Moderator Comment by Chris Anderson on December 14, 2008 at 3:49pm

Looks good, Nick. Can you add a picture of the blimp controller board and link to your main page in this post? It's not really useful as is ;-)


What's a "tank controller"?

Comment by Nick Wagner on December 14, 2008 at 4:05pm

Tank controls? To turn you reverse the thruster on the inside of the turn.

Comment by corey on December 14, 2008 at 5:25pm

ahh, pivot steer

Comment by Nick Wagner on December 14, 2008 at 7:01pm

So that's what its called!

Comment by corey on December 14, 2008 at 8:02pm

thats the term we used in the army when we'd turn our bradleys in place. one track would would reverse direction, much like you're describing with your thrusters. i hope it's a more graceful maneuver in the air!

Comment by Nick Wagner on December 14, 2008 at 8:28pm

When flying in RC mode it works great, but when searching for the beacon, if the blimp gets confused it just spins in circles. Part of the problem is the sensitivity of the IR sensors. Most of the time the front 3 sensors receive the same number of pulses. We had to change our decision making process to going the opposite direction of the least number of pulses.

If I were to redesign the blimp, the direction control would be more heading hold style. When the direction of the beacon is found, it would try and hold that direction by pulsing the thrusters until a new decision had been made.

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