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  • Author Author: thachdovan
  • Date Created: Date Created
  • Views 3302 views
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  • Comments 25 comments
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Robot balances and translates on a ball using Arduino.

thachdovan
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Open Arduino

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General Description

A robot that can balance and translate on a spherical ball is developed. Its primary purpose is to focus on the high mobility in a narrow space. It can be applied in many applications such as home automation, indoor services, ...

The complicated ball robot system with large size is implemented by using two Arduino Due boards. These boards and its shield are set on the top of the robot body as the following picture:

Body

(Hardware structure of the robot system)

The robot collects data from a 9DOF Xsens IMU which possess the high accuracy of measurements. By using this device we can obtain the lean angles of the robot. Two Arduino boards and its shield is used to sense the signal from the sensor and generate control pulses for 200W AC Servo Motors. The translation and balancing of the robot are governed by the combination motions of the three omnidirectional wheels on a spherical ball.

 

The demonstration aims to show operations of the robot, it can be controlled by using a Joystick as well as be able to recover to the initial position even though several large forces are pushed to the robot body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reyCgdOuSWo

  • Great project!!

     

    Which Xsens MTi sensor did you use?

    Did you have any issues integrating the Xsens MTi with your system?

     

    Xsens has created this knowledge article to help customers with Arduino integration: https://base.xsens.com/knowledgebase/s/article/Interfacing-the-MTi-1-series-DK-with-an-Arduino-1605870420195

     

    Ioannis

  • in reply to thachdovan

    Thank you for this clear explanation. This is a more friendly approach to the project and I think that we all appreciate your explanation.

     

    BTW, good luck for your research, and don't forget that when you like / can we are anyway happy to know more on this intriguing application

     

    Enrico

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    Thank everyone for your interest in my project,

    In my opinion, "Open Arduino" means I can show my personal works/ideas about where Arduino can be applied and its performance, it does not mean the participants have to share everything! As we know, Arduino boards are broadly applied in IoT and home automation applications, nowadays. Most of these applications are developed based on the communication interfaces of the Arduino, and we can easily develop it by our ideas with the support of opensource software/controllers. However, in this project, I have been trying to use a powerful line product of Arduino which is Arduino Due (32-bit, high system clock 86MHz)  to handle complex tasks in control and sensing the signal of three AC servo motors instead of using well-known microcontroller branches such as  STM, Texas Instruments, NXP, ...which can produce a higher speed.

    I can share more about its concept. However, because I am still developing it for my research (education not commercials), so I cannot release the source code, now. If the source code is enormously important to become a winner in this contest as well as I am not a candidate for this battle then I think it is not fair for participants (for whom are still working on their research) and please look my post as my personal demonstration.

  • in reply to mcb1

      wrote:

     

    Currently, I cannot release all the source of the project

    I would simply add that comment in the post (perhaps in large letters).

     

    It is understandable that there are some commercial issues, and it does show a great concept.

    I totally agree.

     

    I would be interested in anything you wish to share that's not secret - like what are those wheels and motors you are using? They look very interesting.

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    Nico, you wrote:

     

    I think it's wonderful that you shared this project and it's really well done and very inspiring. No need to remove it. Fewer details might give you fewer points towards winning, but then that's not always the point of sharing projects and accomplishments on element14.

    and about this point I totally agree with you image

     

    Enrico