Hi, first post here. I’m working on mounting a camera to a robot. This is a hobby project. The intent of the camera is to take long-exposure photographs of stars & planets at night, and photos of the sun / moon during the day. As well, I need to bring the sun, moon, and stars to center-camera view exactly. After the object is in the center of the camera’s view, I need to measure the angle of the camera in relation to gravity. The idea here is to do this for 3+ celestial objects, with the overall goal of determining my location on earth. I do know what GPS is. GPS seems like the go-to for outdoor robotic navigation. This hobby project is all about me going the opposite direction, attempting to navigate via celestial navigation, electronic compass, electronic gyroscope, and accelerometer, for high-level navigation decisions.
I believe my first challenge is simply to have a self-leveling platform upon which I can mount servos and the camera. This is what I’m here to ask about. A method to level a small surface with fairly high precision.
I am familiar with the Adafruit version of the BNO055, it has an accelerometer which seems to work pretty well. I’m thinking to create a small triangular platform mounted on three low gear ratio linear actuators. I’m looking at this micro precision linear actuator to do it. I’ll extend the points of the triangle outwards to increase the distance between the effort and the fulcrum, allowing the linear actuators to achieve greater precision adjustments. What I’m not sure about is how to keep the triangular platform from just flopping sideways, or the linear actuator mounts snapping when they get sideways stress that they aren’t designed to handle.
What do you all think? Would you go a different direction? Do you have any suggestions? And what’s the best budget accelerometer out there?