Hi,
Although quite used to electronics, I have never ventured in to the world of robotics and I have an idea which I would like to implement, but I don't know if it's possible, so I would really appreciate some advice before I blow wads of cash on something that may not work as desired lol..
OK, here's what's required.. I'm building a model dockside railroad that has a roll-on roll-off ferry that will move a few box cars on it, I wish for the ferry to wait 15 minutes, move away from the dock turn through 90 degrees to reach it's opposite point (it's not a sharp turn) and come to rest about 14-16 inches away from where it started. Wait 15 minutes, then return to the point of origin and start the cycle over again. This process would be relatively slow, as ferry's are!
Now the ferry is 12 inches long and 6 inches wide so space underneath for a drive mechanism is not really a problem. I thought about using something like a line following robot although without going in to it too deeply, it seems that they only follow white on black or black on white.. Water is blue or blue/green so that presents one problem.. The second problem is how to get it to reverse along the same line, and to move smoothly and slowly.
Is it possible to enable a line following robot to run in reverse? Or would having two (one at each end underneath the ferry, dragging the other when idle work?)
Would a line following robot be accurate enough to line up the railroad track when it returns to the docks if it's moving slowly enough? If so, how thin could the line be?
Is it possible to build some thing that would accuratley home in on an infared beam or laser? Or something similar to do away with the line?
Any advice or suggestions would be more than welcome to help me out with this particular project.
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