Henry IX: A fully autonomous robot platform

@melbul

My thoughts on sensors is to use as few as possible and implement them on a needs basis. You will have to write software to make use of all the sensors to achieve some task. For example I suspect eight sonar sensors would be sufficient for obstacle avoidance which I see as the first behaviour worth implementing.

Think of what sensors would be required to achieve some particular task. If your current sensors do the job why add more? For example, if you want your robot to charge itself you need an internal sensor to fire when the battery voltage gets too low. This should trigger finding and docking with a charger behaviour. Having a task orientated approach tends to focus the mind on what is really required.

@huckohio

If you copy as HTML from the Arduino IDE you will get a nicer result and indentations.

@robotbuilder

Thank you.  I didn't know that.

@huckOhio 

Great testing, I ordered one yesterday that might be to me tomorrow.. I don't know if I will get a chance to touch it this weekend though, things have been pretty crazy the last couple of weeks.  But when I do I will definitely share thoughts about how well it stacks up to ultrasonic.  I imagine it will be pretty well.

I bet it can run at "sweep" (the servo library example file that moves the servo back and forth) speeds and still get good data.  If that is the case there can be a lot more data points (perhaps as many as 180) instead of 5, 7, or 9 like i do with ultrasonic.  While Ultrasonic is pretty good at finding table and chair legs because of the wider angle it can read from, it does have many blind spots.  

@briang @huckohio @Robotbuilder 

Great stuff ,  FYI still toying with DB1 but following your posts 

Hello everyone, 

I apologize for the long pause in-between updates, the semester was very busy and I had to stay heads down.  The good news is that it is over, and I got together the next video in the series. 

This is the last video focused on the hardware buildout, I know many of you already have a completely different robot built out.  But now that I have gotten to this point with the rest of the youtube audience, I will be moving on to the navigation and avoidance algorithms next!

Very good video.

I am also following DB-1, but am looking more towards the higher level control which you talk about, LIDAR, SLAM etc.  You seem to have implemented some of it with the goal setting and object avoidance (object recognition) at the end of the video.  Maybe I missed one of your videos, but do you have these on video or documented?

Also, do you eventually plan to use ROS for your robots?

Posted by: @bigbadjohn

Very good video.

I am also following DB-1, but am looking more towards the higher level control which you talk about, LIDAR, SLAM etc.  You seem to have implemented some of it with the goal setting and object avoidance (object recognition) at the end of the video.  Maybe I missed one of your videos, but do you have these on video or documented?

Also, do you eventually plan to use ROS for your robots?

 

Thank you!

I have implemented the algorithms on other robots.  But you have not missed anything the videos are working up to those now.

ROS may very well be in the future.. but I have to get through the low level goal setting and object avoidance first

Sorry there have not been as many updates recently.. I finally got a video together on implementing PID which begins the real "Brain Building" part of the video series.  This was a big effort, I had to re-think the format a bit.  I am hoping I effectively combined the theory and mathematical aspects of PID with examples.. let me know what you think!

@briang

A very nice explanation of PID and the format worked well.  You certainly did achieve your goal of combining the theory with easy to understand examples.  But, as you suggest, when the code examples get more complicated having access to the code would make following along your robot series easier to do.  I hope you do get to setting up a patron mechanism or something similar where one can express one's appreciation for your efforts. 👍  

Posted by: @byron

@briang

A very nice explanation of PID and the format worked well.  You certainly did achieve your goal of combining the theory with easy to understand examples.  But, as you suggest, when the code examples get more complicated having access to the code would make following along your robot series easier to do.  I hope you do get to setting up a patron mechanism or something similar where one can express one's appreciation for your efforts. 👍  

Thank you!

And yes, I am exploring options to set that up.. Stay tuned 🙂

Posted by: @byron

@briang

A very nice explanation of PID and the format worked well.  You certainly did achieve your goal of combining the theory with easy to understand examples.  But, as you suggest, when the code examples get more complicated having access to the code would make following along your robot series easier to do.  I hope you do get to setting up a patron mechanism or something similar where one can express one's appreciation for your efforts. 👍  

Be careful what you ask for 😛

I have setup access to the github repository though a "sponsorship" mechanism available through GitHub.  I realize everyone might not have a GitHub account so I apologize if that causes any issues, I chose them because they take no cut at all and are huge advocates of open source.

Sponsorship gets you full access to all of the code repositories for the robotics series (and soon to be others) and I also included the full low level controller for Henry IX (even though the videos have not gotten that far).  Also know that I set a goal and once reached, the source will be made fully and freely available to all.

I would really love any and all feedback, I have never tried to do anything like this before.  Also, this is "pre-launch" I built an API to receive messages from github when sponsorships are made and automatically provide access to the repositories.  I have tested it with a couple of senarios and it *should* work but please let me know how the experience went! If all goes well I will be announcing this on YouTube shortly.

You can read more here if you are interested, link is included on the site if you wish to become a sponsor.

https://codingcoach.net/sponsor

This is just a start, I plan on adding a lot more code and resources to it now that I have the site finally together, the sponsorship piece built out and the basics to get started.

I hope everyone is having a great summer!

-Brian 

Posted by: @briang

Be careful what you ask for 😛

😀 I did not know that github could organise sponsorship, and I do observe it seems well organised and can report it all worked without a hitch.  I'm now one of your collaborators 👍.  At the moment I'll be more like just a follower than a collaborator as my time is limited right now, but one fine day soon I'll have more time to devote to developing my robots. 

I hope your collaboration and sponsorship proves successful. This forum was founded to follow along a robot build, but circumstances meant the robot project got abandoned.  I think quite a few roboteers have drifted away, but I would encourage any left to consider sponsoring your efforts for some really decent tutorials and code to get their bot on the move, or not, as obstacles are found in its way. 😎   

Keep up the good work.

@byron

Thank you!  You are my first sponsor so extra thanks are in order! (I tested a bit with a couple accounts, so they don't count)  I am very glad it was smooth, that makes me feel better about announcing it on YT and adding links to the videos, I very much appreciate the feedback.

@BrianG

Joined as a sponsor, although I have never used github.  How do I find your github page?