AVC: Scrambling for Saturday

Happy National Robotics Week!

As you no doubt recall, in celebration of the week I'm hosting a Data Bus Demo this Saturday for friends and family and a few local AVC participants.

I'm scrambling to get the robot ready. Late nights of Kalman filtering, complimentary filters, bug chasing and more. Here's what I've been up to...

AVC: Precision Gyro Calibration Reloaded

Here's the updated 2012 version of the gyro calibration I performed on Data Bus in 2011.

The goal as before is improved heading accuracy. Target: L3G4200D on a Pololu minIMU-9.

Last time I used my "high precision rate gyro calibrator," a 1970's Realistic Lab-400 Direct Drive turntable. I used it again this time. I also used by gyro/magnetometer calibration machine.

High Precision Gyro Rate Calibrator

Gyro/Magnetometer calibraiton machine.

Alright then. Let's get on with it...

AVC: Initial Data Logging

Data Bus prepares for a nighttime logging mission

After all these many months Data Bus finally logged some real world data! What excitement! Two weeks away from the big demo! Eek!

Why'd I wait so long to run the robot in the real world? I wanted to take my time understanding the problem better than I did last time so I would be, hopefully, less surprised by the results and closer to a working solution.

Here are the results of three separate runs, driving the robot around slowly outside the house AND two runs at Sparkfun!