>>
>
> Progressing through the maze of problems I suppose, plus experience
> gained in real life testing. Funding has a lot to do with it also.
> Playing around with cars worth $30K plus at speeds (so far) of 50kph
> gets a few people biting thier finger nails. (mine too) These are
> controlled by me with a Joystick and a PIC 16F84 at ther moment. Sweet
> and simple but limited value.
>
> The next step which I'm about to start on is a steering mechanism that
> directly follows the position of another 'steering wheel' to give more
> precise control. This however, is fine for 100-120M runs, but for 300 -
> 400M runs you can't see when the car veers even by a small amount and
> then it's usually too late to correct.
>
> The final aim is at 100kph, hence the need for close up position
> monitoring. I actually thought of a video camera 'looking' directly
> ahead and feeding a picture to a monitor via a small radio link and let
> a 'human' computer do the steering instead of automating it. Any way you
> look at it though, it's a tall ask and a long way to go yet. Something
> akin to a laser guided missile. I'm glad I'll be standing behind it.
>
> Maybe I could eventually control it over the internet. That would be
> something - drive a car from the other side of the world with a PIC at
> the helm. (I wonder how much money the boss has got)
>
> --
> Best regards
>
> Tony
>
Sounds like you need a number of navigational inputs that come to a
fuzzy decision on course correction. Multitude of council and all
that.
The value of the information would be subsumtive in nature (some
having much more weight than others) and would be additive in result
creating the smoothest course possible.
Well thats robot theory anyway... fuzzy (and associated techniques)
yield impressive results for this sort of application.

There are numerous web pages on it.


_____________________________

Lance Allen
Technical Officer
Uni of Auckland
Psych Dept
New Zealand
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