Building My Own Self Balancing Robot

[airman00]

I plan to make a small balancing robot and then scale up to make a big self balancing base for my butler robot.
I am going to use this website as a guide  http://members.optusnet.com.au/a4x4kiwi/scooter/

Anybody have any advice or parts recommendations ?

I'll post up a parts list tomorrow , because I want you all to review it to make sure I didn't forget anything or maybe something I need to add , etc.
As always, I'll post a members tutorial on this self balancing robot.

Thanks
,Eric

[pomprocker]

make your robot conquer steps and stairs...your butler robot would be useless in my house 

[airman00]

make your robot conquer steps and stairs...your butler robot would be useless in my house 

hmmm true

My budget is 1500 dollars. Do you think thats enough cash to build a biped or a spider robot that can hold 150 lbs ( or maybe just 100)?

[Asellith]

check out the link in this post

http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=4142.0

It talks about a wheel design that would work to climb stairs. The wheels are covered with tracks. These tracks can be configured like treads by pushing two arms inside the wheels out and make the wheel look more like a triangle. This gives you more stability. Watch the video they show these guys getting up and over a lot of stuff.

However you can one up them with chives. By incorporating the reversed pendulum design into those wheels you can over come some of the strange designs the guys in the video came up with. They used small arms to stabilize the robot and help it go up and down inclines. If the robot was more top heavy and designed to balance itself. Then when the wheels changed to a 45 degree or more angle you might be able to keep the top vertical and still move up the incline. You might have to make the wheels move independent of the tracks.

In any case would make a great tutorial

[bukowski]

Balance bots were the reason I picked up robotics as a hobby. Ive done a ton of research, but still need to work my way up to the bot I want to build...

There is a number of thesis papers posted on various methods and algorithms concerning inverted pendulum robots, they are very helpful.

http://robotics.ee.uwa.edu.au/theses/2003-Balance-Ooi.pdf

[pomprocker]

Galileo wheels wouldnt be cheap. try the SHRIMP robot design. might be cheaper.

[airman00]

This looks a bit too big and scary for a butler robot




The galileo wheel sounds promising. Before I start anything , how much do you guys estimate it will cost. It must be less than 1,500 dollars.


And Asellith are you saying I should do self balancing Galileo wheels? That is a nice idea

[Asellith]

You don't need to buy the Galileo wheels. You could design something similar. Your probably not planing on professionally selling something so boring the concept and designing your own mechanism would be to bad. Or you could toy with just making it a tracked vehicle and have a large drive motor to run the tracks and a smaller motor to change the angle of the robot body. That way Chives could even carry open drink and pass them out So even if the tracks had to move up a ramp or set of stairs the body could compensate and not fall down.

Something like this may be to small for your application. Inside the budget though at $220

http://www.lynxmotion.com/Product.aspx?productID=577&CategoryID=109

Just build a flat platform on top attached by a few motors and you could get it to balance might even try a 2d balancing system to allow you to get more stability in X and Y axis.

[airman00]

those tritracks look way too small and way too weakb

[pomprocker]

maybe you can just design an upstairs model and a down stairs model 

upstairs model would just make beds, vacuum, and clean bathrooms.

downstairs model would cook, clean, serve dinner, water the grass etc...

 

[airman00]

you know what , I only need it downstairs. I don't need it upstairs

I'll stick with self balancing then for my butler robot


Plus I'll make a spider robot with an airsoft gun .... since I am dying to make a spider bot