6WD Rover

rmack · February 4, 2010, 1:58am

Still in the making.<o:p></o:p>

Powered by (6)xHigh toque (50kg/cm @ 55RPM) 140rpm motors turning 1/8 Scale R/C Truck tyres via a Pololu Motor Driver.

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

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/6wd-rover

kshitij_burman · February 4, 2010, 5:56am

awesome
It looking just awesome. Can you plz post video of its making

rmack · February 5, 2010, 1:44am

Soon to come

I will be hopefully doing a work log soon.

Here is a VIDEO of it running (5Meg AVI file 176x144).

rmack · February 8, 2010, 2:58am

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.

<o:p> </o:p>

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.

<o:p> </o:p>

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.

Axles

rmack · March 3, 2010, 2:30am

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.

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

rmack · March 9, 2010, 6:13am

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.

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

all_state_99 · March 11, 2010, 1:19am

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

rmack · March 11, 2010, 1:45am

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

dimbleswishblade · March 11, 2010, 2:33am

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

rmack · March 11, 2010, 10:09pm

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