[WIP] MSI's Infernal Robotics - Model Rework (v02 Pre-Release Beta)

[CaptainKipard]

Z could you explain how these wheels(? What are they called?) work? It's not very clear when and how the rubber components rotate and what forces are working, etc.

[Camacha]

Z could you explain how these wheels(? What are they called?) work? It's not very clear when and how the rubber components rotate and what forces are working, etc.

Those wheels are commonly found on forklift trucks and other utility vehicles and go by various names, often something like omni-directional wheels. There is plenty to be read about them

[RainDreamer]

Z could you explain how these wheels(? What are they called?) work? It's not very clear when and how the rubber components rotate and what forces are working, etc.

The wheel being shown is called a Mecanum Wheel (link to wiki explaining stuff).

[ZodiusInfuser]

Z could you explain how these wheels(? What are they called?) work? It's not very clear when and how the rubber components rotate and what forces are working, etc.

I'll give it a go, bearing in mind that I've driven a Kuka YouBot in the robot lab at work and still don't fully understand it

These are Mecanum Wheels, a type of Omni-wheel. Unlike normal wheels, which have high surface friction in all directions, omni-wheels high friction in one direction, and low friction in a perpendicular one. They achieve this by having free-spinning rollers on the outside of a driven hub. This allows for several omni wheels to be placed together and work together to move the robot in any direction, much like how RCS on a KSP vessel operates.

Mechanum wheels are a different beast though, as their high friction direction is 45 degrees off from the wheel rotation. As they spin they'll want to move outwards/inwards by the same amount they move forward/backward, but because of the rollers this can be overcome using a second wheel with a -45 degree offset. When four (or more) matched sets of wheels are placed together, its possible to have these motion vectors add together in different ways to allow for movement in any direction, whilst still having a more traditional "car" shape.

I hope that explains it sufficiently. It's taken me ages to get my head around, and it amazes me that it works in KSP with either stock or modded parts! The downside with them is that in order to do advanced movements you need a complex control system that calculates the vector each wheel should supply, but when done right, you can do things like this:

P.S I've seen this robot in-person, and it was indeed that awesome!

Edit:

shows the individual movements well, and how the wheels want to move in a diagonal line if allowed.

Edit 2: Also, I realise why these are preferred over normal Omni wheels. When driving forward 100% of the driving force is going to forward motion (since effectively the rollers do nothing in this case). Omni wheels on the other hand would be driving against each other in order to go forward so you'd only have about 70% of that power driving the vehicle forward.

Edited January 20, 2015 by ZodiusInfuser

[Camacha]

Watching those clips always gives me a bit of a lol, physics broke feeling before remembering they are not CGI.

[ZodiusInfuser]

So you know that mecanum wheel I showed off in-game the other day? We'll I've scrapped it . I just didn't like the overall look of it given its size and intended use. It reminded me too much of hobbyist robotics (which admittedly was what I designed it from). Instead, I've modelled a version after the Kuka's Omni-move system, which shifts trains and aircraft around production facilities. Here's how they look attached to a 2.5m wide chassis:

On a related note, this piece of reference was brought to my attention over in the Kerbal Foundaries thread: http://www.etftrucks.eu/Innovations/Axle-Configuration/

I already have part of a model like this, but wanted to make a few changes. This seems like it could be a good thing to copy.

Edited January 20, 2015 by ZodiusInfuser

[lo-fi]

Awesome. I can set the etf style wheels up very easily, with the exception of the oscillating axle. The swing arm, steering and the rest will work right out the box with fairly little effort.

I will get round to tackling the mecanum challenge one day soon, I promise.

[sharpspoonful]

Can I make a request? I've been trying to build a tracked rover system using the uncontrolled joints as the linkages between the rovers. My issue is that since I can't limit how much they rotate, and powered rotaries and joints aren't precise enough to allow for not having to counter-steer after ever maneuver. Would there be a way to integrate limits to how much range the uncontrolled rotaries and joints cant move?

Pics:

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[ZodiusInfuser]

Can I make a request? I've been trying to build a tracked rover system using the uncontrolled joints as the linkages between the rovers. My issue is that since I can't limit how much they rotate, and powered rotaries and joints aren't precise enough to allow for not having to counter-steer after ever maneuver. Would there be a way to integrate limits to how much range the uncontrolled rotaries and joints cant move?

Pics:

http://imgur.com/a/m0J03

Nice craft! Unfortunately the plugin doesn't currently support that. You can try asking over in the release thread for Infernal Robotics, but I think Sirkut will give his usual response to this, that free joints cannot be given limits.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Just a quick question for people using these - is TweakScale stable enough for it? Literally the only reason I haven't installed IR or these parts is because TweakScale was causing too many problems and breaking apart vessels. So I uninstalled it for now while I wait for those bugs to be fixed, but of course, now I can't rescale these robotic parts. Am I being overly cautious? Is it ok to have TS and remove all configs except ones for these (it's been so long though, that I can't remember if these come with their own configs or one is supplied by TS)?

[ZodiusInfuser]

Just a quick question for people using these - is TweakScale stable enough for it? Literally the only reason I haven't installed IR or these parts is because TweakScale was causing too many problems and breaking apart vessels. So I uninstalled it for now while I wait for those bugs to be fixed, but of course, now I can't rescale these robotic parts. Am I being overly cautious? Is it ok to have TS and remove all configs except ones for these (it's been so long though, that I can't remember if these come with their own configs or one is supplied by TS)?

From my experience they've been stable enough. These parts come with their own config anyway, so feel free to get rid of all the configs in the tweakscale folder (leaving the ones that are labelled differently). In fact this is what I do as I don't wish for my stock parts to be resizeable

[ZodiusInfuser]

Hi,

I got a reply from KospY regarding KAS and animations. Currently it doesn't support this functionality, however, he's happy for a fork to be created with the functionality that he can then merge back into the master branch for the next KAS release. The reason I am after this is because I would like the new Grasper part (and maybe the magnetic Grabber) to play an animation whenever an attachment or detachment occurs. As I've said before, I'm no KSP coder, so it would be most welcome if someone would be able to implement this feature on my behalf, for use in this mod. If you're interested please PM me.

Thanks

[ZodiusInfuser]

Rather than wait for people to reply about my above request (and the same one I posted in add-on affairs), I might as well continue to show my progress with the mod.

Here's some parts I've had in my head for a while (and already modelled one and didn't like it):

These are adapter joints. Inspired by the large bases of robot arms (here and here), these adapt from one IR attachment size to the one below. The left has a +-120 degree range, whereas the right has a -90 +150 degree range (or maybe a 0 to +240, not decided yet). Hopefully these will make robot arms look a bit nicer, as some of the setups in pictures were bugging me . Also, this is a step towards me tackling the challenge of gantries, since it's common for robot arms to be mounted on them IRL:

[RainDreamer]

Good luck on your work! You seems to have a lot of iron in the fire now! Don't get yourself burned out. =p

I wish I could help you with the plugin, but I am not a coder. =<

[Arron Rift]

I think I almost squealed when I saw someone is actually adding this! Any idea how long until we could get one of these working in-game?

[ZodiusInfuser]

https://www.cubbyusercontent.com/pl/IR_HeavyAthlete.png/_389faae35bed44efaa8159b3fdb59217

I think I almost squealed when I saw someone is actually adding this! Any idea how long until we could get one of these working in-game?

Sorry, I cannot say when they'll be done. I'm working on a whole bunch of wheels as a pack, so expect this to take notably longer than just doing a single part.

Good luck on your work! You seems to have a lot of iron in the fire now! Don't get yourself burned out. =p

I'm trying to get irons out of the fire . A lot of the stuff I'm previewing has been in the works (either as concept, model, or in-game part) for a while now, so I'm trying to push them all to completion. Thanks for the concern though

Speaking of pushing to completion, here's what the Adaptrons (as I'm now calling them) look like in-game:

The tubes are slightly long to make a proper industrial robot arm replica, but I think it'll do. I should be able to get these out for people to test tomorrow sometime (once I've updated the collision).

[Darren9]

They look great, the offset version makes a nice looking arm. There was one thing, I always wondered why not have Tweakscale on the big tubes to make the small size - I've been adding it myself.

[lo-fi]

https://www.cubbyusercontent.com/pl/IR_HeavyAthlete.png/_389faae35bed44efaa8159b3fdb59217

That looks so cool.

Now I've got the KF update out of the way, I'll put a little time into getting the auto alignment feature going. It's really not going to be easy covering all the bases for how the wheels could be set up, but I'll give it a go. The KAS fork will be trivial in comparison, I'd hope to have that done this week.

[CaptainKipard]

I neeed to nitpick a little bit. For some reason those black lines on the little structural parts irk me. I think artistically speaking you should try to break up a shape with the textures. The lengthwise lines do the opposite. I can't explain it well.

[Horus]

Speaking of pushing to completion, here's what the Adaptrons (as I'm now calling them) look like in-game:

https://www.cubbyusercontent.com/pl/IR%20Adaptron%20Arms.png/_79ea4e80418a4a468a46f87d4d8fe5d5

The tubes are slightly long to make a proper industrial robot arm replica, but I think it'll do. I should be able to get these out for people to test tomorrow sometime (once I've updated the collision).

Those are awesome! Looking forward to update

Btw. just a question - is it possible to make those tubes procedural so their length & caps could be adjustable? I think it would be really nice to have something like that. I suppose you could ask bac9 for advices about procedural parts (well, since he implements procedural wings at the moment).

[ZodiusInfuser]

They look great, the offset version makes a nice looking arm. There was one thing, I always wondered why not have Tweakscale on the big tubes to make the small size - I've been adding it myself.

This was an artistic choice more than anything else. Since the robotic parts were going to identical at different scales, I wanted the structural elements to look different at the different sizes.

Btw. just a question - is it possible to make those tubes procedural so their length & caps could be adjustable? I think it would be really nice to have something like that. I suppose you could ask bac9 for advices about procedural parts (well, since he implements procedural wings at the moment).

I imagine it wouldn't be trivial to make those tubes into procedural parts, but it would be awesome if they could be, as the current design doesn't lend itself well to stacking as much as I originally thought when I first designed them. I won't be putting time in to explore this possibility though, as I've got many other things to be doing for the mod

That looks so cool.

Now I've got the KF update out of the way, I'll put a little time into getting the auto alignment feature going. It's really not going to be easy covering all the bases for how the wheels could be set up, but I'll give it a go. The KAS fork will be trivial in comparison, I'd hope to have that done this week.

Thanks! Assistance with the KAS fork is much appreciated . Also feel free to message me if you need advice on the group wheel logic, I still have those old diagrams I sent you .

I neeed to nitpick a little bit. For some reason those black lines on the little structural parts irk me. I think artistically speaking you should try to break up a shape with the textures. The lengthwise lines do the opposite. I can't explain it well.

These textures were done a long time ago by Porkjet. I believe he coloured them to look like cabling wrapped in a dark rubber (or other hard substance), as this is also used in the centre of the truss parts. You're welcome to open the texture up and tweak it, but expect it to remain as is until I do a second pass of the structural parts.

--------------------------------------------------

Back to progress on the mod, today I had chance to update the collision of the new parts. They appear fine to me, so here's the download for you lot to try out

(here's a cute looking robot arm just because )

Also, just for fun I did a video of that mecanum wheeled craft I showed off a while back:

Edit: Seeing that arm and that mecanum vehicle in the same post reminds me of this robot I saw when I visited Chicago last September:

https://www.cubbyusercontent.com/pl/IROS_Robotnik%2BArm.jpg/_fc52e4bae24d4fea87bcb4732b1e568e

Edited January 28, 2015 by ZodiusInfuser

[Camacha]

Also, just for fun I did a video of that mecanum wheeled craft I showed off a while back:

Did you need to do any fancy tricks to get those working?

[ZodiusInfuser]

Did you need to do any fancy tricks to get those working?

Not really, I'm using Kerbal Foundries to allow for multiple wheel colliders per part, and then IR to rotate them. The motion that is produced is a result of how the wheel colliders interact with the ground. In fact this can be done with stock wheels + IR (there's a video on YouTube). Unfortunately, using the colliders in this way makes the wheels a lot more unstable compared to normal wheels, so I suspect the final part will use an approximation rather than this exact setup.

[SmarterThanMe]

Can I ask if there's any schedule to get these worked into IR to actually replace the old parts?

[Camacha]

Can I ask if there's any schedule to get these worked into IR to actually replace the old parts?

Just download and install, that will do the trick If you do not like the old ones, just delete those parts while keeping the plug-in.