Advice on building an AI rover

Support Raspberry Pi
1

Hi and thanks for any advice in advance.

With a background in Computer Vision, I want to build an AI capable 6-wheeled robot, based on this design & equipped with a stereo depth perception array with a Pi. The idea is to train the AI to path find RTAB-Map | Real-Time Appearance-Based Mapping and then to traverse the map looking for points of interest using Yolo. I like the additional functionality of this board but am open to better suggestions?

For the moment I’m going to run it of an 18v ryobi battery but would look to move to a 24v lipo later.

Considering the BOM below could someone please advise if the Redboard could drive three wheels at once in each channel. ie all the three lefts on one motor channel and the rights on the other? The Redboard can handle 6A per channel and the motors pull 3A each during stall but 0.46A when running (I think).

material qty unit supplier
12V DC Metal Gear Motor 6 itm https://core-electronics.com.au/30-1-metal-gearmotor-37dx52l-mm-24v-helical-pinion.html
Redboard+ 1 itm https://www.tindie.com/products/redrobotics/redboard/
OAK-D Pro (343USD) 1 itm OAK-D Pro – Luxonis

Thanks again for any advice :slight_smile:

2

Hi Dara,

Sorry this one slipped through the cracks! You’d be able to drive 2 motors per Redboard, so you’d need 3 boards. They seem to just be controlled by Pi GPIO, rather than a bus like I2C that would allow for stacked boards, say.

My recommendation would be taking a look at Pololu’s Motoron range, they are commanded over I2C so you can stack multiple with no issues:
This smaller one could handle the 12V variants of those motors, and an 18V nominal battery voltage:

Or if you have the budget for 3 of the larger ones you could move up to 24V:

The only problem I see here is current limiting, the larger controllers support it, but the smaller ones don’t, so I’m unsure how you deal with the initial peak and stall currents, perhaps they have thermal protection? I’ve run out of time today, but you should be able to find out on Pololu’s site:

Might also be worth noting we have the OAK-D in our range as well:

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Perfect thank you