WORK ACCOMPLISHED:
This week, we experimented significantly with turning and began to connect more extraneous pieces together. In the turning department, we initially struggled with our old deck and acceleration step of 0.01 duty cycle. I read online that in order to turn properly, we should consider lowering our duty cycle to give the wheels a better chance to grip the ground which ended up helping significantly. We also shortened the wheelbase by swapping the deck out with a deck I had at home, which also improved our steering by a landslide. We are now able to make stable right and left turns. We have also decided to return to the user from the back (as in the back wheels when riding will lead when returning) as this makes it easier with steering. We have also made strides with GPS routing.
As we swapped LiDARs this week, I have spent the last 2ish days trying in vain to connect the LiDAR to the Pi. I have followed a few tutorials and will be asking for help if I cannot accomplish this task in the next day or so. The documentation is shaky at best as you have to make a very custom package build on the pi to allow pysense (intel real sense on a pi) to run properly.
PROGRESS:
We are still a little behind schedule. The blockage of the pi connection to the LIDAR has presented another unforeseen issue in our progress forward. While we have delivered on all of the things promised last week, I would like us to be able to detect objects in the next few days so we can figure out our path planning and start testing that aspect.
NEXT WEEK’S DELIVERABLES
We will have some path planning/ return features implemented. We will also be directly controlling/testing from the phone at that point.