m3pi -Line following PID trouble at low speed

Support Robots
1

Hi there, I am working on maze solving with the m3pi robot but sometimes (at low speed around 20%) the robot oscillates in straight line. I just add something to the line following pid function in order to fix it and as it works pretty well I am happy to share it with you.
When you compute the new speed of each wheel :

        // Compute new speeds   
        right = speed+power;
        left  = speed-power;

you must take in count the actual maximum speed of the robot (MAX) then you will not slow down to much the robot and then make it oscillates :

        // Compute new speeds   
        right = speed+(power*MAX);
        left  = speed-(power*MAX);

It’s a small contribution but anyway I hope it will help some people :smiley: .

ps: I am sorry for my English but I am not a native English speaker.

2

Hi.

Thanks for sharing your findings. What number is MAX? Can you share/publish your code from within the mbed compiler so we can see exactly what you are doing?

- Ryan

3

MAX is the maximum speed you want for the robot, and also MIN is the minimum speed. For example if you put MAX = 0.8 and MIN = 0.2 the speed of the robot will be between 20% and 80% of full speed.
Here is the line following pid code I use:

#include "mbed.h"
#include "m3pi.h"
 
m3pi m3pi;
 
// Minimum and maximum motor speeds
#define MAX 1.0
#define MIN 0
 
// PID terms
#define P_TERM 1
#define I_TERM 0
#define D_TERM 20
 
int main() {
 
    m3pi.locate(0,1);
    m3pi.printf("Line PID");
 
    wait(2.0);
 
    m3pi.sensor_auto_calibrate();
 
    float right;
    float left;
    float current_pos_of_line = 0.0;
    float previous_pos_of_line = 0.0;
    float derivative,proportional,integral = 0;
    float power;
    float speed = MAX;
    
    while (1) {
 
        // Get the position of the line.
        current_pos_of_line = m3pi.line_position();        
        proportional = current_pos_of_line;
        
        // Compute the derivative
        derivative = current_pos_of_line - previous_pos_of_line;
        
        // Compute the integral
        integral += proportional;
        
        // Remember the last position.
        previous_pos_of_line = current_pos_of_line;
        
        // Compute the power
        power = (proportional * (P_TERM) ) + (integral*(I_TERM)) + (derivative*(D_TERM)) ;
        
        // Compute new speeds   
        right = speed+power*MAX;
        left  = speed-power*MAX;
        
        // limit checks
        if (right < MIN)
            right = MIN;
        else if (right > MAX)
            right = MAX;
            
        if (left < MIN)
            left = MIN;
        else if (left > MAX)
            left = MAX;
            
       // set speed 
        m3pi.left_motor(left);
        m3pi.right_motor(right);
 
    }
}

I found it here: mbed.org/users/chris/code/m3pi_L … ource.html

4

Thanks for posting your code. Just a note to anyone trying it, the [ b] [/b] on the relevant line are BBCodes and should be removed if you are using the code.

- Ryan

5

Sorry about that, I just remove it.