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Subject: 
Re: moving in a straight line with two motors?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Sat, 14 Nov 1998 08:46:15 GMT
Original-From: 
Ben Laurie <BEN@ALGROUP.CO.nospamUK>
Viewed: 
5355 times
  
Scott Furman wrote:
> 
> > Here's an exercise for someone with an RCX:  Create a chassis that
> > consists of one drive motor to the wheels and an angle sensor geared to a
> > 2-d inverted pendulum on top.  Write a program that moves the chassis to
> > keep the pendulum straight vertical.
> 
> Believe it or not, I've been working on exactly this problem for the last few
> days.  I built an angle sensor using a 500K potentiometer wired directly to an
> RCX input port.  (Lego's angle sensor doesn't have sufficient angular
> resolution unless it's geared down and adding those gears adds too much
> mechanical resistance for the pendulum to swing freely.)
> 
> The problems I am still facing are:
> 
>    * The acceleration provided by two motors isn't sufficient to keep the
>      pendulum erect if it's only slightly perturbed from vertical.  Partly,
>      this is due to the tires slipping when the machine accelerates from rest,
>      but I think that, even with that corrected, the motors may not be
>      powerful enough.

I think making the pendulum longer should cure this...

>    * Although there's programmatic control of the motor power, there doesn't
>      seem to be control over the motor velocity.  As a result, the motor tends
>      to jerk when it starts or changes direction.  When the pendulum is
>      leaning slightly, the motor turns on briefly to correct it, but the
>      application of full velocity tends to cause overcompensation and the
>      pendulum swings the other way.  In a few cycles, the pendulum
>      oscillations increase beyond the motor's ability to compensate.

Possibly making it heavier will cure this...

Cheers,

Ben.

--
Ben Laurie            |Phone: +44 (181) 735 0686| Apache Group member
Freelance Consultant  |Fax:   +44 (181) 735 0689|http://www.apache.org/
and Technical Director|Email: ben@algroup.co.uk |
A.L. Digital Ltd,     |Apache-SSL author     http://www.apache-ssl.org/
London, England.      |"Apache: TDG" http://www.ora.com/catalog/apache/



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: moving in a straight line with two motors?
 
(...) Believe it or not, I've been working on exactly this problem for the last few days. I built an angle sensor using a 500K potentiometer wired directly to an RCX input port. (Lego's angle sensor doesn't have sufficient angular resolution unless (...) (28 years ago, 14-Nov-98, to lugnet.robotics)

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