Electronic assisted weapons??

OK,

This is a bit in the future as my first bot will be a simple push/ram bot, but I have a question.

I have an idea for a weapon that would use sensor/microcontroller to decide when the best time to fire/activate the weapon is based on the proximity of a target.

Having read through the FRA rules etc, there doesnt seem to be much information other than there must be a way to deactivate it and it is upto the event organisers whether to allow such a thing. Oh and a fail safe of course.

Does anyone have any opinions/experience?

Cheers

PeteC

most of use will not do this for one reason only, you introduce another piece in your robot that might/can/will fail.

KISS is usually the best way to go in robot combat, although the advantages of a system like that are pretty obvious.

There is no rule against it. However you will need to explain in details how it works and what safety features you put in there so it doesnt activate on the bench by accident.

Also there is no guarantee that it wont go off in the arena when you dont want it to.

A proximity sensor triggered weapon isnt against the rules, but would be checked carefully by the event organiser no doubt. Carefully implemented it could be up to the job and be perfectly safe - but it is worth considering how the sensor would differentiate between the opponent and an arena wall for example.

For now, as Leo suggested, its probably best to get it all working well by remote control before expanding on the technology - it would afterall be another thing to fail in combat.

quote:

Also there is no guarantee that it wont go off in the arena when you dont want it to.

To me that is less of an issue, only when someone needs to get close to the robot to disarm it it absolutely needs to stay still, and you really need to convince me and other tech-checkers of that fact.

This may be a far-fetched proposal, but you could always try and get in touch with Mike Franklin (101). If I recall, the spike on his robot was fired automatically, so he might be able to give some helpful info on it. Failing that I think there was an article on it featured in one of the Real Robots magazines

I believe Mike had a remote arm button on 101 which basically allowed the weapon to fire and the rest was down to the sensor.

Hi,

Thank you for your responses. Sounds like my idea is similar to mikes in that I would tell the robot that it is approaching a target and to fire. The sensor would determine the exact time at which it was to fire. The weapon would then go to standby until recieving another request. So its sort of a semi-autonomous system - for safety reasons.

Cheers

Pete

Design the unit so you could switch it on/off from a spare channel on your transmitter, and also have a light on the bot so people can see if the sensor is switched on or off.

This means when its off it wont fire the weapon, also the addition of a light means anyone approaching the bot will know if the sensor is on or off.

...sounds like a simple solution?

Chris - ^_^

Oh no, i see a new LED discussion coming up. :)

This is what the FRA buildrules have to say on the subject...

Pay attention to 5.5.. The robot must have some sort of timer that will disarm the the autonomous funtion (Or preferably the whole robot) 4 mins. after power up.

5. Autonomous/Semi-Autonomous Robots Robots that do not require human input for one or more of their functions. (If you are bringing an autonomous robot or a robot with significant autonomous functions please contact your event organiser in advance.)

5.1. Any autonomous function of a robot, including drive and weapons, must have the capability of being remotely armed and disarmed.

5.2. While disarmed, the robot is not allowed to function in an autonomous fashion.

5.3. In addition to the required main power light, robots with autonomous functions must have an additional clearly visible light, which indicates whether or not it is in autonomous mode.

5.4. When activated the robot should have no autonomous functions enabled, and all autonomous functions should failsafe to off if there is loss of power or radio signal.

5.5. In case of damage to components that remotely disarm the robot, the Robot will automatically disarm 4 min after being armed

5.5 Seems fairly pointless given that often there are delays to the start of fights which would result in a robot stopping halfway through a fight !

Ed
http://www.teamstorm.comhttp://www.teamstorm.com

plus, so do not always want to fire the weapon right away, for example, if by the pit and slightly to one side, firing at the right time gets the other robot into the pit, firing as soon as you get there doesnt. it will be impossible to give the robot that kind of decision making ability, and keep it simple :)

start off with a manual weapon i suggest, or go for a completely autonomous robot?

5.1 covers this anyway, at least the way I read it. i.e. it must be cabable of beign remotely armed and disarmed, so I guess you would only remotely arm it just before the fight actually starts, not when the link is put in, If a fight is 5 mins long then I guess it means you must remotely disarm then rearm to reset the timer, so no real problem except that 4 mins probably should be re-worded to 1 minute longer that the fight duration.

If you can arm and disarm the weapon remotely i dont see any use in a timer. The disarming mechanism would be the same as from the remote, so i dont see any added value to a timer. Just one more thing that can go wrong.

Mark, Ed, Et Al.
Valid point, bring it up at tomorrows meeting and well look at it.

Geoff.