Hacker News Reader

Comment by z3phyr | Hacker News Reader

I would really love to try my hands on something much more physical, like a robot; or a drone with autopilot; maybe accurate simulation of flight dynamics of a spaceplane with programmable GNC parameters?

I have a copy of "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" by Bate, Mueller et al and I would love to do something with it this holiday season.

I say simulation because all the rest of the stuff seems to cost a lot. I am really interested in the GNC aspect of robots, and would love some good pointers on the topic!

View on HN

https://ksp-kos.github.io/KOS/ Kerbal Space Program might not simulate aerodynamics quite to the realism level you prefer, but a lot of people seem to enjoy writing GNC software for it.

I bet a self-balancing two-wheeled robot would be a fun (and relatively safe) project. I mean a Segway-like thing that can just stand in one place without falling over or yeeting itself off the table.

You'd need a microcontroller, an IMU, a stepper motor controller, a motor, some LEGO wheels, and maybe a block of wood.

I haven't tried this, so my guesses are probably way off.

Sounds like a good project to me (we did this for a couple of labs in an undergraduate [sophomore maybe junior year] control systems class). The "inverted pendulum" problem and its subsequent derivations should be a good model for this. When the object is nearly upright (or at small angles from the vertical axis) a nice linear control loop should suffice but if you leave that region the control solution becomes more difficult (would make a good target for improvement after initially getting it going).

> I have a copy of "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" by Bate, Mueller et al and I would love to do something with it this holiday season.

What do you plan on doing with it? I'd love to hear more about what the book is about and a project you might do.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=UEC9DwAAQBAJ

is the direct link to the Google Books overview with sample pages, table of contents, etc.

I feel the same way - almost all my personal projects have a hardware component. After spending all day on software I very much appreciate working towards a physical object.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com