Reader small image

You're reading from  Learn Robotics Programming - Second Edition

Product typeBook
Published inFeb 2021
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781839218804
Edition2nd Edition
Concepts
Right arrow
Author (1)
Danny Staple
Danny Staple
author image
Danny Staple

Danny Staple builds robots and gadgets as a hobbyist, makes videos about his work with robots, and attends community events such as PiWars and Arduino Day. He has been a professional Python programmer, later moving into DevOps, since 2009, and a software engineer since 2000. He has worked with embedded systems, including embedded Linux systems, throughout the majority of his career. He has been a mentor at a local CoderDojo, where he taught how to code with Python. He has run Lego Robotics clubs with Mindstorms. He has also developed Bounce!, a visual programming language targeted at teaching code using the NodeMCU IoT platform. The robots he has built with his children include TankBot, SkittleBot (now the Pi Wars robot), ArmBot, and SpiderBot.
Read more about Danny Staple

Right arrow

Driving in a straight line

By now, you have seen differences in the outputs – that is, a veer. In only 400 mm, my left side is around 20 mm behind the right, an error that is climbing. Depending on your motors, your robot may have some veer too. It is rare for a robot to have driven perfectly straight. We use the sensors to correct this.

Tip

This behavior works better on wooden flooring or MDF boards, and poorly on carpet.

This correction is still dead reckoning; slipping on surfaces or incorrect measurements can still set this off course. How can we use motors and encoders to correct our course and drive in a straight line?

Correcting veer with a PID

A behavior to self-correct steering and drive in a straight line needs to vary motor speeds until the wheels have turned the same amount. If the wheels turn the same amount soon enough, then they will account for major course deviations.

Our robot will use the encoder sensor to measure how much each wheel has...

lock icon
The rest of the page is locked
Previous PageNext Page
You have been reading a chapter from
Learn Robotics Programming - Second Edition
Published in: Feb 2021Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781839218804

Author (1)

author image
Danny Staple

Danny Staple builds robots and gadgets as a hobbyist, makes videos about his work with robots, and attends community events such as PiWars and Arduino Day. He has been a professional Python programmer, later moving into DevOps, since 2009, and a software engineer since 2000. He has worked with embedded systems, including embedded Linux systems, throughout the majority of his career. He has been a mentor at a local CoderDojo, where he taught how to code with Python. He has run Lego Robotics clubs with Mindstorms. He has also developed Bounce!, a visual programming language targeted at teaching code using the NodeMCU IoT platform. The robots he has built with his children include TankBot, SkittleBot (now the Pi Wars robot), ArmBot, and SpiderBot.
Read more about Danny Staple