Hello robotic community,
I am fairly inexperienced looking for help and ideas for a project of mine.
I am looking to build a remote controlled wheeled robotic platform that I can place a stationary object on top of. The object i desire to place on the platform weighs 2 lbs and the object itself doesn’t need to move. I only need the wheeled platform to drive in a straight line at a very minimal speed when turned on by the remote but I don’t wish to control the robot since all I am looking for is a straight line.
I am open to any and all suggestions with all the products and parts needed for assemble because I am stumped to be honest.
Thank you for any input you have!
To get the robot to travel perfectly straight, you’ll need encoders mounted to the wheels, a gyro and a compass, and quite a bit of programming.
This is because for small mobile robots, the motors are never identical, so when powered the same, one often rotates ever so slightly faster than the other, causing the robot to move in a gentle arc.
To reduce this, you use encoders, and have a microcontroller count the number of “breaks” or pulses. However, this helps only when there is no wheel slip.
A compass would help keep a direction, while a gyro would record any angular acceleration. This all needs to be programmed so that when you press “forward” on the joystick, it moves perfectly forward.
There are other ways, but without additional details about your application, it’s hard to make suggestions which might be easier to implement.
