Carbot

Carbot is/was an arduino-based wall racer that I built a couple of years ago. It originally had a wired remote control but I removed that and replaced it with an arduino, a motor controller and two ultrasonic range finders – one facing forward and one to the side so it could whip around an arena keeping a specified distance from the wall on its right. Steering is done by controlling the rear wheels independently.

This was one of my original targets for the olduino and I’m finally getting around to it. The picture is a mockup with the olduino hardware stack on the car chassis and the sensors just tacked on. I think the physics and electronics will fit fine and from what I remember the software should be adaptable from the arduino original. The arduino has an advantage that it can just start its PWM output to control the motors and adjust each ones speed as the sensors dictate. The Olduino will have to bitbang the motor control in the same loop that polls the sensors. The measurement time should be on the order of a few ms so hopefully I can start with:
-measure front sensor
-measure side sensor
-adjust driving parameters(what duty cycle the motor controllers will see for each wheel)
-drive for 100 ms(something like .2m)
-repeat