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SCAMVEE - Self Contained Automated Motorized Vehicle

INTRODUCTION

Scamvee was a platform designed to run over railway tracks to check for cracks and abnormal gaps on the tracks. This robot is very similar to FIRE and was made as a project for some of my friends. The core electronics are the same as FIRE. So for details of electronics refer to the documentation of FIRE. There are some differences in the working which is because of the application it serves.

MECHANICS

Scamvee was an opportunity for me to improvise on the mechanics of fire.  The biggest problem with fire was the motors. Their symmetric design required that I do some cutting and welding with it and somehow I was unhappy with the end product. It didn't look very professional. However with scamvee I tried  the power window motors of a car which have symmetrically opposite design. It was much easier to work with. The best part of the mechanics being that I knew from previous experience what job to leave to a professional welder and what to attempt myself. The wheels were taken of from a tricycle for kids which had a metal wheel with a rubber grip. Removing the rubber grip helped us to make it like actual wheels of a train and we could move it on our custom made railway track. With the rubber grips I could move it on a flat surface. As you can see in the pictures there four wheels without turning facility because of which there was no feature to turn left or right. So the rubber grips aren't of much use.

ALGORITHM

The basic process was to have the IR sensor reflect off the tracks. The moment a gap is detected a timer starts and when the track is detected that times is stopped. Since the speed of scamvee is already measured, the distance is determined from the time delay. If the distance is beyond specified limits preventive action is taken (we just had scamvee backup on the track)

OTHER DETAILS

The microcontroller setup and the motor drivers are the same as in FIRE. The sensors are also the same but they hadn't been implemented when the pictures were taken.

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