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| Modules: | Mapping System Robotic Arm Rover Body |
Currently, routines are being developed to quickly and efficiently find common points of interest in overlapping images in order to calculate a degree to rotate and a distance to translate the image relative to another fixed image for combining the overlap. Routines exist out there for doing similar work, however, they require more processing power than is available on the robot to do in a reasonable amount of time. The algorithms we come up with must use a relatively small amount of memory (less than 32 MB) and take only several seconds to complete on a single 133 MHz processor.
Last fall, several worm gears with more powerful motors were built into the robot arm to replace the servos that couldn't handle the load. New brackets are also being constructed to hold those new parts. The goal here is to provide stronger arm without the need of the counterbalances used in the previous design.
The wood and hinges comprising of the upper two layers of the robot are in major need of an update. They will be replaced by new material, but have a similar shape because it has allowed for easy internal updates in the past. Access to the internals of the robot will change some so as to put minimal stress on the wiring and brackets.