My SAGAR project has gotten to a point where I would like to document the system design through a series of detailed posts.

First I’ll show the new interface, and talk about how it communicates with SAGAR.

Ok, so I’m a little overexcited. I just got back from watching SAGAR complete it’s first autonomous mission. I just finished coding the navigation functions and couldn’t wait till the next day to test. Attached is an image of the mission it ran.

I used a Ardupilot program to generate the mission file with waypoints, convert it to a hex file using gcc, and I manually flash that into the Axon’s EEPROM memory. When SAGAR comes online, I give it a command to scan the mission file in memory, then I command it to run the mission.

I have been asked by a few people how SAGAR is going, so I guess I need to do some updates more often. Anyway, SAGAR was shelved for a while. The last tests of the closed loop heading controller showed I had something messing with the compass readings. Further tests concluded that my batteries were biasing my compass.

Well, I finally have gotten around to posting about my current project, Sagar! (The name might be changed if i come up with a better one) Basically, in an effort to better understand the technology I use at my job in the Navy, I am building a robot from scratch. My hope is in the end to have a robot that can be driven remotely, or drive itself with the aid of a GPS and inertial navigation system as well as avoid obstacles and reroute around them. I want it to be able to ‘record’ a route while being driven remotely, then be able to ‘replay’ the path without any assistance.