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Subject: 
RE: Autonomous Robot
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Tue, 8 Aug 2000 17:31:14 GMT
Original-From: 
Duncan Colvin <Duncan@climax.co!stopspammers!.uk>
Viewed: 
565 times
  
How easy would it be to build a satellite dish style set up, where the beam
is reflected to a sensor in the middle of the dish? Has anyone done this
already? Are there prebuilt dishes that could be used? Is there an
affordable solution?

DBC
<Two thumbs fresh>

-----Original Message-----
From: Sattler Chris-QA1406 [mailto:Christopher.Sattler@motorola.com]
Sent: 08 August 2000 18:23
To: lego-robotics@crynwr.com
Subject: RE: Autonomous Robot


I had a similar idea, but I was picturing a funnel-shaped
mirror above a
light sensor so that no matter what angle you hit it at the light is
reflected down at the sensor.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Warfield [mailto:ipw47@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2000 8:59 AM
To: lego-robotics@crynwr.com
Subject: Re: Autonomous Robot


In lugnet.robotics, sjbaker1@airmail.net writes:

Ian Warfield wrote:

[...]

Building off the base station idea mentioned earlier, set
up a single
station
in the middle of the room/arena/whatever.  This station
incorporates an
extra
RCX, two motors, two rotation sensors, and two laser
pointers, one mounted
on
the tower at ground level and one mounted about two feet • high.  The robot
itself sports a laser detection sensor.

Here's the tricky part... use polar coordinates.  Suppose
the robot wants
to
know where it is relative to the tower.  It stops, sends
out an IR call
for
help, and enables its laser detection sensor.  The base
station receives
the
call, turns on the ground-level laser pointer, and starts
rotating the
tower.
As soon as the robot detects the ground-level laser it
signals again, and
the
tower stops rotating.  Next the base station switches off • the ground-level
laser and switches on the high-level laser.  The high-level • laser zeroes
itself perpendicular to the floor and starts sweeping upward towards
parallel.  When the robot detects this laser, it signals • again, and the
high-level laser stops.

Now the base station records the orientation of the tower via the • turntable
rotation sensor and the angle of the high-level laser via the laser • rotation
sensor.  The base RCX stores the turntable orientation • which provides the
angle reference.  It then multiplies the height of the • tower (two feet in
this case) by the tangent of the angle of the tower-based • laser to get the
distance from the base station to the robot.  Finally, it sends the • ordered
coordinate pair to the robot, which updates its internal • odometry and
continues on its way.

Clever! ...Food for thought!

Thanks!


The only snag I can see is that when the first laser is
being acquired,
both
the tower and the robot have to spin.  It might take a LOT • of rotations for
them both to happen to be pointing in the right direction for an
acquisition.

Not if you used an omnidirectional laser sensor.  Picture,
instead of only
one
face of paper, a paper cylinder.  There would be a tube of
paper mounted on
top of a circular LEGO piece (or *pieces* arranged in a
circle) with a paper
top.  All sides of the cylinder except from the bottom would
be paper.  Now
stick a light sensor vertically upward through the bottom of
the cylinder.
Assuming the paper is diffuse enough, a laser striking
anywhere on the paper
should make it grow brightly enough to be seen by the light sensor.

(Even better, if it's available - use a block of frosted or
translucent
glass.  This would transmit light even better than the paper would.
Wherever
the laser strikes the block, the whole thing would glow
bright rose pink.
Stick it on top of a light sensor.)


I suppose that once the tower knows where the robot is, it • can do a little
spiral search to re-aquire it when it gets lost - so it
won't be necessary
to
track the robot all the time.  Knowing that would allow one • tower to track
MULTIPLE robots at once!

Cool.


Thinking about precision - how accurate can you make a lego gear
train/rotation sensor point?  Seems to me like the slop in • the gears would
limit you to perhaps 1 degree precision.

Only if you hooked the rotation sensor directly to the motor.
The slack
isn't
all that bad unless you use millions of gears.  If you geared
the turning
down
quickly enough (i.e. with the shortest gear train) you
wouldn't have that
much
to worry about.


Fine until the robot drives under the sofa!

:D


--Ian




Message has 1 Reply:
  RE: Autonomous Robot
 
(...) Try a flashlight reflector. Rat Shack used to sell a 'cigarette lighter' that was a hyperbolic dish to light from the suns rays. ___...___ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx (...) (24 years ago, 8-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)

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