Quote:
Originally posted by Dave Scheck
Chris
That's pretty neat. Simulation is an important tool in engineering. We are working on incorporating some into our system.
How do you feed Matlab the information on where to go? Where does your auto code get loaded? I'm assuming it goes onto a custom circuit. What is your interface to the RC? Does it end up being a dead reckoning system?
Dave
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Dave,
Instead of waypoints, we use more of a "path following" technique where we know the shape of the path so we can set the control algorithm up to stay on the path.
The generated code is run on a Motorola HC12 on a custom circuit (all Thursday we struggled with a micro reset issue that we finally tracked down after our 3rd practice). The custom controller sends a 0 - 5 V signal to the RC and the RC just simply reads the signal at the A/D and spits it out to the PWM. We also use the digital inputs to control the arms and other stuff.
Every part of the algorithm is closed loop, so it's not at all dead reckoning. Once during testing we forgot that a stack of chairs was sitting in the path of our right arm; we were able plow through the chairs and track our path without problem.
I was talking to Mike Soukup at the Regional and we were comparing controllers. It seems that they're quite similar (we're using the same measuring techniques as well). We found that one nice thing about have a guidance system is that we can test it on concrete or carpet, good or bad battery, high or low gear, and it really doesn't make much difference to the result. The only real difference is that carpet adds more damping so our settling time is faster on carpet than on concrete.
Anyway, good luck to you guys this week and at Houston.
-Chris