Hello! I'm about to start a project with the goal to create a robot that acts like a probe. The probe will drive around a room and systematically map the room with a ultrasonic rangefinder, for example this MaxSonar LV-EZ4 Ultrasonic Range Finder - XL-MaxSonar-EZ4 - SEN-09495 - SparkFun Electronics.
The parts I got at the moment is
an arduino UNO
two servos
small electric components like wires, transistor, resistors etc.
I believe I need at least the following components to be able to build this:
Rover 5 robotplatform(Rover 5 Robot Platform - ROB-10336 - SparkFun Electronics)
MaxSonar LV-EZ4
(Arduino motor shield, Do I need one of those to attach the Rover 5 to the Arduino uno?)
(maybe one more arduino uno which will function as a base station if the arduino on the robot can't handle all the information)
(xBee shield and xBee card)
So I was thinking that the robot will go in first the x-axis and collect coordinates with the rangefinder and then go in the y-axis and complement the coordinates. So the software takes care of the mapping but what I want to focus on right now is what kind of hardware do I need?
for example, do I really need a motor shield to hook up the Rover 5 to my arduino or can I skip that one?
I'll be happy for any ideas or suggestions!
thanks so much!
/A
Sounds like an ambitious project.
Yes you will need a motor shield.
One thought I had is were are you going to store all the data?
What about the datalogger shiedl from Adafruit?
I've been working on a similar bot recently. A motor shield is definitely needed as the arduino can not supply enough power for motors on its own. My bot is fairly small so I bought a couple cobal 50:1 geared dc motors and run them off of a qik2s9v1 dual motor controller. Remember dc brushed motors draw the most current when they are stalled. If you expect your robot may stall you'll want your motor controller (or shield) to be able to handle the current.
The other piece of hardware you'll probably need soon for mapping are some encoders or some other way for the robot to know where it has moved. You can get motors with encoders attached or try to make your own (ir led/phototransistor pairs are cheap). Nevermind, just noticed the rover 5 platform comes with encoders.
Mapping and localization can get pretty advanced in terms of software. I'm trying to implement a probabilistic based method which requires a bit more computing power than the arduino can handle on its own. For this I would recommend a couple xbees so your robot can send mapping information to your computer without having to be tied to a cable.