During April I spent my time trying to improve the accuracy and speed of the decisions that the robot makes. I looked for different ways to speed up a python program. I found two different modules that would help to speed up the program in different ways: multithreading and multiprocessing. Multithreading allows you to essentially pop in and out of subprograms at a faster rate without losing your spot. Multiprocessing allows two different scripts to run at the same time. I decided to go with multiprocessing because my program was already going in and out of subroutines, the robot movement caused rapidly changing data from the LIDAR and running two separate subroutines at the same time seemed to be more beneficial.
My robot kept on randomly shutting off and on. If it would not come back on, I gave it a little shake and then the power would come back on. As a result, I thought that it was because one of the connections was loose. After inspecting all the connections, I determined that it was the connection coming from the battery into the input of the DC-to-DC converter. I added a larger connector onto the end of the wire to give the clamp more material to grab onto. After I fixed the wire, I began to run into problems when interfacing to the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi kept on experiencing brown outs and would randomly stop receiving power from the DC-to-DC converter. I tried to use my oscilloscope, but it did not really help identify the problem. I then tried a second Raspberry Pi and the same issues occurred. I then validated the Raspberry Pi’s by ensuring that they still booted up properly when connected to a AC-to-DC power converter from the wall power outlet. Based upon this I surmised that the DC-to-DC converter was having problems keeping up with the amount of current that I was needing to run all my devices. Therefore, I ended up getting a new DC-to-DC converter that could better handle the amount of current required, the only downside is that the new DC-to-DC converter cannot do different output voltages where the old one could. This was not a problem for this project as I only require 5.1V. In May I am hoping to finish my robot by getting the multiprocessing completed.
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April 2021
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