trouble with beacon tracking code

[[53] opticruzer]

has any one got the tracking code to work? we are having trouble with the sensores picking up the beacon. to start the survos dont turn and when the robot should drive to target it still spins in circles. do you have any suggestions

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by [53] opticruzer

has any one got the tracking code to work? we are having trouble with the sensores picking up the beacon. to start the survos dont turn and when the robot should drive to target it still spins in circles. do you have any suggestions

For starters, you need the backup battery connected to the robot controller in order for the servos to move... And yes, it stinks that they only gave us 1 battery and you need to power both the EduRC and the real RC with it to do beacon tracking. You'll need to buy a second battery if you haven't already...

[deltacoder1020]

or create a basic power supply for the edubot (considering that it's essentially stationary), and wire it up to the terminals.

[tml240]

this is what we did, we uploaded the beacon code for the Edu Robot and put the navigator code on the FRC robot, and see if the FRC one would follow the edurobot.

would it work???

[[53] opticruzer]

well powering the bots are not a problem. we have two batteries. buts either the sensor or the beacon dont work. the navigate code does not get data from the sensors saying that all have veiw of the beacon.

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by [53] opticruzer

has any one got the tracking code to work? we are having trouble with the sensores picking up the beacon. to start the survos dont turn and when the robot should drive to target it still spins in circles. do you have any suggestions

It sounds like you're using the code in navigate.zip. Rich Petras' code in navigate.c centers the servos, blindly drives the 'bot away from the diamond plate several inches, and then starts a counter-clockwise turn-in-place until the beacon comes into view of one of the sensors. Only then do the servos start tracking and the 'bot drives toward the beacon. The turn-in-place is done to ensure that the beacon is well within the servos range of travel before they were allowed to track. This sounds like the behavor you're seeing. If all you want to do is try the trackers, upload tracker.hex (found in tracker.zip) instead of navigate.hex.

-Kevin

[[53] opticruzer]

well even if we put the beacon in front of the bot, it doesnt opick it up and go forward. it just keeps turning.

[Mr. Lim]

Make sure your beacons are being powered by something capable of producing the proper signals: i.e. the edurobot controller with the beacon.hex code loaded on it.

By default the beacon 0 signals are sent to pwm output 1 and beacon 1 signals are sent to pwm output 2.

Just remember these aren't just simple ON/OFF IR beacons... They are emitting a specific pulse width on a 40kHz carrier frequency. You can't just hookup the circuit to a battery and expect it to work.

-SlimBoJones...

[[53] opticruzer]

i know. we have it hooked up to the edurobot with the beacon code on it.

[[53] opticruzer]

well got a question for all those that got the ir tracking working. did u mount all four in the front or just two?