This is our Mecanum Evaluation Cassis to test and optimize our owlRobotics Kit with the owlDrive for the complex Mecanum drive. With these strange-looking wheels, the chassis can travel in all 4 directions, so it's also a real sideways ride. This type of drive is an optimal way to maneuver, especially in confined spaces. This drive solves your problems, feel free to contact us, we will be happy to advise you.
Developing and testing software components for robots often requires significant effort. Therefore, we have adopted the strategy of assembling components on a testbed to test motors, sensors, and other parts directly at the desk along with the software.
Our testbed showcases a configuration of a typical lawn mower robot with 3 motors, the central owlController (a large board), and an additional sensor and IO board. We utilize our proven owlDrive BL-Controllers for controlling the brushless motors. The central control board, onto which a Raspberry Pi is attached, facilitates hardware-proximate communication. It controls external modules via the CAN bus and can provide additional sensors through I²C connectors. Furthermore, it offers digital IO pins and analog inputs to query switches for bumpers and similar functions. A dedicated analog input is designed for a rain sensor. If the existing IO ports are insufficient, additional IO modules can be connected via the CAN bus, such as the blue module at the top edge, which also features 2 relays. Through this modular networking, up to 60 modules can be connected to control, for example, 4 wheel drives or tools with multiple motors.
With the owlRobotics Kit, we are capable of configuring and controlling any hardware requirement effortlessly. This base control can then be interfaced with the Robot Operating System (ROS) running on the attached Raspberry Pi and utilized with a standardized ROS application.
To make the best use of resources and thus save money at the end of the day, you need to know what the current state of your infrastructure is. The owl Robotics Sensor Value Mapping helps to measure values on an area and to display them with centimeter accuracy in a map of the area, as a heat map.
With this precise representation, for example, a farmer can optimize the use of fertilizer in the field, a company can ensure the coverage of his wireless network on the company premises, a fruit grower can optimize the use of his irrigation system to save water and many other applications.
The navigation hardware and software can be installed in an autonomous robot that permanently scans the surfaces and determines the values, or on any other vehicle that can be used to take measurements, such as a forklift that measures the permanent WiFi quality in a warehouse or the quality of the air.
The owlDrive is originally designed for robotics applications without the background of operating more than 62 of them simultaneously in one chassis. Due to the requirement to control significantly more motor drivers synchronously, we have developed the owlDrive mesh as a software variant. This means that we can now go to the physical limits of the CAN bus and form device clusters to enable animations of several hundred motors in one animation project.
The owlDrive mesh is not available in the online shop, as it must be adapted to the requirements of the respective animation as part of a project, including the control technology.
Would you like to implement your trade fair demo, art project or other animations with the owlDrive mesh? Then please feel free to contact us.
Control and simulation program to control 136 owlDrive winches for a synchronic animation.
owlRobotics GmbH stands for high precision navigation algorithms for self driving robots like lawn mowers and similar vehicles, based on our Sunray-OS or open standards.