Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #05344



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "Sathe Dilip" sathe_dilip@bah.com
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 17:02:51 -0400
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Hoverbot & balancing acts ( was: LEGO lawnmower)




"John A. deVries II" wrote:
SNIP
> An interesting question comes up: given a sufficient energy source, let's
> say that one was designing a ground-effect style machine (i.e. a hovercraft
> & not a helicopter). How does one usually control which direction the
> craft is going? Would one gimbal the 'engine' or would one have
> controllable louvers or what?

I believe a hover craft uses a second propeller (mounted vertically) and
a rudder to do this. It may also be possible to bleed some of the extra
pressurized air from the skirt in a way to push the craft.

> A similar question: an old problem in control theory is the "balancing
> rod". In its most simple form, you've got a cart that can only move (back
> or forth) along a line. Attached by a hinge is a rod that you want to keep
> pointing upwards. If no control is applied, the rod will fall. The
> problem is to move the cart forwards or backwards to keep the rod upright.
>
> Given a potentiometer (variable resistance) connected to the hinge, how
> would it be possible to construct a nervous net controller for such a cart?
> Is it really just another version of a "head"? Would you need something
> like a Unicore controller? Is some yet-unknown nervous net controller
> feasible? Would there be some angle/velocity sensing system that would be
> more appropriate for nervous net use?
SNIP

This reminded me of a robot I had seen on TV. I believe it was a MIT
robot. It was a squarish platform on top of a single leg (like a pogo
stick). it was tethered to the main controller/computer. The whole
thing was about 3 feet tall. It hopped continuously on one leg keeping
the balance. They even demonstrated manually pushing it around to show
how it regains balance on the single leg. Now to do it with simpler
circuitry could be a challenge.

Dilip
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