Choosing Battery for Robots
1) Sensing -
A robot must be capable of sensing the environment with the help of external sensors. For sensing, various types of sensors that can read physical quantities like temperature, light intensity, Infrared radiation or others depending upon the application of the robot or sensors for robotic vision, touch sensitivity, voice recognition, proximity sensing must be attached to electronic circuitry controlling the robot.
2) Decision Making -
The robots are useless without software-based intelligence and capability to make decisions. They must be able to sense the environment and make decisions based on that so that the tasks ascribed them could be performed. For decision making the control circuitry of a robot may have a programmable controller, microprocessor or a mini computer.
3) Performing -
The robots are designed to perform physical tasks. For that, they have actuators, motors and drive systems attached to their mechanical assembly. These actuators and motors are controlled programmatically by the control circuitry.
The robotic cars or robotic vehicles are one of the many robotic designs which are developed to move around for performing physical tasks. The motion of such robot itself involves the application of power and use of motors. In making such a robot, there needs to be a balance between the load (weight of Robot), Battery and Motor used. These three elements are connected with each other and choosing the right one needs a lot of mathematics and experimentation. Like in the previous tutorial, it was discussed how to choose a right motor for a robotic application, in this tutorial, how to choose a suitable battery for the selected motor according to the load is determined.
Before learning about the types of battery let us first have a look at basic specifications of batteries.
Specifications of Batteries -
In the previous tutorial, basic specifications of the dc motor were discussed. In order to run a motor in a robot, one needs to choose a battery with proper specifications. There are many kinds of batteries that are available for powering the motors. The main specifications that should be taken into consideration for selection of a battery are as follow -
Voltage Rating - It is the maximum terminal voltage, a new battery is expected to deliver to the electronic components.
Current Rating or Capacity Rating - The amount of current, a battery can deliver in an hour is called its current rating or capacity rating. This rating is associated with the power the battery can deliver. Like, a battery with a capacity of 1 amp-hour will be able to continuously supply a current of 1 amp to a load for exactly 1 hour, or 2 amps for 1/2 hour, or 1/3 amp for 3 hours, etc., before getting completely discharged.
Thank You!!!
