PC CPU powered by battery/robot project

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
32,615
hi all,

As a just gradiuated A.I. student I am missing my access to robots to play with, + robots are just very cool, so I want to build one.

The robot will be running some high level stereo vision, SLAM and neural-navigation algorithms, as well as potential basic voice recognition and sound localisation. This lot requires the power of a PC (since the micro controllers are typically 8bit, 8Mhz, 0.5KB (yes, 512bytes) RAM...).

I have a laptop which could power the robot, but since I have some computer hardware around it could be nice to integrate things a little more.




Anyway, is it possible to run basic PC components off a large battery source without too many problems? The biggets problem will be power usage and supply regulation. I would need to supply 12v and 5v very steadily, the DC motors and any servos can potentially spike the voltages a fair despite using motor driver IC/ H-bridges.

I'm thinking using the laptop with its own battery would make life so much easier, but looking for any input. +, if anyone has any experience in making robots and where you sourced parts I would be most interested.

Tim
 
Man of Honour
Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2005
Posts
8,721
Location
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
I've done some robotics. Using the laptop's battery is a fine idea for running the computer/control unit. For the motors that drive the rest of it, depending on how angry :D you want it to get, you might want to consider something like the sealed compact lead acid batteries found in electric wheelchairs. They're 12 V and usually hold about 18 Ah of juice.
 
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