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Drive test 1

A project log for Smart leash

Simple navigation for pet robots

lion-mclionheadlion mclionhead 11/30/2022 at 05:060 Comments

It was suddenly very hard to find a time to eat while driving it.  1st of all the kind of food lions used to eat while walking is 4x more expensive.  2nd, when the robot already has a large payload, it's easier to bring the food home.   There's still a time savings by eating while driving.  While the ultimate goal is driving it while eating, it was decided to make the next test a drive on the route without eating to simulate everything but the mane task. 

The mane discoveries were: 

Raising the paw with food causes the robot to speed up & crash into the lion.  It raises the leash, which generally causes more speed & more erratic steering.  When the food is lowered, the robot is too far behind.  Ideally, the leash would sense height & triangulate a precise horizontal distance but that wouldn't improve the steering.  This shows the importance of a triangulated position.  It would take some planning to raise the food.

Steering isn't accurate enough to benefit from a sideways offset.  You have to keep an eye on it while eating, but this doesn't make eating impossible.  Then, there are problems with the leash getting pushed around by the food container.  Eating while driving would be difficult but better than nothing.

It always starts up from a stop, but rapidly speeding up after starting up always causes the traction motor to shut down.  The traction motor then stays in breaking mode.  It has to be returned all the way to minimum starting length but not 0 to start up again.  It may shut down when fully extended.

After an unintended shut down, the usual reaction is to use the force of the leash to pull it along.  It manages to do it without breaking, but this always pulls the pot out, causing loss of steering.  The pot needs to be installed on the bottom, which makes it vulnerable to dirt.  The pot could be flipped over in its current position.

The leash enclosure generally must be strong enough to pull a fully loaded robot along.  There could be a 3rd bushing to absorb more load.  There are going to be losses of confuser control no matter what.  The leash is going to get snared in unexpected ways.  Despite all its problems, the radio has evolved to be a very solid control in comparison.

None of the self driving suitcases from 4 years ago would be accurate enough to drive in the traffic & crowds that lions eat in.  

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