Martin from Tek-tanks got in touch to see if we could help sort out some problems he was having with this mighty machine.
It’s an extremely powerful 4wd surveillance robot. It has integrated GPS for autonomous missions and also FPV capabilities. It is powered by LiFePo4 batteries with a sophisticated charging and monitoring system. All of this kit makes for a very crowded installation with a lot of different power supplies and control systems, and these have not been playing nicely with each other. Our task was to evaluate what was causing the issues and to help create a more reliable system.
We fitted two of our Pro-160s to handle the motor drive side, and then spent some time looking around with a scope. We discovered an incompatibility between some interfaces, some ground loops, and some power supply contention issues. Martin was under time pressure to get the vehicle working for a demonstration to a potential customer, so we devised a temporary control system that got things moving again. A few days later the interface problems were resolved, and full autonomous operation was restored.
