I have an idea for a project that I might pursue, but am unsure of the feasibility. In Australia, we're limited to 250 watts for e-bikes, but I want to be able to use my bike to pick up shopping. It's legal (as far as I know) to drive an RC car on roads, so long as you don't cause a nuisance. So what I was thinking was I might try to build an RC car that follows my bicycle.
I don't think GPS is a great idea for this project, as it can have trouble with overhead cover and accuracy. I believe there are optical based tracking systems that might be feasible, but I'm not really certain what search terms to look for, to find examples.
I'm imagining something similar to a motion capture rig, used for producing animation, which often use targets to on the actor's suit so that a camera can track their 3D movements, except in this case, it would be mounted on a fixed frame on a bicycle, to inform a camera on the RC vehicle of it's position, relative to the bike.
Is this something I could put together with Arduino? Are there relevant projects already?
I would of course also have some safety features, like a controller on my handlebars, that includes a brake / cut-off in case I'm riding towards an obstacle not suitable for the RC vehicle. But the key question in terms of overall viability is how to implement a reliable, accurate, follow function.
Although i have barely any experience with it, i know people use Ardurover / Ardupilot because of it's accuracy for mapping and navigating autonomous routes. Or mowing lawns with Ardumower firmware. I also know that the Ground Station Software has a feature called follow me. where the vehicle will follow the laptop or smartphone running the Ground Station software by transmitting it's local GPS coordinates to the vehicle.
Ardupilot also has the option to implement Lidar and/or object avoidance electronics but this is way beyond my knowledge.
Ardupilot is opensource and free. Hardware is priced above average. Fun fact: Ardu(ino)pilot used to run on a Mega2560 but is evolved into dedicated software.
I think you will find an RC car of any sort will be classified as a "motorised vehicle", check your regs for any mention of where you can drive a "motorised vehicle" when on public roads.
Shires and councils will probably have differing laws with regards to RC type cars as they see them as recreational toy.
Yours is a bit different usage so you may have to delve a little deeper, or go and ask the local authorities.
Tracking a target can come in many forms, from optical to IR, using a camera or a scanning head.
If you are going to have Estops/cutoff you would need a system that has constant comms with the follower, so if you lose comms it stops by default.
I don’t think this is practical - it’s to be quite substantial to carry a decent sized load and needs a battery to last as long as the bike one .
I’m sure the law wouldn’t like it as an autonomous vehicle ( you won’t be controlling it directly).
What you need is a trailer . You can carry a spare battery in it too.
You could have a big basket in the handle bars ( be as big as your RC car )
You might be able to have a powered trailer too if 250w plus your pedalling is not enough .
I think you 'd better check that one again.
Even in public places such as parks, where most rc operation is banned, any that are allowed need approval, licencing and insurance.
States may differ but just between you and me, I would not like to have to face the consequences of causing a legal roaduser any damage or personal injury from your so-called "groceries buggy".
Unfortunately, I think that the trailer would count as part of the bike, and therefore any additional power for it would be illegal. The issue in my application is wanting to be able to get a load of groceries up a hill. I'm essentially trying to achieve a car-free lifestyle, so I'm willing to go to 'almost diy car' levels of engineering for this in the long term.
And the location I'm choosing for this is well and truly outside where I could get things delivered.
Yeah, the insurance / liability issue is entirely another aspect that I hadn't thought about. My thinking was that I'd try to make a vehicle that's relatively compact, that stays close enough to my bike that if it were to cause someone nuiscance or harm, I'd have to almost run into them with my bike first.
In terms of the practicality of the vehicle ... watts and battery size are going to be less than the bike, due to the lack of the human onboard, so you could just use a similar battery to the ebike, and the same wattage motor, and you'd have a vehicle that can always keep up, so long as the load on the vehicle is less than the rider. And you could even, for instance, have a chain of the vehicles following like ducklings.
hehehehe....couldn't help but notice that "Sexy Cybor" had to keep constantly checking to see if the "payload" was still there.
In some ways an involuntary reaction and rightly so given the opportunity for someone to nick what might appear as even "remotely" valuable.
Just another hazard associated with running such a system from the leading bicycle or vehicle.
As the mob from Mythbusters TV show would say........ "busted"
I'd probably install a mirror for testing it, but the application is in a rural area where that's really not going to be an issue for me. The only other traffic will be cars. I'm trying to figure out if I can use something like this, to enable to me to live in a rural location without using a car. For the sake of efficiency.
Since even compared to a full sized EV like a Tesla, this would be far more efficient from an energy to weight transferred POV.
Last I looked, a fully grown average male can output approx. 106w and for limited time.
However grocery delivery specs are at last time checking, undocumented.
There would be a challenge to it and it would require an upgraded brake and signaling system, but when you got it moving, it would not take much energy to maintain on presumably flatish roads.
It would draw the most on take-off and going uphill, but with that much mass a regenerative braking system could go a long way to extending battery life.
valuable.