I had mentioned this project while asking about 20+ mile data links and video broadcasting.
I’m long time friends with a local ERT member(SWAT) for our police department and he was over looking at an autonomous paintball turret I designed last year. He was like a kid in a candy store watching the turret follow him around the room. And that was when he took me to talk to a few people at the station about what they would like to see in new robot designs. A bulletproof, high speed reconnaissance and assault robot peaked every one’s interest. Something that could be remotely operated, fast, rugged and could carry a weaponized turret. Possibly a Taser, beanbag shotgun, or the like.
I had began designing a mobile paintball vehicle, at the request of a colleagues brother, that would allow disabled people in wheelchairs to participate in paintball games via video relay. I sat down and spent about 2 months trying to adapt the design only to end up scratching it and starting over. Miniature replica testing proved that most R/C truck designs were not able to properly control the payload. Their wheel bases were also too short. So I designed my own chassis and suspension from scratch. After testing a few different designs, I found a system that worked exactly as predicted. It is currently mocked up in 4mm aluminum but the finished product will be a titanium alloy with Kevlar woven wires.
This design is a long way from production or even real-world testing but I thought some of you might find it interesting.
The drive train is 2 X 6 HP, 36 Volt, 200 Amp Out-runners on a custom belt drive system with custom made axles, hubs and transmission.
The turret is capable of carrying a 30 pound payload, has an infinite 360 deg rotation made possible with a custom made Contact Cam Center, and Target Locking. Meaning , basically, the turret can lock onto a target and remain locked on it regardless of the vehicles orientation or speed.
These are Chassis/suspension only pictures with components removed. I’m reluctant to release any detailed pictures or models of the drive train or turret at this time as both are not in the patent process yet. But they give you an idea of the design and size.
Will that rover actually support the weight of a human? 30lbs, hmmm. Put a chair in for a baby
What are you planning on using for suspension? Good ol’ springs? I think you should have a better skeleton for the wheel arms. Just having 2 pieces of metal like that would easily be crushed with some major impacts.
So your gunna have two motors with a chain drive, hmm? Did you think about giving each wheel a dedicated motor? This way you won’t have to worry about a chain failing. Of course, the great thing about chain drives is you can play around with the gears to give you the maximum torque or speed!
The question in my mind is: When will it be finish and how much can I buy one for?
Can you build me one out of 5mm aluminum with just motors and machine gun turret? That is one wicked awesome design. I want a life size one that I could drive in ^^ like one of those dun buggies you see on TV in the desert going VOOOM across those duns flying crazy high and then landing softly on the ground
Have you thought about implementing lambo style shocks? When the lambo drives slow, its airbags raise it up and when it drives fast it hugs the ground. Would look badass to be charged at by a rover who is lowering to the ground as it drives at you with a turret pointing at you
I never actually considered that. It would be impressive to implement. I am currently looking for someone who can supply an electronic control system for the shocks. The ones we have found are too large to physically fit on the vehicle. If I can someone who can make a controller and shock sensors small enough for the truck, the ride height and load compensation could be done electronically.
I spent some time editing the turret so I could include some of the other components in the model. It takes alot of time to remove key components and still leave a model that looks good. Here are some pics with some of the other parts included. Mounted is a 30 capacity, C02 powered Bean-Bag gun that is currently in the fabrication stages. A shogun Shell propelled Bean-Bag gun was considered but there will be less hassle getting a Co2 powered weapon inspected and approved for use.
mmm mmm, fancy! What are those things on the front with a yellow front circle? Did you pick out a motor to rotate the turret gun? Know how fast/accurate it will rotate? Thought about including a pan/tilt system? So it can maybe hit baddies in a window or roof of a building, or shoot projectiles over a longer distance.
HOLY S***!!! MAN THAT’S CRAZY WITH THE TURRET!!! OMG
nice job! it looks real nice with the old machine gun type, does the thing turn? not the turret but the circle of cylinders? it wouyld be awesome! it’s nice!
The turret targeting is accurate to within 1" at 60 feet with a laser pointer. the accuracy will be at the mercy of the weapon used. A paintball gun was used for initial testing and the turret is more accurate than the gun so it’s hard to guage.
The turret uses a helix gear drive integrated into the side panels for tilt. The panning rotation is powered by a belt drive. The turret has enough power to reliably operate a 30 pound weapon without lag. It moves a paintball gun like it’s a feather. 360 deg rotation in roughly 2 seconds. Full pan range in less than a second.
Tilt can range from 60 deg or less depending on the weapon used. And the pan is a infinite 360 deg rotation. It can spin in either directions infinitely.
The barrels on the gun don’t rotate like a gatling gun. They are individually fed. They can be fired 8 at once or 1 at a time. The gun hasn’t been tested as a whole yet. I mocked up a single barrel unit to test the Firing system and internals. Now, it’s a matter of fabricating the parts and mechanics to build 8 of them into 1 gun. This is currently the only custom weapon I’m working. The other turret attachments are designed as adapters to have common weapons (tazers, non-lethal shotguns, and net catapults) mount directly on.
I wish I could show you some pictures or the complete models but I really shouldn’t. I had to edit alot out of them and use some generic components in place of the real thing. I’m not the only one working on this so it’s not totally my call.
If your looking for non leather weapons that will disarm someone, maybe this will help get you going: roboticfx.com/
This baby is called the negotiator! Its got tazzers, pepper spray and nightvision. You can use it as inspiration. Just thought you might wanna check it out, its influenced me to make a bad ass robot like it (my next project) as I create surveillance rovers and SWAT BOTS
Yes Im a 15 year old evil genious winning hundreds of dollars at science fairs!!!
The tires are a modified Baja tread. These are not the actual tires used. These were an earlier prototype that was abondoned in leu of a better design that was more “fabrication friendly” for our rubber molders to integrate the Kevlar weave.
I’ve got in over my head with a few projects before. But this is definitely the scariest venture yet. I have at least $10,000 of my own money into this and have exausted numerous resources attaining parts. Not to mention the sleepless nights at the shop and weekends gone by like minutes working on fabricating and testing. It still seems so far away and yet it has come so far.
That is over the last year or more. I’ve made alot of sacrifices to keep this project afloat. And it falls more into my “work” category than “hobby”. I think of it as an investment. A high risk investment.
I’m fortunate enough to make very good money where I work and also find some time to merge my hobbies into a plausible application at work. Sometimes it gets hard to differentiate between hobbies and work related. But I try to keep the line between them from fading. I would never invest that much money into something I wasn’t planning to market or make something back on.
From just a quick look, the rov appears more designed for a “military” use than a “police” use. Most police actions are probably less than 300’ from the focus of the action, so 20 mile communications looks like overkill. Also the rov appears much too large to operate in the more confined spaces typical of police crime scenes.
hurry up and run it to te patent office 
its one badass bot
