Final Arduino Code
By: Jordan Smallwood (Project Manager)
Approved By: Miguel Garcia (Quality Assurance)
Table of Contents
6-Wheel Differential:
The six-wheel differential takes advantage of pin-change interrupts since most of the external interrupt pins are lodged within communication pins on the ATMega 2560. The way it works can be viewed here. Currently we are experiencing difficulties getting the software to work, this may be due to the short that took place while wiring the Pathfinder up. I believe there may be some issues with the motor drivers and we will have to replace these. The code for a 6-wheel differential can be found here: Final Arduino Code.
No-Load:
In order to preserve energy in the wastelands of Mars, we need to cut off power to motors that are spinning freely. In order to determine if a wheel is spinning freely we compared the current power running to them with known values of no-load current and would turn them off if need be. Turning off the motors is not an issue but it’s determining when to turn them back on that poses a threat. We can pulse the motors to find out if a load is present but at that point it may be too late and will create unnecessary drag on the system. Further studies can be found here. If you would like to view the code it is included in the .zip folder mentioned in the previous section.
Due to time constraints and non-software related issues, the Pathfinder is currently unable to perform GPS navigation. However, access to GPS information regarding latitude, longitude and heading can be extracted from the Arxrobot application onto the Arduino. Furthermore, these values can be modified to produce distance to checkpoints and required turn. Although this feature is currently not functional it is definitely feasible.
Conclusion
Acting as Project Manager/Software was an extremely difficult task this semester. I would have liked to focus on one specific area, specifically software, so that I could have done more as far as coding went. But will have to continue working on this code throughout the summer so that Pathfinder will be able to complete it’s mission.