Post by Robotman on Aug 19, 2005 13:42:48 GMT 10
Lately I've been thinking about using [glow=red,2,300]AC power[/glow] distribution within a robot - especially for larger robots with longer power runs. DC loses voltage over distance, while AC loses much, much less over the same distance. Also, the frequency and/or duty cycle of the AC can be varied to transmit (and maybe receive?) data over the same pair of wires. This signal too, benefits from less voltage drop over distance.
Now, the AC voltage could be [almost] the same as the source DC battery voltage (whatever it happens to be in your design), or a step-up (inverter) could be used so that lower currents, and hence, higher gauge wires can be employed. This second method suffers from needing to step-down when converting back to DC, but it might allow running higher voltage (e.g. 24 volt) motors from a 6 volt battery. Note that I am not talking about 240 VAC here!
Has anyone tried this? Maybe the power distribution distances are too short in a humanoid sized robot to warrant AC generation? I still like the idea of reducing wires within a system - and carrying a signal on the AC supply is how the X10 system works. Maybe it isn't good for high speed, high volume data transfer, but possibly only for coordination amongst uC devices distributed around the robot. (Hmmm. Distributed processing. Who needs a whole brain in the head when we can build lots of little brains right where they are needed?)
Thanks
Now, the AC voltage could be [almost] the same as the source DC battery voltage (whatever it happens to be in your design), or a step-up (inverter) could be used so that lower currents, and hence, higher gauge wires can be employed. This second method suffers from needing to step-down when converting back to DC, but it might allow running higher voltage (e.g. 24 volt) motors from a 6 volt battery. Note that I am not talking about 240 VAC here!
Has anyone tried this? Maybe the power distribution distances are too short in a humanoid sized robot to warrant AC generation? I still like the idea of reducing wires within a system - and carrying a signal on the AC supply is how the X10 system works. Maybe it isn't good for high speed, high volume data transfer, but possibly only for coordination amongst uC devices distributed around the robot. (Hmmm. Distributed processing. Who needs a whole brain in the head when we can build lots of little brains right where they are needed?)
Thanks
