ROBOTICS: Continuous Tracks

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When building robots the place where it is going to be used is one of the most important factors to be considered. A robot that will be used to explore certain areas, should be designed in such a way where it should have the maneuver capability, depending on the environment where it is going to be deployed. If the robot is to be deployed on areas of rough terrain, uneven ground, wet and slippery surfaces using tracks is the best solution to implement.

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TRACKS WILL ADD THE FOLLOWING CAPABILITIES FOR YOUR ROBOT

• Ability to overcome obstacles - there are certain mission/objectives that we need to accomplish where rough terrains and hazardous may hinder our proceedings as it may presents a very high risk to utilize manpower. These are situations that robots will be able aid us in achieving the goals and using continuous tracks is just one of the many ways to ensure that we are able to push through with the objectives by overcoming these obstacles.

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• Looks and aesthetics - battles tanks also install tracks rather than wheels because it looks more aggressive. Personally, I find it cool too.

• Ability to carry heavy loads - this is the way to go if your robot is going to carry tons of loads. The robot may move slower but it will be able to push, pull, lift and carry very heavy loads. Overall weight are being distributed evenly on tracks that allows your robot to be able to carry more loads.

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• Ability to pass through slippery surface - its traction is high that it is still able to maneuver on wet and slippery surface where using wheels is not applicable.

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• Brute force - there are certain cases that you may use the robot to collide and break into some obstacles like a concrete wall. Power delivery efficiency is high with using tracks. Battle tanks are able to crash through concrete walls because of continuous tracks.

Now that we know all the advantages of using continuous tracks, you might have some questions in might that prompts some disadvantages of its usage. Well with our current progress in technology you can actually minimize the disadvantages of using tracks. For example, the use of tracks would mean that the robot will move slower. But with the availability of high powered motors today this disadvantage is not a big concern anymore. There are already vehicles that use tracks but still have decent speed when needed.

Repair is more challenging for tracks, however implementing systematic repair procedures and using other technologies such as another robot that is designed to specifically repair tracks will minimize this disadvantage.

Before I put a period on this blog let me show you one of the robot prototypes that I built that utilizes tracks. This educational robotics system is the Lego Mindstorm Kit.

I hope that you find this informative or interesting. Thank you for reading!

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