This is what I have so far with the control systems for my robot:

The IC socket is for my PIC 16c57
The IC on the board is my dual half driver chip from TI
I also have a 20mhz resonator and a 5vdc regulator

This is only the beginning, I still have a lot of items/wiring to do...

 

B3D

As many of you don't know I am an aspiring 3D artist. To showcase some of my projects, I have created another blog. Here's the link. I will also be adding a link to it under my "Links". I will be updating that periodically ,so check it out every now and then.

Going in Deeper...

If any of you were wondering why I wasn't updating, it was because I was on vacation. But now I am back, so on with the updates.

Recently I have decided do go deeper with my voice recognition journey. Instead of using the Microsoft speech SDK, I am going to be developing my own Speech Recognition engine. My reason for doing this is although the MS Speech SDK is nice, it doesn't provide the accuracy that I am looking for.

I know, this seems as if it would be impossible, but I have worked it down to a science. The way I will attempt to do this is I will have my Microphone input stream inputting to an array of numbers, then I will compare that array to another array for specific commands.


If you are asking how this will be more accurate, then I shall explain. The original arrays that I will be comparing against is the specific words, spoken by me, so the input and the comparing arrays for specific words will be extremely close already, also I won't have millions of other words that the engine is trying to match the input against. Only the ones that I setup.


Right now I am leaning towards using the DirectX Voice input libraries as my voice command input stream. By if I can find something more efficient, then I go for that.

C++ Voice Command Tutorial...

Well, yesterday night I decided that I would make a tutorial covering what I did with the Voice Command Software. I have the tutorial created and compiled to a ZIP file. IF you would like to look at it, Here is a link: Voice-tutorial.zip.

This tutorial uses C++, Microsoft Speech SDK 5.1, and Windows, Sorry Linux and Mac Gurus, Microsoft doesn't supply a Speech SDK for those OS's.

You should be able to attain all the needed files in the ZIP file, or the tutorial...

If you are having a problem with the link, send me an email (briansaccount@gmail.com) and I'll send you the tutorial.
(it isn't big, like < 15kb)

Code Clean-Up

Well, I am planning on cleaning up my Voice Recongnition / Serial Device Command program today, so that it flows a little faster.

Maybe if I feel like it I'll go Open Source on it. Maybe, I'll think about it. What do you think? Leave a comment or email me...

More waiting....

Well, as of right now I am doing some more waiting for parts. I found out that I needed a different solution for mounting and connecting up my StampStack 2 module. My Options now are getting an IC socket for the PIC16c57A inside the StampStack and also getting a 20Mhz Resonator to go with it, or I could get a PC Board that would fit the StampStack. I want to go with the socket/resonator approach because that would cost less on the long run and my processor unit's for my robots would be smaller...

Here is a picture of my Robot's base and to the left is my Dual H-Bridge driver IC with SOME of the wiring for it, I still need to add the power (+2 wires) and the wires for the motors (+4 wires) and then the control wires (+5 wires).  

IF (project == "Finished") { cout << "Celebrate\n" << endl;}

The software project that I have recently been working on is now finished. This program (as described below, but for all you late comers) take certain predefined voice commands and sends them to my Basic Stamp 2 Controller then my BS2 translates those commands into operations for it to complete, then (if you couldn't guess) it completes the operations! And the cool part is, it ALL works. (Didn't see that coming now did you?)

While I wait...

Over the weekend and into Monday I worked on a Speech Recognition program with Microsoft Speech SDK 5.1. On Monday I finally got it to work, right now I have it listening for certain commands and then telling me if it heard me speak them.

I also have been making a program that reads and writes stuff to the serial port. That has proved to be more difficult than the Voice Recognition (surprisingly enough).

Once I get the Serial Communication working I will integrate that into my voice program and then use voice commands to send commands to my Basic Stamp 2. Pretty cool huh? Once that is all fine and dandy I am thinking of getting a RF transmitter and a RF receiver and setting all the communication stuff for the Serial cable through those…

Cost Over Creativity...

Well folks... Friday I broke and stopped the H-Bridge construction. I realized that the things I had to drive the motors were inadequate, and thought it thought and realized the cost of new parts for the H-Bridge (to build it myself) would be more expensive than just buying an H-bridge driver...

So I am getting some low power H-bridge driver IC's from Digi-Key, they are the DRIVER-SN754410 from Texas Instruments... Nice driver with dual motor capacity, 1AMP current peak (works for me, I only need 320 milliamps for the motors I am driving), 4.5v to 36v... So this IC should cover my motor driving needs for this project and many-a-more to come....