Sunday 11 December 2011

First Run

This is a video of the first run at doing a square this was done just using a timed loop in ROS. calibration of the casters need work

Friday 9 December 2011

Testing the drive

We now have a basic control of the robot with ROS (ros_serial and new_omni_ros.pde) it responds to cmd_vel and i can drive it in a triangle pattern ie straight for 3 seconds turn about 90 degrees then crab at a 45 degree angle and then repeat. I tried a crab and a rotate at the same time but the drive became unstable. Using the joy stick in ROS is also unstable. using ros_serial seems a bit unstable

Take 2 using new_omni_servo.pde and driver_test.py is more stable and still responds to the above commands but getting encoder values out of the arduino is still on working.

hardware problems that have crept in
steering drive sprockets sloppy
front steering driver to week
drive motors sill driving with 0 vel
need a external reset button for arduino
LED for servo power
move motor power LED so we can see it
steering need to be more snappy and accurate 

Monday 5 December 2011

Omni and ROS

Today I had omni_bot listening to the ROS topic of cmd_vel/twist we were trying to drive in a square it worked better than expected but still needs work the steering accuracy is to low and the speed is to slow
to do
Steering chains need a tensioner
PID loop for steering (use loop time!!!!)
move cmd_vel publisher to zeno
start base link /.odom publisher