Pushing robots, software and strategies

In a previous article, we wrote about the hardware of our pushing robots (http://rica4-by-mkx.blogspot.fr/search/label/Pushing%20robots), we will now present the software part.

To develop this software we used the Arduino IDE with a library that allows us to control the motors easily.

Our program was made of two big parts, the first one to move forward in front of the RICA, and the other one to follow another robot on the side. To choose the part of the program that we want to use, we put a switch on the robot.

To move forward in front of the RICA, we use a simple strategy: every motor was control by the infrared sensor located on the same side. If the distance is too high on a sensor, the track of this side goes forward, if the distance is too low, the motor goes backward. Moreover, the speed of the motor is proportional to the gap between the desired distance and the actual distance.

To follow by the side, we use two infrared sensors. If the rear sensor doesn’t sense the other robot, the robot moves forward, if it’s the front sensor, the robot moves backward. Another part of the program was made to keep the robot at a constant distance from the other robot and allowed it to turn following the other robot.

Finally, last week, we improved this first program by adding it a dashboard, to do this we used the software labview. With this interface we can adapt parameters of every robot in real time.

The next step is now to make our pushing robots communicate between them.