DogBot the RoboDog

Inspired by this robot...

Figure 1. The target Robot. This is a pretty cool home guard dog...

I created this...

I got a cheap R/C model for a body... Did I mention the goal was to build a companion and/or a guard dog that wanders the house, and sleeps a lot? Hey, I wanted a dog... So the first stage was to get the dog to be autonomous.

Figure 2. Dog Bot Starts to come alive on the work bench.



DogBot operates with several different motivations:

1. Starts in sniff and explore mode where DogBot "drags" itself around by scanning sensors and moving toward the largest object...

2. It will revisit the largest object and move toward it, until the object is too close, DogBot moves back twice as far as before. If a rescan shows no objects are close, DogBot goes into wander mode where it moves toward the open space.

3. DogBot will also wall follow, avoiding major objects, just running around looking at/for things to sniff around.

4. DogBot goes to the light or noise as an overall strategy...


Figure 3. This is the first stage "finished" model dog DOGBOT !

In DogBot's first incarnation, it was powered by a picAxe m14 chip. I had a lot of trouble with this thing, but eventually got it to do a few things, but I wanted more, so I kept upgrading...


This is the picAxe 18x model... I'm testing the motor drive here, it's simple but always hopeful for the budding roboticist...


And then things improved... First step.. Get it to "sniff around", next step, get it to find an open spot while avoiding crashing into things... The tests:


Now DogBot would look around, find an open spot and take off... While running around though, he would be looking to see if he was going to crash into something...

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Getting through the door was a problem because DogBot would find the opening, but when he started through, his over sensitive IR detectors would make him run away from the door opening... Like this:


But eventually, DogBot became a free-ranging hound. There are things about DogBot I don't like, the least of which is the batteries don't hold up because the motor is a cheapy that sucks current like crazy (it did when it was a radio controlled car too.)

So someday, I want to take DogBot's head and transplant it to another platform. One that can go for walks with me... I'm not there yet, but DogBot did pass the door test and he does have interesting behaviors that are fun to watch and deal with...

The completed roboDog, DogBot, passes the robot household test in this YouTube Video: