DIY robot lawn mower

[Tommy]

I had the same thought about RoboPlow -- that liability might be the reason if it's not commercially viable.

Two-Stroke
I don't know if it's, no one has cracked the autonomous mowing of the average lawn,
or because it's not commercially viable we just don't hear about them.
I seen a few web sites on college competitions in the autonomous mowing category, the
winner are the ones that can complete at least half a flat area @100ft x 100ft.

It should be a good week for George, I also have a big grin on my face looking at the parts
that came in today. one was for lack of a better term a new central nervous system, his
old one was made up of four different devices, now it'l just be one(sweet!). the other parts
are for slowing george down, right now it's top speed is 20Mph, I can't see any reason it
needs to go that fast, I'm thinking 7Mph should be about right.

Tommy

 

[minkyung]

Two-Stroke
I don't know if it's, no one has cracked the autonomous mowing of the average lawn,
or because it's not commercially viable we just don't hear about them.
I seen a few web sites on college competitions in the autonomous mowing category, the
winner are the ones that can complete at least half a flat area @100ft x 100ft.

It should be a good week for George, I also have a big grin on my face looking at the parts
that came in today. one was for lack of a better term a new central nervous system, his
old one was made up of four different devices, now it'l just be one(sweet!). the other parts
are for slowing george down, right now it's top speed is 20Mph, I can't see any reason it
needs to go that fast, I'm thinking 7Mph should be about right.

Tommy

That is a fair maximum speed, I think. No need to let it move very fast, right? Maybe you can even bring it down to 5mph. Then you can transfer the energy to increase torque.

 

[Two-Stroke]

It should be a good week for George, I also have a big grin on my face looking at the parts
that came in today. one was for lack of a better term a new central nervous system, his
old one was made up of four different devices, now it'l just be one(sweet!).

As I understand it, George's "brain" is the netbook running XP Home and the "nervous system" is your new device that can (a) receive data from various sensors; (b) send instructions to various motors/switches; and (c) communicate in a form that these devices can interpret and the netbook's program(s) can understand. Am I close?

Does the new device talk to the netbook via USB (with device drivers) and the motors/sensors via regular wires?

... the other parts
are for slowing george down, right now it's top speed is 20Mph, I can't see any reason it
needs to go that fast, I'm thinking 7Mph should be about right.

It's funny that you brought that up. I've been thinking of a much more modest (read: less expensive) DIY project: modifying a self-propelled Lawn Boy mower (yet to be found) so it will operate via remote control -- like a model airplane. My idea -- this is the fun part - is to modify the two-stroke engine (and possibly alter the gear ratio) so the mower will go MUCH FASTER.:thumbsup:

It would be fun to have a terrifically fast, remote-control mower that would also sound cool because of the hopped-up two-stroke.

 

[Tommy]

No need to let it move very fast, right?

Truth be told, I'm not sure, for mowing and moving stuff higher speeds are not needed,
but for plowing snow, I don't know yet. but I'm going to keep George's speed slower then
I'm willing to run after it, in case I put bug in the software .

As I understand it, George's "brain" is the netbook running XP Home and the "nervous system" is your new device that can (a) receive data from various sensors; (b) send instructions to various motors/switches; and (c) communicate in a form that these devices can interpret and the netbook's program(s) can understand. Am I close?

Two-Stroke, that is exactly right.

Does the new device talk to the netbook via USB (with device drivers) and the motors/sensors via regular wires?

Yes, with the old "nervous system" I needed a four port USB hub to connect all the devices, which I believe could cause a log jam of information at times,
and because the old devices didn't have any internal memory some information could be missed, the new device has internal memory(Sweet!), not
only that, the old system could get data at a rate of 500Khz, the new one is at 5Mhz.

so the mower will go MUCH FASTER.

While I'l admit these things look cute screaming around. but at my mom's age, she like a warm and fussy feeling better(I do also).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NFggE_4kOQ

Tommy

 

[Two-Stroke]

Yes, with the old "nervous system" I needed a four port USB hub to connect all the devices, which I believe could cause a log jam of information at times,
and because the old devices didn't have any internal memory some information could be missed, the new device has internal memory(Sweet!), not
only that, the old system could get data at a rate of 500Khz, the new one is at 5Mhz.

That sounds much better. I can see how the old system could have trouble handling peak loads in terms of data throughput. It might work fine 99% of the time but have a meltdown in a rare case when it had to do many things at once.:confused2:

Do you have a favorite site where they discuss software for applications like George? I noticed some forums on phidgets.com but they didn't seem very active.

 

[Tommy]

Do you have a favorite site where they discuss software for applications like George?

Two-Stroke
There are some active forums, but sadly I have not found one where George fits in yet.

take a look at a few of the videos in the below link, it may give you an idea why.
Robot Videos

Tommy

 

[Two-Stroke]

take a look at a few of the videos in the below link, it may give you an idea why.
Robot Videos

Thanks for that link. It's not exactly what I'm looking for but, if I get your drift, the people on the forum are into party tricks -- not serious discussion of software problems.

I did enjoy this video of a Halloween project.

 

[Tommy]

not serious discussion of software problems.

Two-Stroke
There are some very sharp people societyofrobots.com, but 99% of the projects there
are toys. there is a very good industrial forum Robotforum | Support for Robotprogrammer and Users - Index
but George does not fit there either.

The problem faced by large bots run by a PC are much different then small bots that run
on microprocessors(PIC).

The problem is mine, this is my first project of this type so I don't have a network of forums
or groups of like minded people located yet.

Tommy

 

[Two-Stroke]

Two-Stroke
There are some very sharp people societyofrobots.com, but 99% of the projects there
are toys. there is a very good industrial forum Robotforum | Support for Robotprogrammer and Users - Index
but George does not fit there either.

The problem faced by large bots run by a PC are much different then small bots that run
on microprocessors(PIC).

The problem is mine, this is my first project of this type so I don't have a network of forums
or groups of like minded people located yet.

Tommy

Thanks for the link to Robot-Forum -- I enjoy reading stuff like that.

I had a thought that might help you. You probably know this if you are sophisticated enough to use C# but I'll post it anyway. In the same way that you might have a "bottle neck" in the device between the netbook and the motors/sensors, the netbook itself may be vulnerable to peak load problems. One way to help minimize the issue (besides spending more on a faster machine) is to use msconfig to eliminate any unneeded background programs that are running on the netbook's OS (XP Home). Here are some links:

Microsoft Support article on using msconfig

A pretty good how-to article

A list that identifies many known startup programs -- to help identify these obscure things

I thought of this because I have an Acer netbook (which I don't use very often -- just when I'm away from home and really need a computer) and I found that cleaning up with msconfig helped quite a bit -- because the netbook is so underpowered.

 

[Tommy]

because the netbook is so underpowered.

So far the only time George's cute little netbook(it's even pink..got it real cheap) has seemed
a bit too slow(single core processor) was when using cameras, WiFi(local network..Radmin) plus
deal with the nervous system, George was 2sec behind remote PC(dual core in the house) .
While I only debugged when George was running 5 different devices all through a single USB2 port,
and each of these devices have their own software driver and syntax. I'm eager to try the same tests
using only 3 different devices.

In your idea for a fast RC mower I would think something like the below platform could be made
to go real fast.
YouTube - robotic RC lawn mower

Tommy
All opinions expressed are mine alone, and subject to change as information is gained.