Trundle II

Building a semi-autonomous robotic vehicle out of some old bits.

An old electric wheelchair:

• 2x Dynamic 24V DC 8A continuous geared motors
• 2x 12V 33Ah sealed batteries
• Battery charger
• Steel tubular chassis
• Dynamic DL 4.2i controller

An old Windows 98 laptop

Plenty of useful bits and pieces

• replace stock controller with a laptop and PC joystick
  • chassis / drivetrain / powersource is sorted
  • motor controllers to drive the motors
  • something to interface the controllers to the laptop
  • software to allow the user to control the motors with a joystick
• Use wifi to get a remote PC controlling it
  • core software split into client / Trundle Server
  • Wifi interface to laptop
  • GPS
  • webcam video feed from remote
  • sensor suite
• Add semi-autonomy to onboard systems
  • more sensors
  • a whole lot more programming!

Some time between 1998 and 2002 the original Trundle was built.

• Microchip - PIC Microcontrollers
• 4QD - Motor controllers
• Milford Instruments - Assorted microcontrollers and other cool stuff