Tracked Robot Fabrication tutorials

The following parts were fabricated for the constructions of the robot .They are explained one by one below.

WHEELS

The wheels used in the construction of robot were machine moulded plastic wheels with hollow space inside. The diameter of the wheel is 61 mm and the width of the wheel is 20 mm.

BELTS

The belts that we have used are reinforced rubber belts .Some of the remarkable characteristics are wearing resistant, high strength, waterproof, heat resistance, crack resistance, aging resistance and longer use life.  

The ball bearings that support the rear wheels need to be housed in a housing that could support the ball bearings and it also provides adjustable facility so that the slack that occurs in the belt over a period of time can be adjusted .It also facilitates the easy removal of the belt are loosening it.

REAR WHEEL SHAFT

The shaft shown  freely inside the ball bearing providing smooth motion .One end is threaded to connect the encoder wheel and the other end is connected to the wheel. 

BALL BEARING HOUSING 

The ball bearings that support the rear wheels need to be housed in a housing that could support the ball bearings and it also provides adjustable facility so that the slack that occurs in the belt over a period of time can be adjusted .It also facilitates the easy removal of the belt are loosening it.

PROVISION FOR SLACK adjustment

As the rubber belt slacks due to temperature variation and ageing a slot was milled in the robot’s body for slack adjustment which ensures that the belt stays taut at all times.

Final Year Project Robot design

Final Year Tracked Robot Sketch Up Drawing 

Google sketch up is a very useful tool for drawing fine and detailed drawings of your robots .Its easy to use as well Below is the 3d view of my final year project .

Isometric View

Side View

The real picture of my robot ..

The body frame was made of aluminium sheet and the wheels are plastic and the belts are rubber belts .I've written about the construction in the following posts .

Internet Controlled Telerobot Using Flat File System

Hi Readers 

I've worked on a project "INTERNET CONTROLLED TELE- ROBOT USING FLAT FILE SYSTEM"

while in college and published my research work as a paper .I've deceided to give my paper to you people so that you could use it in your work and benefit from it .

My project is still online and you can login here and see the working .How ever the robot isnot connected to the computer .You can just get to know the layout and working code .

TELE ROBOT LOGIN

UserName:demo

Password:demo

Heres the word document of my paper  .You can modify it as you like .

I am willing to give you the code on special request .

The Abstract and Introduction are given below .

Abstract - Our method aims at using the web browser for transferring the commands from the remote client operator to the robot’s control desk through a server which eliminates the need for costly equipments, complicated software’s and also consumes only a low bandwidth which is an added advantage .And moreover it provides security and eliminates the tedious process of IP address identification and verification used in the conventional methods of teleoperation through the internet. The main improvement that we would like to highlight is eliminating the need for installing client side software’s since the whole process can be done using the web browser ,through which the operator has real-time access to the robot .

INTRODUCTION

Today many robotic applications demand teleoperation. The current methods are mainly developed around wireless protocols which involve high cost equipments and can transmit only through a limited distance or by using complex software’s in the client end which consumes a large chunk of the bandwidth. The security concern of the process also becomes a huge question mark in these methods. 

So in order to eliminate the installation of software in the client end and to avoid the direct connection of the clients we need a server in between as some sort a meeting and a communicating point from where the operator and the robot can put and get the data .An php server was used for the purpose because of the ease of scripting and also its open source .And using this scripting a login interface was added as a first security measure. 

Sex with robots ....IS it possible ?

Ever Imagined marrying a robot in the future ?
Levy the artificial-intelligence researcher thinks that legal marriages between homo and Robo is possible by mid century .It was pretty shocking to me when I first read it .But Levy says that with the advances in computing, the day may not be too far away .

So Who know we may be having ROBOT Girl friends in the next 50 years .



Read these two articles from Scientific American

Not Tonight, Dear, I Have to Reboot
Humans Marrying Robots? A Q&A with David Levy

My Final Year Project

Hi Everyone very long time since I blogged ...
I guess I will blog regularly in blogger .

From now on I will post about my final year project .Which I am doing in CVRDE .Its a R & D center for Ministry of defence India .

My project title is
"AUTONOMOUS NAVIGATION OF A SURVEILLANCE ROBOT IN STRUCTURED ENVIRONMENT AND TELEOPERATION THROUGH INTERNET"

I am planning to build a tracked robot (click here for my tracked robot tutorial)which has basically two modes of operation .

a.Manual teleoperated mode through the internet .
b.Autonomous mapping mode .

Here is the basic block diagram of how the robot operates .



SCOPE OF WORK
Design and fabrication of tracked robot .
Setting up wireless communication between the remote computer and the robot
Dynamic mapping of the given area.
Obstacle avoidance using triangulation principle.
Setting up of the image acquisition device to relay back the images to the remote location.

This is what I am trying to accomplish .Hope I finish it with in time .

Starting off for SHAASTRA 2007

Its pretty interesting that I overcame my laziness for another post here .I promised to myself that I will post regularly (see my previous post) .I was also inspired my Ganesh my friend and also my school mate who has renewed his old blog (meet him here) to give it a new look .And I also grew a little jealous by the fact that he was getting about 30 hits a day :D .Inspired by all these factors I am back here again .

I am starting off for shaastra 2007 . I am planning to compete in all the three robotics event .
This time I am pairing up with Prassana my class mate and his cousin and his friend Siddarth for the mission mars event.

Mission Mars
We are planning to start building the robot for mission maPost Optionsrs event .The task of the robot is to autonomously navigate a surface similar to mars .We had long discussions regarding the design of the robot .
Finally we made the following conclusions about the design
1.Track drive for the robot .
Since this the best available simple method to navigate a rugged terrain and also we have the belts ,sprockets and boggie wheels for construction which they used for their staircase climber in shaastra 2006.

2.Distance measurement sensors
We planned to implement a real time distance measurement and comparison algorithm to navigate the terrain .Sharp IR sensors seemed to be a good choice .But calibrating them is
surely gonna be a challenge .As the ADC pin give a o/p ranging from - 0.3 to 0.3 volts .I have
to Google and learn a lot to do that .

3.Image processing
Since Siddarth had previously worked in Image Processing .We have also planned to implement
this with image processing method with a TMS32054x Processor .But I guess the problem here lies with connecting the camera to the chip .We have to figure out a way to do that .

Because I have CAT this week .Oh well please don't think CAT that I have mentioned as the common aptitude test for Gods sake ,I am not a MBA freak.This CAT is called as Continuous Assessment Test the great method my college uses to find out how a student
is performing and award him marks accordingly which is accompanied with partiality and grudge . Well I guess I am deviating off topic .Getting back ......I wont be working on it until Saturday .

wish me good luck .I want to win this event .

Some things that I want to remind myself to do it this week
Finish eeemaniacs .(The site that I am building for my class mates.)
Get the 3.2 CC engine running .For the hovercraft event.
And study something for CAT exams .

Robocon Pick N Place Robot !

This is the video of the pick and place robot that me and my team mate madan made for
ROBOCON 2007 .I am the one controlling it and madan is the one shouting from behind :P .

Watch this video in the testing phase



This is our robot in action in ROBOCON .It looks drunken and slow because we forgot to recharge the battery ...shit we lost the match ......




WORKING
Here is the picture of the pick and place mechanism that I came up with .
The working is pretty straight forward. It has a moving and a fixed arm .
I use the nut bolt arrangement to close and open the arm .And it has a center spring
which provides the force to automatically open the arm .And I used a motor fixed
with a pipe in the shaft to rotate the nut .
Heres the diagram of it .

My staircase climbing robot @ Shaastra 2006

This is my staircase climber that I made for shaastra 2006 which did decently well in the contest .It clocked about one and a half minute in the contest.The cool thing my robot is it's extreme simplicity and it was finished in a night ,and only half of the designed mechanism climbed the stairs .I started constructing it only on 5 th october 2 pm(and competition was on 6 th Oct11 am ) as I was concentrating in gold rush (which messed up in last minute).

Watch my bot climbing



This is a very well designed bot built by Anand mugilkar from Mumbai .Their bot used servo motors 3 kg.This is just a 10 second video.