Swordsman & Geek

A Midsummer Night’s Blog

Rover’s Collision Avoidance is Working!

Filed as General on January 23, 2010

(1/22/2010)

We managed to get a very clean test of the RoverLORD today.

RoverLORD & The Cube of No Return

Here is a link to my Technical Blog

2 people have expressed their views!

  1. That’s pretty darn impressive. I just knew he’d freak when he hit the tight U shaped section and start spinning to just-the-wrong angle to escape.

    Does he get to pick how far to rotate or is it a set increment?

    By Cindy on January 24, 2010 3:39 pm

  2. After he finds an obstacle, he scans the area in front of him looking for the longest path. Then he tries to turn towards that path.

    There are some things that give him trouble with that. Because he is largely blind he doesn’t know exactly how far he turns and it can vary depending on the surface he is on. (When he has good traction, he turns more. When the traction is bad, he turns less.)

    We have installed a single chip magnetic compass which should solve this problem. With the compass he can always tell which direction North is and that means he knows exactly which direction he is facing. (Instead of “turn left for 1.3 milliseconds” we could tell him, “turn left until you are facing absolute South.”

    So that gives us:
    1. Obstacle detection
    2. Heading

    If we add a GPS, that gives us position on the earth which means he knows:
    1. Exactly where he is (GPS)
    2. Exactly which direction he is facing (Compass)
    3. How fast he is moving (GPS again)
    4. If there are any obstacles nearby (SONAR)

    By puck on February 8, 2010 9:39 pm

What do you think?