6WD Rover

Robot – work in progress

By Rmack
@ February 4, 2010

Still in the making.

Control is driven by Droid Muin card with a Lantronix Ethernet to RS232 convertor.

The Ethernet is pluged into a Dlink Wireless router and connects of control to custom software on my laptop.

Still to Come

IP Camera on Tilt/Pan
Digital compass
Lights
Ultra Sonic Detection
Larger Capacity Battery

By Rmack
@ Fri, 2010-03-12 05:09

Reply

Two motors would reduce the weight of the Rover but direct drive just was a lot easier to implement.

I have ordered some high toque, high speed servos for the camera and adding a bearing system to the Pan function.

Next I have to make some type of charging dock and then it’s onto the addition of some sensors

By dimble swishblade
@ Thu, 2010-03-11 09:33

yeah this

is so cool, but that chain u have for the camera, i would have linked the tyers together so u only had 2 motors

By ALL_STATE_99
@ Thu, 2010-03-11 08:19

I love 6 wheeled bots. So

I love 6 wheeled bots. So much cooler than tracks.

By Rmack
@ Thu, 2010-03-11 08:45

Update 11/03/2010

Thanks all_state_99

I still can not work out have to embed youtube video so here is a link of the GUI. It will change a little in the rewirte.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzZrPBGT1dI

By Rmack
@ Tue, 2010-03-09 13:13

Update 9/3/2010

Okay, so I moved the Router to the top today for both range and to make room for a 12volt 7Amp/Hour Battery.

Router Mounted on Top Bushing

Side View

I have also started to rewrite the GUI for the Rover to make it easier to drive and add a few more functions.

By Rmack
@ Wed, 2010-03-03 09:30

Just a few updates

Been a bit busy at work lately, so I have not had much time to spend on this project. But here are some picutre of the new top and tilt/pan.

New Top Camera just sitting there

Just the Camera Side View

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3vMRhf0QWo

Edit 28/2/2010

Here is a video of it climbing the sidewalk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5muCDAlUVoE

This is the circuit on the Proto board that converts the single direction output of the MuIn to logic table required by the Pololu

Edit 3/3/2010

Tilt/Pan now with Pan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh7kG1J7aAI

By Rmack
@ Mon, 2010-02-08 09:58

Small Update

The body is made from 40x40mm angled aluminium riveted onto a 3mm plate.

As stated before the motors have a toque figure of 50Kg/Cm or 4.903 Nm (4903m -Nm) so it is very good at climbing things and even with the chunky tyres skid steer works will.

The droid MuIn is base on a PIC18F2520 running at 40Mhz and is currently running a modified version of their supplied bootloader. The motors are connected to the Pololu via a hex inverter chip to convert the single control line from the PWM output of the MuIn to the ‘”Enable” and “Direction” control required by the Pololu.

At the moment it behaves like a Wi-Fi RC car but the plan is for a Rover to send all information to a server where all the decision making will be made and then send the relevant commands back to the Rover.