[ale] robots

Jeff Hubbs hbbs at attbi.com
Wed May 22 17:00:02 EDT 2002


On Wed, 2002-05-22 at 16:38, Pete Hardie wrote:
> Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> > 
> > Depending on how the blades are shaped, I think it could be designed
> > such that you would have to try really hard to get a finger caught,
> > i.e., pick it up, jam a finger into the cutter, and wait a few seconds.
> 
> I just remember that Cabbage Patch doll that was supposed to 'eat' plastic
> food, and it turned out to be possible to get a finger caught in the
> mechanism.

Well, what do you want to use, BIG FRICKIN' LASERS?? :-)

> 
> > 
> > Jam correction would be very important because, whereas I think it is
> > reasonable that you should clear 1/2"- to 1"-thick branches out of your
> > yard by hand, I don't think it's reasonable to take that down to the
> > twig level.  My intuition tells me that a little twig would go into the
> > cutter just like grass would but would be too tough for the moving blade
> > to get through.  If the blade is a turning blade like I described
> > earlier, its motion could be easily detected and its motor could be made
> > to reverse for 1/2-1 rev.  The blades could be shaped such that when the
> > rotation is reversed, anything that's due to get cut will just get
> > ejected.  Follow that up with a bit of a maneuver to back away from the
> > offending object and resume operation and you have some robustness
> > there.
> 
> Actually, getting the twigs out sounds like a great task for another bot -
> with a much simpler design, since it needs only rake and area, and have a 
> 'home base' to rake the debris to.

Well, but you're making a huge complexity jump.  The hypothetical mowing
bot I'm talking about would not even really know anything about grass;
it would just creep around and just sort of happen to be cutting grass. 
You're talking about matters of detection at a distance (home base) that
can certainly be addressed, but only by upping the complexity a lot.

- Jeff


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