Comments

• 

  Bot Thoughts November 29, 2012 at 10:15am

  Good to hear ArduRover is getting the coding attention it deserves :)  Rovers definitely have some unique issues to deal with as some have mentioned already. Being close to the ground surrounded by obstacles is trouble for gps and compass, and requires some obstacle avoidance, ideally. Bouncing and bumping over rough terrain--how well does the AHRS algorithm perform in those scenarios?  My system handles it very poorly :) Anyway, looking forward to following updates.

  I'm tempted to play with ArduRover now as it's got some support stuff (SITL, telemetry/GCS, etc) that my code is unlikely to support anytime soon. I have a spare RC car... hmm...
• 

  Anthony White November 28, 2012 at 10:33am

  GIT returns "empty repository" warning when running:

  git clone https://code.google.com/p/ardurover/

   
• 

  Anthony White November 28, 2012 at 10:17am

  Thanks, I also couldn't connect to the GIT library to get the source... can you post .zip files like this on occasion until whatever issue some of us seem to be having is resolved? Seems like the pace of activity is picking up!

  Does this 2.3 alpha fix the heading in the Mission Planner not updating without GPS lock?

  I am developing a differential thrust catamaran project using an APM2.5 and the ArduRover code base - if anyone can point me in the right direction on the best place to modify the steering controller to account for differential thrust (instead of rudder and overall throttle) I'd appreciate it - currently I am considering using a secondary Arduino Uno between the APM2.5 and the motor controllers to parse the throttle and rudder commands to differential thrust (which is easy) - however this does not seem like the most elegant solution. 

  Needless to say, I am not using LITE

  I look forward to seeing this group continue to develop, and am more than willing to provide assistance to anyone in more mechanical and overall system integration issues, as my programming and electrical background is lacking in comparison.
• Developer

  Linus November 28, 2012 at 4:41am

  Hi Tridge,
  
  I use the Lite option on one of my two Rover but if I'm the only one you can remove it anyway because I'm going to change my setup in the future.
  
  I liked the Lite option really because it makes possible to go without a IMU board and thought that probably more unused bare apm's  are laying around than IMU-boards.
  
  Thank you for your work! great news about the SITL and autotest for the rover.
  
  Cant wait to go out for testing the recent changes. coming weekend should be possible i think.

   

  Regards,
  

  Linus
  
• Developer

  Andrew Tridgell November 28, 2012 at 3:56am

  Hi Everyone,

  I'd like to know if anyone is using the "LITE" option in ArduRover. The LITE option is meant to allow you to use a bare APM1 board without an Oilpan sensor board, with only a GPS attached. I'm thinking of removing support for it as its makes the code a lot more awkward, but I can try to keep it if its being used.

  In other news, ArduRover now works with SITL (software in the loop simulation), and I've written a simple python rover simulator, allowing ArduRover to now be automatically tested in the APM autotest system. That will make it much less likely that the rover code will break due to a library or other change, as every commit will be automatically tested.

  The test currently is quite simple:

  •  it drives manually in a rough square
  •  then it does a rectangular auto mission
  •  then it does an RTL

  I hope to expand the testing as I get time.

  Cheers, Tridge
• 100KM

  u4eake November 24, 2012 at 5:26am

  Nice to see the rover code taking off again :-)

  Looks like I might have to order another apm2.5 clone to put it on my rover again.  It's too much of a drag to always swap it from my plane to the rover and the plane is working awesome now, so I don't wanna change it too much.

  Last week I had my drone make a video of myself, while I was driving my dirtbike through the fields.  
• Developer

  Andrew Tridgell November 22, 2012 at 12:49pm

  HI everyone. I started hacking on the rover code when a local school had problems running the current code. It turned out that some changes in the AHRS layer had caused a major problem with heading correction in the rover code, resulting in it not using either the compass or the GPS for heading - relying solely on the gyro.

  My next aim is to remove a lot of the cruft in the code left over from the original port from ArduPlane. I've already removed a fair bit of the altitude control code (which doesn't make a lot of sense on a rover!) and plan to continue removing plane specific code to simplify the code base. I'd also like to rename internal variables and structures to be more appropriate for a rover.

  I'd also like to get the rover code into the APM autotest, so we will get a warning in the future when something breaks. I have it building now in SITL, but still need to write a little python rover sim to make it useful.

  This will all take time as I have a lot of other projects as well, but I'll post in this forum when I've made some more progress.

  Cheers, Tridge
• 3D Robotics

  Chris Anderson November 21, 2012 at 5:44pm

  ArduRover users, good news: the legendary Andrew Tridgell ("Tridge"), who is one of the core ArduPlane/Copter developers, has now turned his sights to rovers and is fast improving the code. 

  As he writes in the APM dev list:

  You may have noticed I've been making quite a few changes to the rover code lately. That is because I've been helping a local school with APM controlled rovers as part of a student project. They've given me a rover to play with, and we've been working on fixing some bugs.

  The main things I'm doing at the moment is removing all of the ArduPlane specific pieces, like altitude control, flaps etc. I also plan on renaming a lot of the variables to be correct for a rover, so things like "roll" will becoming "steering". I'd like the code to be easier for students to understand and modify.
  
  I also have the rover code building in SITL, although I haven't yet written a python rover simulator, so it isn't in autotest yet.

   

  If you want to work with him on this, it's probably best to do it on the dev list. Please provide an email address (linked to a Google account) and I can add you to that. 
• Moderator

  Hai Tran October 29, 2012 at 7:54pm

  I want to build a mule to carry all my stuff.
• Matthew Pitts October 28, 2012 at 2:48pm

  @Thomas,

  That's a good find; I was hoping that there was some kind of capability in the ArduRover code to do obstacle avoidance, but hadn't looked into the code yet. I guess I will be buying the MINDS-i kit so I can make use of this in my Rover.

  Matthew N8OHU