Story of Kuebiko

For the past 2 years, I had been working in Barcelona, in taking the next logical step towards pushing HelloHealth towards the public domain by designing STEM toys for students to learn about their own body functioning through embodied design. After the institution I was collaborating with ghosted me, I started working as a freelancer, collaborated with friends in Barcelona, we designed Concord. We got selected for a couple of design weeks across Europe. This opened up my worldview tremendously, collaborating with creative technologists, videographers, architects, and graphic designers. During one such conservation with an ex-professor of mine, we were talking about past projects. We found that we've had a common thread, which was the intersection of ecology, farming, robotics, and AI. Thus we started working together

We're deploying machine learning and cloud computing on data that has previously been ignored, to detect animal behavior and advise conservationists and farmers on preventive measures. This agroforestry system will increase the resilience of the stakeholder's livelihoods as well as agricultural yields for years to come. We've tentatively named the project "Kuebiko".

MBOT - A Swarm Robotics Platform

ABSTRACT

In nature, we observe that many insects like bees and ants work in unison . Their efficiency is observed to be higher than any individual. In a similar way, a swarm of robots is more efficient than a single robot, due to less hardware and small size. Swarm robotics is an emerging branch that is interdisciplinary. It covers areas such as mechatronics, communication, and artificial intelligence. The projects aim to implement collective action of robots to accomplish small tasks. A decentralized approach has been used. A suitable algorithm has been designed that implements these collective actions. The heart of a swarm agent is an Atmega328p micro-controller. To implement the inter-agent communication, IR medium of communication is used with NEC protocol. In a manual mode of operation, the user can relay commands

to a single robot using Zig-Bee communication. The three basic tasks are implemented on the prototype of swarm robots. They are namely; follow the leader in which agents follow the behavior of a designated agent, cluster formation in which all agents form a predefined shape or pattern. These tasks are supplemented by localization in their environment i.e. mapping of their immediate surrounding environment.

INTRODUCTION

Nature has always been the source of inspiration for mankind. No matter how much progress we make, it's always insignificant when compared with natural intelligence. By keeping this in mind, the field of robotics has started its journey on a newly emerging field where there is the union of biology and many other branches. Swarm robotics is such a branch. Ant colonies, bee swarms, and schools of fish are the few examples that demonstrate the power of swarms. In the same way, a group of robots is much more effective than a single agent.

The tasks performed by the robot may not always be the same. Hence, there is always variance in the efficiency of the system. However, in a swarm, only the necessary agents are called to accomplish a task thus resulting in maximum efficiency of the system.

The various advantages of swarm robotics that make this field an interesting one are scalability, robustness, cost-effectiveness, energy efficiency and the most important one is intelligence.

1. Scalability

As seen in nature, the colony size of ants may vary but their functions remain unchanged. In the same way, once a swarm of robots has been developed, the number of agents can be varied in any number. The intelligently designed algorithms are completely independent of the number of agents. The swarm gets only more effective when the number of agents is sufficiently high.

2. Robustness

The efficient working of any system is completely dependent on the successful execution of tasks by every sub-system embedded in it. So a malfunction of any of the parts results in the collapse of the entire system. However, in swarms, the working of the system is independent of every agent. In case an agent fails, the communication is bypassed and the system remains intact.

3. Cost-effective.

The agents in swam are optimized in terms of size, power, and features. This results in an extremely simple design in terms of hardware electronics. The sheer intelligence is the result of algorithms and protocols. The inter-bot communication is carried out by Infrared LED which is also the main reason why Swarm Robotics becomes cost-effective.

Conclusion: Check out the project to understand more.

Homecoming - From Engineer to Designer and back

My fascination with technology began when I was 4 years old, my parents took me to a hospital when my mother was pregnant with my baby sister. Seeing the baby inside my mother's stomach on the ultrasound machine's monitor was somewhat of a magical moment for me. I kept pestering my father with questions about how that machine worked, luckily he's a biomedical engineer so it wasn't hard for him, though I'm sure explaining it to a 4 yr old had its challenges. From that moment, I wanted to know how to make those magical machines.

I grew up with an engineering family. Everyone was an engineer. Most of my family functions were spent trading tips on passing my subjects.

I started my career as an Electronics and Telecommunication engineer but I'll always have an inclination toward Industrial Design. This led me to join FabLab Vigyan Ashram, where I initially joined purely so that I could explore the machines at the lab. Vigyan Ashram is much more than just a lab, it's a research center based on implementing rural technology. It taps onto the community of the local farmers to teach them the scientific methods of farming at the same time, trying to understand the tacit knowledge of the farmers who know only the language of experience and not numbers. My experience of working and living in Pabal, which is a typical indian village, gave me insights into a very different part of India which was just 40 miles from home. Pabal was a very different reality for my clear lack of development about various aspects of life was eye-opening such as infrastructure problems, lacking medical facilities, and connectivity issues. It made me very grateful for the life that I have. Vigyan Ashram was a great learning experience where I had to learn how to be resourceful, patient, and develop a greater understanding of the context. It was also the place where I completed my FabAcademy.This was also one of the best and most useful courses that I've ever done.

For the past 2 years, I had been working in Barcelona ,in taking the next logical step towards pushing HelloHealth towards the public domain by designing STEM toys for students to learn about their own body functioning through embodied design. After the institution I was collaborating with ghosted me, I started working as a freelancer, collaborated with friends in Barcelona, we designed Concord. We got selected for a couple of design weeks across Europe. This opened up my worldview tremendously, collaborating with creative technologists, videographers, architects, and graphic designers.

Currently, I'm working at GS Lab. To learn about electronics hardware design.