{"id":66,"date":"2012-02-03T21:30:06","date_gmt":"2012-02-04T02:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mcgurrin.com\/robots\/?p=66"},"modified":"2017-01-15T18:12:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-15T23:12:14","slug":"links-to-information-on-converting-rc-cars-to-autonomous-vehicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/66\/","title":{"rendered":"Links to Information on converting R\/C cars to autonomous vehicles"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first robot, MARV-1, uses a small, commercial tracked chassis.\u00a0 It uses dead reckoning from wheel encoders (only) for navigation, and a single front-mounted ultrasonic sensor for obstacle avoidance.\u00a0 While I could get fancier on sensors and tweak the control more (e.g., add proportional feedback between the wheel encoders and the motor PWM control to keep on course better), I figure I’m nearing the end of the development and testing I want to do on this first robot.<\/p>\n

For MARV-2, my second robot,\u00a0 I want to build a new vehicle with GPS and other sensor systems suitable for outdoor navigation, and I want something that covers ground more quickly.\u00a0 I figure an R\/C conversion will fit the bill.\u00a0 I’ve started looking into this, and it seems that it’s not too difficult.\u00a0 It also seems that it’s easier on a “hobby” class R\/C vehicle than a cheap toy one.\u00a0 Many hobby class cars, it seems (from my online research) utilize standard 3-wire servo connections, sometimes with an electronic controller between the R\/C unit and the drive and steering controls.\u00a0 Cheaper toy cars have a circuit board you need to cut wires from and solder new connections on.<\/p>\n

\n
\"AVC<\/a>

Poster for Sparkfun’s 2010 AVC competition<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sparkfun Electronic<\/a>s runs an annual Autonomous Vehicle Competition<\/a>, and several competitors from past years have blogs with useful information for developing autonomous vehicles from R\/C cars.\u00a0 Three blog postings that seem to provide a lot of good information are Overdue AVC Specifications<\/a>, Team Zyzzyx” SparkFun AVC 2011 Ground Entry<\/a>, and Data Bus: the Nickel Tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The video podcast The Latest in Hobby Robotics <\/em>has several videos on modifying R\/C cars.\u00a0 The two I’ve found that are most relevant are\u00a0The Latest in Hobby Robotics 17<\/a>, which focuses on modifying higher end cars and The Latest in Hobby Robotics 18<\/a>, which demonstrates modding a cheaper toy-style R\/C car.<\/p>\n

An additional link that’s worth pointing out, especially if you’re modifying a toy R\/C car, is Autonomous R\/C Car – Part 1 – Reverse Engineering Signals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I suspect it will be a while before I wrap up work on MARV-1 and have the time to start MARV-2, but the information these other hobbyists provide a lot of good guidance for getting started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first robot, MARV-1, uses a small, commercial tracked chassis.\u00a0 It uses dead reckoning from wheel encoders (only) for navigation, and a single front-mounted ultrasonic sensor for obstacle avoidance.\u00a0 While I could get fancier on sensors and tweak the control … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,17,16,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgurrin.info\/robots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}