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United Kingdom
Asked — Edited

GPS Support

So i have been thinking of ways to help omnibot now named T.E.D lol, to be able to navigate room to room indoors on command, my way of thinking is either to use roborealm which i have been told by the guys at roborealm that they are working on a module interface to the EZB, or maybe using indoor GPS over I2C. Anyone got any experience with something like that ? what sort of board etc etc, i kinda have already worked out some code for reading the values and plotting etc etc, im thinking also that at some point he will need wheel encoders as well.

Regards
Kurt


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Synthiam
#1  
Have you seen an i2c gps module? If you find one let me know, i'll integrate it
United Kingdom
#2  
I had an idea to get from point A to Boint B. You stick a target on a wall that the Robot can recognise with its camera say a coloured board or some sort of black & white square pattern. The robot then motors to the target stops when its a few inches away using ultrasonic radar. Then it knows to turn left or right to locate the next target in the sequence. To go back it follows the reverse route.

Or a simple line follower but I don't like the idea of marking my floor with a line. Well I don't mind but my wife wouldn't be happy!

Unless of course its an invisible line like an infra red line its a thought
#3  
I like tbe target idea. I don't think you will find GPS accurate enough yet. However., for inregrating gps, i don't think we need i2c, just Bluetooth. It could communicate to the driving pc. Ooesn't have to be through the board, just like cameras are not controlled through the board.

Alan
Netherlands
#4  
The moment I saw this thread I stopped everything and started to look for a GPS and I believe I've found one! I don't know if you can buy it... I don't seem to be able to open the shop...
But here is the link.
Maybe I can find more! To be continued! *epic end of episode music*

Update: found another one: GPS
And another one: navigation board m3 (Datasheet)(maybe one of the best until now)

Note: I don't pay attention to price!
United Kingdom
#5  
That Nav board M3 could be just what im looking for, so as it communicates via ic2 im presuming that we could just read the data from the board and write scripts to navigate with it, i also noticed that the board comes with an onboard processor also so maybe that could do the processing and nav and just pass motor commands to the bot.....hmm interesting, i wonder would that be possible, would just need to figure out if the i2c is available when using the onboard nav system, maybe i will email them to find out.

regards
Kurt
PRO
Synthiam
#6  
What an expensive little unit. I saw this DSS Circuits one: i2c GPS Shield

Boy are they expensive. I am thinking it is cheaper to embed a used $100 netbook into the robot with a $20 USB GPS antenna instead.
#7  
Re: usb gps.. or a Bluetooth one like I said earlier. You can get them for like $25 on eBay. Well under $100 for name brand. Then it can just communicate over Bt to the computer running ARC. We just need a position object to talk NMEA protocol over a BT serial port. I am sure we can find C# libraries already written. I'll dig around since I am expecting a pair of BT gps receivers in the mail any day now.

Alan
United Kingdom
#8  
I'm with thetechguru and don't believe a GPS unit will be accurate enough for any indoor robot and also what about receiving the GPS satelite signals indoors? Looking in more detail at RoboRealm this looks like exactly what I want to do
and this one


Developer in the Ukraine thought it was Russia at 1st as the sign says 'Come Here' in Russian
PRO
Canada
#9  
Oh you guys looking for something affordable like this?:D


User-inserted image


I scoped it out and tested it myself, so many ways to communicate to it: bluetooth, true RS-232, USB-TTL, & straight-TTL-serial. Unfortunately, no I2C but I'm sure DJ can come up with some simple way that would allow it to work easily with the EZ-B. It even comes with the Antenna!

Another cool thing about this product is that you can connect it to Android and/or Jailbroken iOS apps and find out where you are more precisely than the onboard GPS from your phone/tablet. Use it when you go out in the woods without the need for cell reception!
United Kingdom
#10  
Yeah i have got that roborealm module and i use it onanother robot i have, it rocks to be honest but until Roborealm release a proper module for the ezb which i have been told by a developer there that they are working on with DJ's help it would be difficult to interface roborealm with the ezb, however once that is done and the connection works it opens up a whole new world of possibilities with true vison processing. Just have to wait i guess, maybe DJ can tell us how the roborealm integration is going :-)


Regards
Kurt
United Kingdom
#11  
Sometimes rarely I think I stumble across something unique now I realise I'm just miles behind so thanks for the Roborealm info if it is integrated with EZ-B it would be utter coolness Neil :)
Netherlands
#12  
After some more Google-ing I think I have found some more modules which I think are more affordable.

The ones I found are:
module 1 this one supports I2c and a lot of other connection types.
module 2, I picked this one because it only requires 3 wires! That should mean something!
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