Conclusions

We are quite happy and satisfied with the performance of our robot. If we had more time, we would have made the AI more robust, and taken the robot closer to its software compatriot in the ECE 314 project. Essentially, the fun lies in designing state variables to help the robot remember its past, to enable intelligent decisions about direction of motion. This would make the robot immune to L-shaped obstacles.

Ethical Considerations: Referring to the IEEE code of ethics accessible at http://www.ieeeusa.org/documents/CAREER/CAREER_LIBRARY/ethics.html, we, Aditya Jhunjhunwala and Shaun D’Souza, hereby declare on the second day of May, 2003 that:

1. We accept responsibility in making engineering decisions consistent with the safety, health and welfare of the public. Our project objective does not contradict this goal.

2. Our work was consistent with the spirit of improving the understanding of technology. This project has been a great learning experience. It was immensely enjoyable with lots of intellectual satisfaction. We understood our limitations in Analog Design, and appreciated the fact that people have designed and commercialised very useful analog circuits.

3. We will strive to maintain and improve our technical competence and to undertake technological tasks for others only if qualified by training or experience, or after full disclosure of pertinent limitations. Our project decision described in the Summary section proves that we did not venture into a field in which we lacked expertise, namely Kalman filtering. We accepted our limitations in Analog Design, and used commercial sensors.

4. We will seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of technical work, acknowledge and correct errors, and credit properly the contributions of others. We sought the advice of Professor Land and our class-mates while encountering different problems, while offering our own opinion to fellow students in their undertakings.

5. We will treat fairly all persons regardless of such factors as race, religion, gender, disability, age, or national origin. Our project will definitely excite a person regardless of his caste, colour, or creed.