Autonomous Sumo Robot: Developing a Low Budget Sumo Robot

An autonomous sumo robot is able to have a match with another sumo robot, where it is supposed to automatically defend any attack performed by the opponent and trying to push the opponent out of the arena. The developed robot is expected to participate in Singapore Robotic Games 2009, an annual competition for robots from all over Singapore. There are three main stages in the design and development process of the sumo robot. The first stage is the concept and detailed design development. The second stage is the fabrication stage. Then, the final stage is to test the sumo robot and do necessary improvements to make sure that it can perform the intended tasks well. Based on the author¿s observation on the existing sumo robots, there are two types of them. They are high-speed type and high-torque type. Since this project has limited resources, the author decided to build a hybrid sumo robot, where the motor and processor quality are not that critical. The concept is to build a robot with moderate-speed movement so that it could avoid opponent¿s attacks and do counter-attacks from the weak sides of the opponent.