal has been completed and was presented to the Computer Science department lecturers and fellow post-graduates this morning. Now that this presentation is complete, I can begin background research for the project. I will also begin searching for the required tools and programs to get the project running. The first obstacle is to find a suitable programming language as the ROBO Pro software that comes with the FischerTechnik set is not suitable for framework programming.

I have received the FischerTechnik set and have opened it and investigated the contents. I have also installed the ROBO Pro software that comes with the set so as to evaluate it, as well as doing performing a basic connection test to the ROBO Interface to make sure the set works.

The website has been uploaded to the Computer Science servers, and seems to be working fine running from their servers. Instead of using a CMS, I have decided to use basic HTML pages and a free CSS; as this will make handing in the web page with the final project submission easier.