Brushless motors are changing the landscape in robotics. Coupled with precise closed-loop control, they are able to deliver excellent power to weight ratio but most importantly, they are transparent in the sense that external forces acting on the mechanism are reflected on the motor and vice versa. This leads to mechanisms that are actively compliant,
CategoryProjects
Build logs of various projects
Quadruped Robot Part III: Movement, Balance and Testing
This is the third and final part of a post series on the design of a low-cost, 8-DOF quadruped robot using cheap servo motors. The first post in the series dealt with the assembly and testing of a single leg module. The second post discussed the integration of four individual leg modules to make the
Quadruped Robot Part II: Assembly, Electronics
This is the second part of a post series on the design, manufacturing and software design of a low cost quadruped robot using cheap servos closed-loop control and force-sensing resistors for ground force feedback. The first post focused on the design of the quadruped leg, which is the most essential hardware part of the robot.
Quadruped Robot Part I: Designing the Leg Assembly
This is the first of a series of posts discussing the development of a small size quadruped robot. This post discusses the design of the quadruped leg assembly, on which I have been working on for the past two months. The quadruped leg design went through a total of three iterations of fundamental redesigning and
3D Printed, Endurance Micro Quad
This post outlines the build of a micro quad that’s been designed with endurance in mind. I designed and 3d printed the quad parts to fit micro DC motors, prop gears and all relevant electronics, with reduction of weight being a prime objective. Motors & Prop Setup Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links to product
3D Printed Landsail with Rigid Wing
This post outlines the design, printing and assembly of a 3D printed landsail with a rigid wing as a sail. Landsailing is a sport that applies the principles of sailing to land vehicles for propulsion. A lightweight wheeled vehicle is fitted with a mast and sail which uses wind-induced lift to provide thrust to the
Fully 3D printed quad: design, printing, maiden flight
In this post I outline a 260mm FPV quadcopter build whose frame I designed and 3D printed in my home printer. Carbon fiber is the material of choice for multirotors and other flying machines due to it being stiff and light. However, carbon fiber comes with many limitations in form. Usually frames made out of
Fully Autonomous Robocar
The last updates in the Burro autonomous robocar platform focus on two areas: Collaborative driving and fully autonomous driving (steering and throttle). Collaborative driving allows control of a single vehicle using multiple controllers and a self-driving model, all at the same time. Using this feature, one may have a neural network control the steering and
Autonomous driving at the micro scale
Building and training a self-driving robocar takes several iterations of hardware and software improvements. Especially training a competitive model is a time consuming process that involves going back-and-forth to the track several times to either check or improve model predictive performance by recording additional samples. Computer simulation is an alternative, however setting up a simulation
Emulating an Ackermann Steering Vehicle
Two steering schemes are mostly popular when it comes to ground vehicles: Differential, or skid steering, and Ackermann steering. Differential steering vehicles, despite their fancy name, look just like the typical two-wheel robot chassis found pretty much everywhere: Differential steering vehicles, as the name suggests, use differential thrust to turn. Most are made of two wheels
Building a DIY sub-500 gram quadcopter
In a previous post I’ve discussed the advantages of a lightweight aircraft: longer flight times, quieter operation, less stress to the components, more responsive control. In addition, having an aircraft below 500 grams (less than around 1.10 pounds) has the advantage that in many countries it does not require registration to fly, except for where
Updates to Burro self-driving platform
I’ve been busy implementing some cool updates to Burro, the self-driving RC car/robot platform I’m building. Here’s a summary: The Adafruit Motor HAT is now supported in addition to NAVIO2. Both boards are fully supported , and in fact you can use the same SD card in different cars/robots, without the need to reinstall anything, as