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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I’m not sure the </span></font>Polaroid type sensors
would work well in a table top arena. Perhaps they would work better than
SRF04s. If my memory is correct, the Polaroid has a narrower beam
width. Most of the “university research robots” with sonar
sensors that I remember reading about used the Polaroid sensors and had
problems. I think that the same choice may be critical or not critical
depending on the rest of the choices made for the robot. Since jBot excels
at IMU odometry, the choice of the GPS is less critical. Just using
encoders without the IMU probably would make the GPS choice more
critical. The hardware choices we make can have a critical impact on the
software we must write. Ackerman steering would complicate the software
when the robot is in tight quarters. A skid steer robot can turn in place
to get out of a tight spot. I think the turning radius of a Traxas EMax is
over 2 feet. My evaluation of jBot’s critical choices are the IMU
and the CPU. The IMU gives an accurate direction to be coupled with the
encoders for odometry. Dr. Anderson has said that the GPS is not used I
don’t want to get into a CPU flame war. The critical choice was to
chose a CPU with sufficient resources to all the tasks required by jBot. A
well designed robot may be one for which none of the choices appear critical
because they all were. <font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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