TAIL IO project

TAIL Integrated Operation, is a project leaded by Statoilhydro, trying to connect offshore platforms to the onshore offices, bringing down the number of staff on platforms and let expert, regardless of where they are, to communicate with the people on site. More about this comes later ...

Source : http://www.statoil.com/en/NewsAndMedia/Multimedia/features/Pages/io.aspx

Use of FPGA, Pros & Cos vs. use of Arduino

FPGA advantages

One of the main disadvantages can be complexity.

Problem of current position in case of loosing power & possible fixes ...

I think I have found my way to bear in mind the current position of the robot in case of the robot loosing power & not being able to drive itself back to the ZERO. The way is to either use the built in EEPROM(512 bytes), or other external storages which can be connected to Arduino. More info about EEPROM :

• http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithHardware#Storage

The 2nd option is to always send the position to the computer and save it somewhere there at the program(Lots of traffic on serial port, higher risk to encounter problem or missing packages).

Too tiered to fix it now ... Later ...

External interrupts in Arduino & its limitations

Description

Specifies a function to call when an external interrupt occurs. Replaces any previous function that was attached to the interrupt. Most Arduino boards have two external interrupts: numbers 0 (on digital pin 2) and 1 (on digital pin 3). The Arduino Mega has an additional four: numbers 2 (pin 21), 3 (pin 20), 4 (pin 19), and 5 (pin 18).

Parameters

interrupt: the number of the interrupt (int)

function: the function to call when the interrupt occurs; this function must take no parameters and return nothing. This function is sometimes referred to as an interrupt service routine.

mode defines when the interrupt should be triggered. Four contstants are predefined as valid values:

• LOW to trigger the interrupt whenever the pin is low,
• CHANGE to trigger the interrupt whenever the pin changes value
• RISING to trigger when the pin goes from low to high,
• FALLING for when the pin goes from high to low.

Returns

none

Example

int pin = 13;
volatile int state = LOW;

void setup()
{
  pinMode(pin, OUTPUT);
  attachInterrupt(0, blink, CHANGE);
}

void loop()
{
  digitalWrite(pin, state);
}

void blink()
{
  state = !state;

}

Found useful/inspiring designs on Youtube ...

Inspiring :-)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n99PbbntBOY
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naI-DpEBhmo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRm3pvuxXUc

New design received from Mats

I have received new robot design, plus new motor designs from Mats Høvin(my supervisor). Right now I am working on two things at the same time. One is the new motor design which is used in this chassis and at the same time I am working on Mats design to develop a grip(feet) for this chassis. I have came up with some ideas that will soon be posted here ...

Down here you see the Mats Høvin chassis for the climbing robot :

New chassis designed by Mats

New Motor designed by Mats

New Motor chassis designed by Mats, printed in 3D printer