Geeky Dalek Project

19 May 2017

My geeky idea is a Dalek with object recognition and different behaviors based on what it sees. I have recently acquired two 12'' rc daleks, one functioning and one for spares, and the motor section is actually well built. I will use a RPI3 for the image recognition and an Arduino for the movement and obstacle avoidance, so as not to encumber the RPI too much. Trying to find a viable way to turn an optical mouse into an odometer for motion tracking. Any tips VERY welcome.

Top Comments

barsznica over 8 years ago in reply to lahey

You would get the 5 GPIOs, you are currently using as outputs, back as inputs.
Apparently, the USonic detector can be interfaced with 1 GPIO (trigger AND echo/output).

A heap of IIC (I2C) sensors can be put on the IIC BUS (128, I think) using 2 wire data.
SPI could also be used for higher speed, but requires 1 GPIO per sensor to "address"/enable it.

Check out a 9DOF IMU.
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lahey over 8 years ago in reply to barsznica

I think I need more inputs than outputs. But that PCA board is wicked, daaaaamn!
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barsznica over 8 years ago

You could use a PCA9685 to increase your outputs.
Works with Arduino and Pi
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lahey over 8 years ago

Update:

The motor section is taking shape, what's missing is a gyro to calculate rotation and probably a mouse optical sensor to calculate movement. I hope I have enough pins on the Arduino for all these sensors.
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lahey over 8 years ago

UPDATE

found a pretty good path planning library on github: https://github.com/elben/kapal and planning to implement it as follows:
arduino does the basic muscle work, moves and returns position and visible obstacles (ultrasound)
raspberry gradually builds a map of the area and tells arduino where to move. In case of unforseen obstacles the movement stops and the map is updated.

only problem is the code is poorly maintained & commented and hard to understand how to parse the final path list.

onwards!
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