MMkit micromouse PORTED sample code
MMkit is a basic stepper micromouse from Globaltronic in Portugal. here is a full set of code to turn it into a maze-solving demonstrator.
Disaster averted or delayed?
A bit of routine maintenance on the maze code for my micromouse turned into a possible real problem that has been waiting to surface for years now. In spite of running much the same flooding and path generating code since my first successful mouse many years back, I now discover it could have failed on complex mazes. (more…)
TDD with GoogleTest and Netbeans
With googletest set up for use with the the Netbeans IDE it is relatively easy to start working on your code using Test Driven Development Methods. This article shows you how to develop a simple set of library functions using TDD. (more…)
Googletest in Netbeans for Test Driven Development
Netbeans is my favoured IDE for C/C++ development. It has some support for test driven development but not for Googletest which I like for its simplicity. Find out how to use Googletest in Netbeans for embedded TDD. (more…)
Diagonal paths for a micromouse using a state machine
To get the shortest possible run times, a micromouse must be able to make full use of diagonal paths. By running a diagonal, slow, tricky turns are avoided and the distance is much less. No competitive micromouse can ignore diagonals. Diagonal Paths From the point of view of a human…
Smooth pathfinding with a state machine
A competitive micromouse must run a path made up of smooth turns rather than stopping for in-place turns. For novice builders of micromouse, this can seem a difficult task. Here is a method for creating a smooth path using data from flooding the maze. The method described here for generating…
State Machines – an Introduction
State machines are very useful tools in any computer system. They make it easy to visualise and solve all kinds of problems. Any small robot is likely to have a use for several state machines. This introduction looks at some basic types of state machine and an easy way to implement…
Easier Statistics for your Sensor Data
Learn how you can calculate the standard deviation, or spread, of your sensor readings on-the-fly while collecting data without having to first record all the values and then do the statistics. Statistics based on the data from your sensors can tell you a lot about the system and the environment…
Great Online Circuit Simulator Site
Designing electronic circuits takes knowledge and experience. Sooner or later, you have to put your idea to the test. Generally, this means building a prototype. Even with the best circuit simulator software, you ended up with unfriendly or expensive products. Or both. Now you can do a good job with…
An Improved Bit Banding Approach
The commonly published approach to using the bit banding feature of the Cortex Mx family of processors is to use macros – see Bit Banding in the STM32. This post describes an alternate implementation that uses a dedicated RAM section for bit banding.
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