HI all,

With the Picbot V project behind us, we have now started the next project, which will incorporate a PCB with everything we optimised in the entire picbot series. Called SweepBot I, its primary task is to live in the bathroom, and daily sweep the tile floor of cat litter that has escaped the cat box. This sounds easy, but is no trivial task, since cat litter goes from large pebble sized pieces to fine dust.

Write me.

Chris comets133@yahoo.com

Hi all,

The gigantic "Docking Logic" Article is done, and posted! This has been one of our biggest robot research projects yet, and after 7 months of hard work I can now present to you the final report:

http://www.schursastrophotography.com/robotics/dockinglogic. html

If someone in this group could please review this work, and if they feel it can contribute to the robotics community, Id very much appreciate that you post it as an article on this robots.net home page. Thanks!

Chris

HI all,

Well, we have finished the first five chapters and are on the last one on our Docking Logic article. Weve covered all the theory and graphics, and now the final chapter - actual lab experiments testing the different technologies.

I hope to get the majority of the last chapter done by this time next week.

Write me.

Chris comets133@yahoo.com

Well, its been a whole month since I last posted, so here is our progress on the Docking Logic Project. The illustration graphics have been really killing me! So many of them, in such detail. Anyway I only have about ten more to go and ALL of the photos, movies, CAD graphics and yes schematics for the giant article will be DONE.

Maybe after this weekend. Then I have to start writing the mega article for you guys. we will cover beacons arrays, beacon sources, charging teqniques, docking tricks and methods, charging contacts and yes, even some of the pitfalls of the commonly used teqniques.

Im looking at getting this whole thing done in about a month I hope. But you know how that goes! ;)

Chris Schur Sr. Robotics Engineer Image Cam, Inc. Scottsdale, Az.

Hi all, Here is an update for the "Docking Logic" research.

We are on the last configuration to evaluate. So far, we have fully tested the pros and cons of these types:

1. Dual hoops contacts 2. cylinder contacts 3. Flat plate on wall

The final configuration is a bit uncertain at this point, but we are going to evaluate the method of simply driving the robot onto a flat charge plate to replenish. Its not as easy at it sounds! Using some sort conductive wheels is not a good choice, you dont want to know what metal wheels do to our wood floors in the house. Contacts that drag or drop to the ground may be one solution. I dont like dragging a set of contact brushes around the wood floor either. Once we have fully evaluated this technique, all the primary research is complete, and we will start the huge write up on the "Docking Logic" subject.

If you have some novel way your robot docks to charge, write us, we'd love to hear from you!

Chris

(comets133@yahoo.com)