7/12 Brandon Azzi Meeting Minutes

Owned by Yu-Ming He
Sept 04, 2024
2 min read

Feedback/Suggestions from today's meeting:

  1. We can try to 'slip' on new 3d printed designs over the wheels to test different wheel faces. This can be TPU printed with different tread designs to test on different terrains

    1. Mechanical can make into a task for members, tread design can be done using simulation (ANSYS most likely)

  2. Try to 'pre-stress' joints and mechanical parts to account for deformation. Rocker bougie has a tendency to spray out, which causes less contact on wheels and potential drift, making driving difficult and hard to predict for autonomy.

  3. Bring wheels closer to rocker bogie, (try putting motors on other side of assembly to reduce moment).

  4. Switch the side of a motor (potentially could be implemented but would make turning more complicated) Add twisting in the carbon fiber/assembly on an angle for future drive train modifications

  5. Checkout ROS libraries for comms (if issues still exist with sending too many/too big packages).

  6. Spring or weight to gravity compensate on arm (Oliver Schneider - ask about arms), torsional springs which would shift the torque curve of the motor. On control side motor torque is dependent on velocity and force, while spring is position and force. Spring should have similar torque output as motor, at some points motor would need to push on the spring, on other points spring would compensate weight lifted by the arm

    1. Look into this option depending on how motor test on saturday goes for Axis 2. Solution should be easy to implement for mechanical, will need simulation data to model and design. Goal for adding the torsional spring would be for the spring to support the weight of the arm while the motor supports the weight of the load ← Yuming will double check calculations on this.

  7. If implementing gravity compensation, use simulation software that Azzi told us about (SimulationX) - education version on gearlab PCs which should be good enough for what we need.

  8. Use cameras to assist in arm kinematics (in case rover disconnects from base station)? - Last resort