It’s ready ! My entry for the Autonomous Vehicle Competition in the US next week is built and (partially) tested. I’ve entered the Autonomous Vehicle Competition run by SparkFun Electronics, held in Boulder, Colorado. See : http://avc.sparkfun.com & http://www.sparkfun.com
Tupperware Bot !
I’ll do a series of more detailed posts after I come back, but here is a brief synopsis.
It’s an HPi Savage Flux XS radio controlled car underneath (The “world’s fastest mini monster truck”) It will do 55 MPH on a good day, but I won’t be running it anywhere near that fast. The brain is an mBed (ARM base microcontroller). Attached is a high accuracy GPS (I’m getting about 1.5-2m accuracy using SBAS), an electronic compass (So I know which way the car is pointing), an ultrasound range finder (to sense obstacles) and a big red “go” button ! 🙂
The mBed ingests the GPS data, range finder and compass data and works out where it’s currently pointing and the delta to where it needs to point to reach the next waypoint. The delta is fed in to a PID control algorithm that controls the steering servo. Currently the speed controller is a static speed (slow) but as I get more confidence in the testing, it will be proportional to the distance from the next waypoint (i.e. faster, then slowing as you near the turn point.) The range finder is processed and inserts an offset in to the PID control input if it detects an obstacle, to try and steer round it.
Other posts in this series :
Mostly Robots 