Solar powered robot.

SciTech02

Hello.· I was wondering if it's posible to create a solar-powered robot.· You could have it charge the main battery wile it roams and if the light goes away it would continue to roam.· The lowest power supply for the boe bot is 6 volts, I've seen panels that generate 6 volts.· Can this be done?

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There is always an answer.

There is always a way.
There is always a reason.··· -SciTech02.

AmaRobotDude

Sure, Some Beam style bots are solar powered. I think a long running bot would have to use a lot of cells and need some down time.

www.solarbotics.com/

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So many hobbies, So little time.......and money [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Ryan Clarke

Yes, most of the Tilden bots use what they call "solar engines"- where they load a large cap (sometimes supercaps) and then dump the charge, rinse, repeat...

Most of their bots exibit 'insect' like behavior- It is a different type of robotics- for some it will not give the movement/feedback they expect a robot to have (like say, a BOEbot)- it can be interesting to see their bots' behavior imitate insects, albeit generally much more slowly.

Ryan

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Ryan Clarke
Parallax Tech Support

RClarke@Parallax.com

allanlane5

The main problem is that current Solar Cells don't produce that much current. It is possible, for instance, to make a lab with a 'solar powered car' with a single electric motor and a 3" by 5" solar cell. But it will only produce full speed in direct sunlight. Now, your typical BOE-BOT takes much more power (200 mA?) to move than that 'toy' car.

So you'll either need a much larger solar cell area, or use the cell to 'recharge' the bot, or only be able to move the 'bot' short distances, then wait for a long while for the solar cell to recharge the batteries to a 'useful' level again.

In fact, that's what they do on Mars at this point, for their 'rover' vehicles. Sit and charge the batteries, then move a little, take a picture, then sit and charge the batteries some more.

LoopyByteloose

BEAM is really a wonderful introduction to solar powered bots. Also, it introduces four and six legged motion. But, the solar cells limit your robot to being smaller and less complex in terms of additional systems.

If you dream of things like radio communication, internal navigation, vision and speech; it really won't happen with purely solar power. Solar recharging may be useful in some instances and if you use lithium polymer batteries you can get a significant reduction in weight.

In other words, try to consider the kind of robot you want rather than intially defining it by this particular power source.

I still dream of a five legged, omni directional beast, but I have yet to commit to building it as I suspect I would want 3 servos on each leg - maybe four.

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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)

······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

Ryan Clarke

I agree Kramer, the BEAM stuff (such as the Junkbots book) are great starting points for learning about solar powered bots- But as allanlane5 said, you are never going to get the kind of 'robot' from the (current) solar technologies that you will from tethers/batteries- I think that it is interesting that Tilden has all these great solarbots, yet the ones that have brought him more success in sales are the Robosapiens (lots of batteries!)-

I am working on building a Solarpowered BOE bot, I'll let you all know how it goes.

Ryan

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Ryan Clarke
Parallax Tech Support

RClarke@Parallax.com