[Eric] sent in his tutorial on building a Kinect based robot for $500, a low-cost solution to a wife that thinks her husband spends too much on robots.
For the base of his build, [Eric] used an iRobot Create, a derivative of the Roomba that is built exclusive for some hardware hackery. For command and control of the robot, an EEE netbook takes data from the Kinect and sends it to the iRobot over a serial connection.
The build itself is remarkably simple: two pieces of angle aluminum were attached to the iRobot, and a plastic milk crate was installed with zip ties. The Kinect sits on top of the plastic crate and the netbook comfortably fits inside.
A few weeks ago, [Eric] posted a summary of the history and open-source software for the Kinect that covers the development of the Libfreenect driver. [Eric] used this same driver for his robot. Currently, the robot is configured for two modes. The first mode has the robot travel to the furthest point from itself. The second mode instructs the robot to follow the closest thing to itself – walk in front of the robot and it becomes an ankle biter.
There is a limitation of the Kinect that [Eric] is trying to work around. Objects closer than 19 inches to the Kinect appear to be very far away. This caused a lot of wall bumping, but he plans on adding a few ultrasonic sensors to fill the gap in the sensor data. Not bad for a very inexpensive autonomous robot.
You could save some money and get a used Roomba from a thrift store. My dad finds them all the time for like $10-20.
I saw an attachment for the Kinect in WalMart, an aftermarket slipon/clipon lens that is supposed to make the Kinect work better in smaller spaces. Maybe this would affect the dead zone at <19 inches. I think it was around $20, cheaper than some ultrasonic sensors.
Yeah but it affects the quality of the image it “Sees”. Makes the edges not as clear to the sensor and smaller area. Read the review on Engadget.
Nice project, looking foreward to build one of my own too but I found this item at DX which is a kit for backing-up a car, maybe it can help you keep costs low.
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/car-parking-sensor-radar-kit-black-dc-12v-58794
I’ve ordered one, but haven’t got it yet, so I cannot say how it really works or if its good for your application. I’ll be hackin’ it soon though!
This seems a lot like a TurtleBot.
Except the turtlebot is a terrible design.