Firstly the 10m*10m experimental area was divided into a 1m*1m grid using metallic markers. This allowed the layout of grass tussock and bushes to be mapped onto squared paper . This mapping provided the 2D position of all vegetation but not their heights. Thus a database of panoramic images was collected from which the height […]
The app should be in a working state, so now we shall do some very simple edits of the code. To set this up properly, instantiate all 4 example modules as descrbied in the previous tutorial, call the Haferlach PI “HF” when registering it. Tweaking the Combiner (Adjusting Weightings) If you open up the WeightedCombiner […]
Now that you have the projects set up and ready to start development, it is time to examine the code itself. This post will cover ‘wiring up’ an App with the pre-packaged combiners and navigation modules. What is Pre-Packaged? With the AntBot codebase comes with 2 combiners and 4 navigation modules. The ‘Simple Combiner’ ignores […]
This guide expects you to have basic familiarity with Eclipse. Download the project from GitHub https://github.com/InsectRobotics/antbot Download Android Studio, Eclipse & Arduino IDE To begin with, download Android Studio and follow the instructions on the site – on Linux you may need to install extra packages so this is particularly important. To compile the AntBotServer […]
Once the chassis has been wired up the wheels may need to be calibrated. Each wheel is equipped with a ‘wheel encoder’ that measures the wheel’s rotations. The next section will provide some background as to what a wheel encoder is and how they work. If you are already familiar with wheel encoders then simply […]
Above we can see AntBot ‘in the flesh. Ignoring the lego framework that supports the camera, to assemble your own AntBot you need the following*: *You will also need some standard issue male-female copper wires to connect the boards as well as a Serial-USB cable to connect the Arduino to the smartphone. The […]
Benjamin Risse has just joined the group on May the 1st to work on ant navigation.
Follow up to RoboAnt: Build your own Android robot It’s vital we can control our soon-to-be autonomous robot! Fortunately, that’s really easy with the code provided on https://github.com/d3kod/roboant . Here’s how…
Nowadays smartphones are affordable, compact and capable computers. Mike had the ingenious idea that they can do a perfect robot brain. Packed with computing power and useful sensors, the one thing they can’t do (I think) is control external analog components – like motors. This is where the Arduino comes in. The hugely popular embedded platform […]
Our lab has been on the BBC news : Watch Robot builders inspired by animal kingdom
