Brimstone

Author: Monika Svědirohová, 2010-03-02

my first steps in the world of robotics

I took park in the national finals of Science Expo AMAVET, where I reached the fifth rank and therefore I could participate on the international exhibition in Tunis. Moreover, I won the High school science and technology project contest in branch of electronics. On these pages, I would like to introduce my robot…

Cybernetic car ("Brimstone")

Construction

Robot

Robot chassis was based on the Lynxmotion kit. Its a 4x4 car with "tank" like motion.

Brimstone works in three modes :

Bluetooth remote control, where I command the robot and it detects obstacles. If an obstacle is detected, it stops and waits for further commands.
Fully automatic mode, where it an actively bypass obstacles.
Fetching mode. Robot is remote controlled and picks up objects. Obstacle detection does not stop the robot but slows it down so the robot can pick up the object easily.

Bluetooth remote protocol allows control of my robot by a PC, PDA or a cellphone. Bluetooth range, which is approximately 100m is sufficient for most environments.

Software

Remote control

The program is written for ATmega32 in C language. The code implements a "state machine", which works as follows :

robot receives a command via a serial line and performs action based on the command and its current state. The action can change current state of the robot.
example: current state - robot moves backwards, received command - go forward, resulting action - stop and then move forward (stopping before reversing speed preserves both motors and control boards

Autonomous mode

This mode uses interrupts generated by A/D converters attached to robot sensors. As soon as the sensors detect an obstacle, an interrupt is generated and obstacle avoidance is activated. Further interrupts are inhibited and robot starts to avoid obstacles. Obstacle avoidance routines are based on state machine too. Autonomous mode is terminated by an interrupt generated by a serial communication interface.

Construction:

soldering

robot from inside

wiring

robot from above

gripper

eyes in the dark

Eurobot

After improvement of the mechanical hand I tried to participate on contest EUROBOT 2009 in category STARTER, where I surprised the audience by moving the robot over the playing elements instead of picking them up. My robot was not able to build any "temple", but I gained valuable experience by participation.