Prototype Zero in Action
The mule is being designed for agility. Hence, the steering design has an innovation that is not common in vehicles of this size. The front two wheels are fixed and powered by independent motors. The steering action is produced by the difference in angular velocities of both the front wheels. The rear wheel turns to simply follow the trajectory so as to avoid slipping.
A side effect of having this capability is that we are able to test the Prototype Zero inside our office itself for now and it moves around in the lab as you can see below. The body has been taken off for now.
In a couple of weeks, Prototype Zero will move to IISc where we now have a formal collaboration for research in the space of autonomy. The vehicle will also act as a test bed for some of the other research that is happening in the university.
Meanwhile, we are neck deep with Prototype One design. This will be our first functional prototype that will perform the intended use cases of carrying cargo. It will contain our own in-house battery pack and motor controller. While many design principles will remain same (for example the steering, which has performed very well), there are many learnings from Prototype Zero that will get implemented in this new design. For example, a visual co-processor seems like a good idea to not load main processor with all the image processing overhead. As a cargo vehicle, cushioned tyres instead of pneumatic tyres seem like an attractive option. We have a list of 50 such important improvements. Can’t wait to get Prototype One out!
