Robot Learning - Freshman Research Initiative

In my second semester of freshman year, I decided to pursue my interest in robotics and join the freshman research initiative robotics program. Upon entering this program I joined computer science, and electrical engineering students to learn the applications of machine learning, motion planning, and most importantly, understanding the robot's perception of space, movement, and their constraints. Using Robot Operating System (ROS), I worked to complete the final project throughout the semester.

Our group trained the robot using the reinforcement learning technique, rewarding the robot the closer it got to the "mole". Once the robot was trained on numerous iterations on this technique, it was able to understand the movements it could plan to reach the target "mole". In the future we hoped to be able to get a faster reaction from our robot simulation in response to every location the mole appeared at.