Autonomous Robotics: The Show Must Go On
Embedded software development and emergency system recovery for a multi-robot squad at the 2025 French Robotics Cup.
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Project Overview
I developed the control architecture for a multi-robot team competing in the 2025 French Robotics Cup. The system consisted of a primary robot focused on heavy-duty tasks and smaller, agile robots for rapid prop manipulation. The project required integrating diverse hardware platforms to navigate a dynamic stage and execute theatrical tasks autonomously.
Key Features
- Heterogeneous Architecture: * Primary Robot: Utilized a Raspberry Pi for high-level logic and Lidar processing, interfaced with an Arduino (ATmega) for precise stepper motor control.
- Secondary Robots: Powered by STM32 microcontrollers, using Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors for proximity detection and 360° servo motors for continuous movement.
- Navigation & Localization: Developed a custom stack for Lidar-based SLAM on the Pi while implementing lightweight obstacle avoidance on the STM32 robots.
- Task Automation: Programmed complex state machines to coordinate the “theatrical” choreography required by the 2025 rules.
Technical Challenges
The defining moment of the project was a catastrophic system failure upon arrival at the competition. Transport damage rendered the electronics and pre-written software non-functional.
Under extreme pressure, I led a “Phoenix” recovery operation:
- Hardware Salvage: Re-soldered control boards and re-mapped IO pins on the fly.
- Software Refactoring: Ported core logic from the damaged environment to a clean slate, re-calibrating the stepper motor steps and ToF sensor thresholds in the pits.
- Emergency Homologation: Successfully stabilized the communication between the Pi and Arduino just in time to pass technical inspection and compete.
“The true test of engineering isn’t how your robot performs in the lab, but how quickly you can rebuild it when everything fails in the pits.”