Autonomous battle ship
hawk
Posts: 1
Hey everybody. I am new to the forum and I have a request for some help in outfitting a battle ship to be autonomous. First, I would like you to look at the videos on rc warshi combat. This will give you an idea of what the ship should do. A servo to swivel the gun. Probably IR navigation as PING looks too slow, and distance detection. Steering and propulsion will be routed to the motor and steering already with the vessel for RC control. How many boards do you think it will take to handle all of the circuts. If you could think on this and get back to me, I'd appreciate it.
Comments
First off, we (forum members) provide suggestions and advice on problems that you have. We don't do your project for you. If you want us to look at something, provide the relevant links (clickable!). Take a look at the silk ears thread...
About your project: the number of boards is irrelevant to your project, and a bad indicator (of something) anyway. You could do it all on one board, no board, or as many boards as you want. It all depends on how you have things setup, which is the critical element missing from your post. How big is the ship? How much money do you want to spend? Precisely how is each mechanical part controlled?
BTW, you will need to spend at least a couple of months learning to program and basic electronics to get anything done. This is not optional, unless you want to hire somebody to do the project for you.
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Powered by enthusiasm
Lol I'm just a student but it seems you do have an interesting project idea here and I'm interested. My vote on boards is 1 PDB, but unfortunately the Propeller may be a little harder for you to get started on.
As for sensors, IR can work however that is terribly inaccurate, and sonar can work however there are problems there with the water ruining them. It sounds perfect for a laser range finder but unfortunately I haven't gotten to experimenting with that yet. If you look at my Avitar you'll understand why I wish to have a laser range finder.
One nice thing about the prop is that not only would it be easily able to control the motors, turret, gun, but if you choose to make a laser range finder you could get a cheap laser, mount a light sensor to a servo, and with some measurements for precise degree measurements the prop can do all the trig necessary for measurements with only two cogs.
You'll have to descide what you want from here, and then maybe once you get a better idea we can help you out more.
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Got 150 pounds of bot and growing.
Key factors -- the RC Warships are 1:144 scale models, radio-controlled -- so a 4 to 6 foot air-craft carrier would be about right. They're DESIGNED to be sunk and then re-floated -- meaning all electronics on them are either very well sealed, or designed to survive being submerged. The sides are balsa-wood, and the guns are pneumatic BB-guns or 1/4" ball-bearings -- which make nice circular holes in the balsa-wood sides, which is why they're designed to sink. The guns are only supposed to fire every 8 seconds for the 1/4" ball bearings, or every 2 seconds for bb's -- machine guns are not allowed.
A typical ship could cost $1,100 dollars, fully armed and outfitted, but once created is WAY more robust than your typical $1,000 radio-controlled airplane which can only fly (and crash). When a ship sinks it's easily recovered (they have a float on a string for that) patched up, dried off, and put back in service. The guns on small ships (PT-boats, for instance) are fixed, but larger Battleship models can have rotating guns using servo's and steel-wire pullies, as well as another servo to change the inclination of the gun.
Most of the successful battles I've seen videos of have two ships pull along side each other and fire at very close range -- it's hard to be accurate when you're standing 20 feet away from the device you're aiming and firing. Still, being able to shift the gun turret to the engaged side can be very handy.
So, having said all that, I don't think the Ping sensor would survive immersion very well. One scenario that could be useful would be to have an IR based "presense detector" -- to detect when a ship is alongside -- perhaps tie it in with controlling the turning of the turrets. IR sensors work off reflection -- so the short range of these sensors would still work in this case. Make sure you have an "enable" control on your remote, so you don't create "friendly fire" incidents. One of the difficulties of these things is that there's a LOT for the single pilot to do -- steer the ship, turn the guns, fire, avoid other ships. While I don't think an IR-detector would function underwater, I don't think immersion would hurt it.
You'll want to encase your circuit board in a water-proof (and BB-proof) enclosure in the middle of the boat, with a well-waterproofed (using vaseline?) connector to the wires to the servos and guns and steering hardware. They cover the RF reciever with a balloon and tie-wrap it off to keep it dry.
In the battles I saw on video, it looked like there was very little automation on the ships -- everything was being done by RC remote. This means if you can do something very simple on-board -- IR steered gun-turrets and firing, for instance -- you'll have a competitive advantage.
http://www.repairfaq.org/filipg/RC/F_Ship_Kombat.html· There's one link, anyway.
Post Edited (allanlane5) : 4/30/2010 1:57:24 PM GMT
I'm thinking of a lockon system..... Hmmm.. sensor(s) lined-up with the turret(s) that keep them lined up with acquired target? set them to track distance of target? If you are changing distance then perhaps lock allowed to adjust incrementally to allow for movement around target? You would have to keep guns within ARC to avoid lock loss.
What about a lock hunt signal for front & another for rear....a tone on Remote announces a lockon following a hunt sweep for a certain distance.... then you can run or chase as needed. Having auto-targeting alone will make a huge difference......
perhaps, you'll want to set 4 points for lockon (front,rear,port,starboard)...to avoid long search delays.
Signals from remote...... Acquire target(front,port,starboard,rear)/Lock release/fire
Signal from ship LockSet/LockLost
Let the prop be your gunnery seargant.... ")
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Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way if he gets angry, he'll be a mile away and barefoot. - unknown