A blog of robotics, electronics, mechanics, programming, and engineering. Pictures, source code, circuit diagrams, ideas, thoughts, drawings, sketches and real-life goofups.
Hobby roboticists are on the cusp of DIY, sophisticated, low cost, obstacle detection.
The XV-11 uses a laser-based "radar" that can map out the environment allowing the vacuum cleaner to navigate its environment avoiding obstacles like chair legs, sofas, cats, and more. With this kind of sensor your robot can also detect which room it's in.
Spent some time over the last couple of days programming obstacle avoidance into the Cruiser. (I really need a better name, any ideas?) So far what I've come up with isn't stellar but it works in most situations, though is kind of dumb sometimes, as you can see in the video. The bot is deciding what direction to turn and whether to do quarter turn or full turn based on whether the IR sensors are past a threshold. There's two pair in front, left, right, as well as two that point sort of rearwards (I'm ignoring those).
I'm sure it could be improved upon, but I want to try a couple of different experiments next. One involves using a neural network for obstacle avoidance (how will this work in an 8MHz 8-bit processor? I did some experimenting on a C64 back in the day and even using good ol' BASIC V2 it wasn't bad I guess).
Another experiment I'd love to try is navigating a maze corridor by steering to the middle between two walls. The eventual goal is maze solving and while we're at it, why not see how the little guy fares in a competition of some type, right? There's actually a competition in April... right when I'm planning to go four wheeling in Moab. But I'm getting a head of myself
