Hector Lightweight UGV based on Wild Thumper chassis

Let's Make Robots Robots
1

Hi everyone,

Oddbot recommended to post an entry here after I sent him one the videos accompanying this post. Our group at TU Darmstadt (http://www.gkmm.tu-darmstadt.de/rescue) demoed the feasibility of using a small, lightweight and low cost Unmanned Ground Vehicle based on the Wild Thumper chassis in the RoboCup Rescue Arena this year.

For demonstration purposes the vehicle is equipped with:

-Arduino based Motorcontroller (the one designed for the Thumper by Oddbot)
-FitPC2 Atom Z530 board
-2 SPC-1300 Cameras
-1 TPA-81 Thermopile sensor
-2 11.1V/3 cell 3300 mAh LiPo battery packs

The vehicle has a ROS (Robot Operating System, http://www.ros.org/wiki/ ) interface and is controlled using available ROS tools. The onboard video seen in one of the videos was recorded onboard the vehicle itself and is of a little better quality than that available to the operator, as we used a 160x120 5fps Theora encoded stream for teleoperation, to minimize bandwidth requirements in the RoboCup environment (with hundreds of teams sharing available WiFi frequencies).

It should be noted that development towards autonomous capabilities continues and that the build shown above was just for proof of concept purposes.

  • Actuators / output devices: 6 x 6V 75:1 gearbox Wild Thumper motors
  • Control method: Teleoperation (for the moment)
  • CPU: Atmega 168 (arduino), Intel Atom Z530
  • Operating system: Ubuntu 10.10
  • Power source: 2 x 11.1V LiPo 3300 mAh
  • Programming language: C++, Python
  • Sensors / input devices: 2 x SPC-1300 Cameras, 1 x TPA-81 Thermopile
  • Target environment: Urban Search and Rescue
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/hector-lightweight-ugv-based-on-wild-thumper-chassis
2

thats really cool

i love robots like tthis good job

3

Movility?

Amazing movility! I don´t recognise much of the components you list, but they sure work together! Amazing!

4

Thanks. Most of the credit

Thanks. Most of the credit for the mobility of course goes to Oddbot, as he designed the original platform.

5

I have the same platform.

I have the same platform. And I can’t find a normal scheme driver engines(DD) for it. How DD you used ?

6

Hi Sergey,I’m not exactly

Hi Sergey,

I’m not exactly sure what you mean. We use the 75:1 gearbox motors that came with the Wild Thumper, as well as the Arduino based microcontroller designed by Oddbot for it (see here for example: https://www.robotshop.com/letsmakerobots/node/24368 ). If that doesn’t answer your question, you might have to elaborate a bit on what you want to know :slight_smile:

7

**It is clear, thank you. **

It is clear, thank you.

 

8

Wild Thumper and ROS

please, I have the same platform and i want o use the ROS

i need the ROS (packages ,files ,URDF ,nodes and etc.)      

Thank you …