Bumblebee?
Bumblebee is my Roomba, so named as long ago he lost his voice. About a year ago his logic board started playing up and though he was still able to clean, at the end of each cleaning cycle he wouldn’t go into standby and his battery would drain in no time. At that point he stopped actively gathering dust and started doing it passively as he sat behind my sofa.
Since a kid I’ve always wanted to build a robot and figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and use Bumblebee as a chassis for a mobile robot, he already is one after all, but also have the aim of returning his base functionality of being a robot hoover.
The Plan
Bumblebee is an original model Roomba from 2002, he was a gift from a friend who knew I loved to tinker and gave me him broken. If I could fix him I could keep him, thankfully an easy fix as the battery was dead. This model is very simple in it’s function and behaviour, it has no mapping capability, no dock or wireless control. It apparently can be controlled using IR but I’ve never had a remote. It also lacks the diagnostics port that the newer models have that make hacking a Roomba really easy now so this is going to be a bit trickier, a lot more education and most importantly more fun!
The parts I’ve used to partially resurrect him are a Arduino Leonardo and an Adafruit Motor Controller Shield. I’ve also a Raspberry Pi 3 to add into the mix, for Wifi control and more processor intensive tasks. The idea is to use the two to thier strengths; the Arduino will control the motors and read the sensors allowing for real time override in case of collision and the Pi will be able to sit back and give out the orders. It’s a classic split for mobile robots but thankfully very cheap to implement now.
Current State
As I said I’ve been working on this for a while, I’ve a load of notes to type up and a loads of “learning experiences” to share. Mostly when I made a rookie error and burnt out one of the motor controllers… I’ve now got the motors under control over serial, I’ve also a simple console application that lets me drive him around and toggling the sweeper/vacuum fans on, here’s a video of him in action:
Next Steps
My next item to look at is getting sensor data into the Arduino, first up the encoders. Encoders are devices that allow you to measure the movement of a wheel, you’ve likely used a rotary encoder on a hifi to control the volume, and the Roomba has one is each wheel. Right now I can control how much power goes to each wheel but because of differences in the state of the gearboxes, carpet and who knows what other factors, the wheels spin at different speeds. By measuring the speed from the encoders we can compensate for this, we can also use them to calculate the distance we’ve travelled.
After that is the rest of the sensors, those I’ve found so far are;
- Cliff sensors – these are under the bumper and detect drops to prevent him falling down stairs, I think there are four of them and they appear to be IR distance sensors
- Bumper sensors – these detect collisions, I think there is one at either end of the bumper so I’ll know if I’ve hit something to the left or right
- Wall sensor – another IR distance sensor mounted on the right of the bumper, this allows for wall following behaviour
- Wheel up/down switches – One on each of the drive wheels and one on the caster at the front. They detect if the wheels are up or down and can be handy for detecting when we’ve beached ourselves.
- Wheel encoders – these were IR LEDs and a light dependant resistor. I blew one of the LEDs by accident so replaced them both with red LEDs.
- Beacon IR Reicever – Not sure how this works yet, it’s a 360 lens on the top that receives a beam from the virtual wall, a device you place by your door to stop him escaping, I’m hoping to add more sensors to make this redundant.
- Buttons – there are three buttons for room size to start different cleaning cycles. They could be useful though I may not bother with them.
Once I’ve all the sensors connected I’ll be able to hook up the Raspberry Pi to start working on reproducing his original behaviour. After that I’ll be able to build up his capabilities over time and add a load of new ones too. I’m not intending this just to be a hoover but a mobile robot platform that happens to be able to hoover.
If you’ve got this far, kudos! That’s it for now, more posts will trickle out as i write up my old notes. I’m going to carry on having fun building things and write posts in the order they happened. Hopefully I’ll catch up fairly quickly!
