You can use a glyph. Have the robot scan for it. Find it. And then docking will be a bit more difficult. But you really only need to look for the +5 and know that it is docked.

Ok so maybe a backlit glowing.glyph the.robot would.see in all lighting conditions? Maybe just a couple paddles spread 10th inches apart and when omnibot pressed agianst them it powers on and charges the batteries.

@dj look for.a.+5 ? What do you mean?

one methid i was thinking of ading is line tracking with that the bot just needs to go in a gen direction till it finds the line then it can fowlow it at a steady paice direct to the charger was allso think of adding a barcode scanner and have codes placed alone the lines to tell the bot thats it at junction whatever and todo whatever lige when it gets to the end of the line to the charger there can be a code that stops it lines it up in the doc properly and connects however that maybe

I want a setup that doesn't require too much.modification of the environment. I am cool with hanging a glyph on the wall of each room so.that the robot can orient when it wonders off into another room. No lines on the floor though. That's too much.

I seen online a system once where the cgager projected 3 red dots on the celing and the bot used a cam pointed up and would track the dots like gps maybe something like that would would cant remember where i seen it but it was online and one of the cheapish 200-400 bots think it was one of them wowe bots or whatever thay called

Here is a link to what i was talking about TrueTrack Navigation System

@jstarne1

Just a thought, you would want the bot to drive over the contacts ( maybe spring loaded ) and not bump into as in your drawing, it is possible that your bot would bounce back if bumping is hard.

I have the ROVIO and the docking system works great.

Yea the paddles I was thinking of would be spring loaded and on a hinge so even if the bot hit hard and bounced back there's like 3 to 4 inch reach on the electrode paddles.

More like an end of train track bumper......that would work.

i cant do rovio but i could use the glyph thing and maybe use a infrared beacon so the bot know where to go that is invisible. can i tech him to like purple? because IR looks like white/purple through a camera? or maybe light the glyph with all IR leds so he seas it but is not annoying for me>? My house isnt too big, only kitchen and living room he could get to.

An IR emitter/detector pair would work for straight line of sight IE: your bot detects say 30% power left it would immediately do a 360 degree rotation to line up the detector to the emitter and then go forward, if it looses sight it would do another 360 to find it and again go forward until it hits the paddles.

Now keep in mind there is a lot left out as far as coding goes, like you could have the bot do a left turn, forward, right turn, forward to find the beam instead of 360 degree turn etc.

yeah i see what you mean but i really want auto charge capability. temporarely i can charge through the normal dc charge port manually in the back.

Why not something like the romba i uses. I believe the charger has an Ired transmitter on top, obviously sending some kind of signal the romba recognizes as a charger., and springy contacts. When the robot senses the batteries are low it starts searching for the charger.

The most useful would be to visually recognise a 110v outlet in the wall and plug into it eek :P