I bet you thought I haven’t been doing anything with robotics. Well, I have been quite busy! I just finished the 3D CAD for W.A.L.T.E.R. 3.0. This is a very configurable and expandable configuration. The top and bottom decks are fixed in position, but the two middle decks can slide up and down the tubing pylons. This will allow me to position these two decks exactly where I want them, as well as to allow for adding additional decks.
This version uses Actobotics parts, except for the four custom decks I designed. I did all the 3D CAD with Autodesk’s Fusion 360. I imported the Actobotics .STEP files into Fusion 360 and then inserted into my designs. I have several reusable assemblies. Now, I can find some place to have the new decks made, and start aquireing parts to build him.
I still don’t have all the electronics. I will be using Adafruit Feather boards for some of the electronics, but I don’t care for their servo controller. I guess I have been spoiled by the SSC-32 servo controllers, which are so easy to use. The brain for this robot will be an Adafruit Feather M0 Bluefruit board, which I am already using in another much smaller robot built from an Adafruit kit - it uses a Cortex Mo+ MCU and runs at 48 MHz. It has 256 Kb of flash for programs.
Thank you! There are still have a few tweaks I need to make to the drive tower assembly. I am ordering the first batch of parts in November. I just sent CAD files to an internet friend who has a CNC machine capable of cutting up to 23" x 23" material, so he can make three test decks I can use for actual part attachment.
The bottom deck will be for locomotion, including motor controller, a few sensors, and a small multi-joint arm with a gripper and camera. I am working on 3D CAD for this arm now.
The next deck up will be electronics, such as a Raspberry Pi 3, an MCU (Adafruit Feather M0 Bluefruit LE), servo controller. At some point, I will replace the Raspberry Pi 3 with an nVidia Jetson TX1 Developer board.
The top deck will be for sensors like GPS, IMU, etc, that might be sensitive to noise from motors. There will eventually also be a camera on a pan/tilt platform on top, which will be for navigation, mapping, and other stuff.
The version of W.A.L.T.E.R. 3.0 that I will actually build will be a bit shorter and have just three decks.
I just ordered the first set of Actobotics parts for W.A.L.T.E.R. 3.0 from ServoCity!
These parts are to build the first of the two drive towers. The same part set is used to build both drive towers, so I will need to order a duplicate of what I am getting in a few days. Both motors will have encoders, and these will be interfaced to a RoboClaw 2x7 motor controller. I will use an SSC-32U servo controller for controlling the servos that will be on him.
[size=2]I have been working on the development of W.A.L.T.E.R. 3.x for just over one year. Most of that time has been spent on designing the [/size][size=2]new decks. This time around, I am using the Actobotics construction system for the main[/size][size=2] structure. I will also be using some Lynxmotion parts where appropriate. One nice thing about designing the decks myself is that I can put whatever type of hole pattern I need right where I need it. I have designed the bottom deck so I can use wheels of up to 6" diameter.[/size]
[size=2]The main software stack for W.A.L.T.E.R. will be ROS (Robot Operating System). I have my MacBook switched over to running Linux now (Ubuntu MATE 16.04) and am using Vagrant/VirtualBox to run an Ubuntu MATE 14.04 VM. I have[/size] ROS[size=2] installed on my MacBook, and have been spending a lot of time learning how to use it. I already have an Arduino Mega R3 publishing sensor data to [/size]ROS[size=2] and subscribing to data from there. This will allow me to take advantage of the large community of Arduino libraries and integrate them into my robot.[/size]
[size=2]The first main brain for W.A.L.T.E.R. will be a Raspberry Pi 3 board running Ubuntu MATE 16.04 with ROS. I want to see how much I can do with the Raspberry Pi 3 and several Arduino helpers.[/size]
[size=2]Here are the new decks:[/size]
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[size=2]Here is the assembled chassis:[/size]
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There are still have a few tweaks I need to make to the drive tower assembly. I am ordering the first batch of parts in November. I just sent CAD files to an internet friend who has a CNC machine capable of cutting up to 23" x 23" material, so he can make three test decks I can use for actual part attachment. 
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