Autonomous Ground Veichle -01

Let's Make Robots Robots
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Hi, My names Alex McClung I'm 15 from Newcastle, Australia and this is My Robot.

  • My whole life ive had a strong passion for Robotics, I one day Hope to become a Mechatronic Engineer. This is my first Robot and i wanted it to be a Large Semi rough terrain Robot. My Original plans were to make this robot to be controlled with Xbees but thats not "True Robotics", Just "Large RC". So i decided to go Fully Autonomous. 
  • My Robot Uses an Official Arduino Mega 2650 R3 Microcontroller with an Xbee Shield and a Sparkfun Monster Moto Shield Driving 2 Motors - 12V, 14A Stall Per Motor. Aswell as An Arduino Pro Mini 328 5V/16Mhz for controling the Lighting .
  • For navigation my Robot Uses an Adafruit Ultimate GPS Breakout and a Pololu MiniIMU-9 (3- Axis Accelerometer, Gyro and Magnetometer) which has 9 Degrees Of Freedom In total. 
  • As well as Navigation it also has Object Avoidence using a Parallax Ping Sensor and Two Sharp Distance Sensors (GP2Y0A02YK).
  •  Also its got:  
  1. FPV (400mw 5.8GHZ Over a Mile Range) Wireless Video 
  2.  Xbee Data Telementry. 
  3.  RGB LED Lighting 
  4.  Parallax  Emic 2 Text-To-Speech Module with two 0.5W Audio Amplifiers and two 8 Ohm Speakers. 
  5.  CDS Photocell To turn the Headlights on In the dark.

 

 Currently Integrating the GPS and Emic 2 and FPV Modules into my Robot, All the rest is working fine.

I'll Keep you Posted :)

 ,Alex

Uses GPS, Compass, Gyro and Object Avoidence to Navigate

  • Actuators / output devices: Two 14 Amp Motors, Emic 2 Text to Speech Module
  • Control method: fully autonomous, Xbee Failsafe
  • CPU: Arduino Pro Mini 5V/16MHz, Arduino Mega 2650
  • Operating system: Arduino bootloader
  • Power source: 2x 12 9AH Sealed Lead Acid Batterys
  • Programming language: arduino/wiring
  • Sensors / input devices: Parallax Ping, CDS cells, Pololu MiniIMU-9, Adafruit Ultimate GPS, Two Sharp Distance Sensors
  • Target environment: outdoor, Semi rough terrain, Open areas
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/autonomous-ground-veichle-01
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Hi Alex, welcome. Your robot
Hi Alex, welcome. Your robot looks impressive with all these gadgets.

First I have to agree with OddBot, better pictures means better understanding. Please also write as much details about “how you build” all the parts, your failures and success. This will help others with their work too since your failures will not be repeated by others (at least in theory LOL)

Why a ProMini for the lightning, does the Mega2650 not have enough of all to do that job too?
What text-to-speech will be executed? Can you give the robot commands or does he respond to some he encounters via speech?

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Thanks,

Thanks, I’m trying to take better pictures, but i don’t have access to a good camera.

The reason im using a Pro Mini for the lighting alone is its too complicated to do everything on just one MCU,

For Example:

  • GPS
  • Object Avoidence
  • Motor Control
  • Xbee Wireless
  • Communicating with the text to speech over Serial

I decided to put the lighting on the Pro Mini to make the important stuff run more efficiently and avoids using the delay() function on the mega.