Calibrating DC motors

2-wheeled robots need constant adjusting of motor power. In our robot, the input for power management is the gyroscope, if the robot deviates from the prescribed direction, the gyroscope measures the deviation and the motor control logic intervenes. If the initial power estimation for the motors is not exact enough, this post-effect control results in a path that is very far from straight line. It is important therefore to have a good initial estimation of motor power.

The following two images show the relative motor power of the two robots we built as a function of the PWM value applied by the microcontroller. The y axis is measured as the total distance run by the specified motor in a specified time interval when applied the PWM value on the x axis. Y values are scaled, the longest distance is 100% and all the other distances are scaled accordingly. Blue line is motor#1, green line is motor#2.

 

Power ratio of the two motors in case of my robot

 Power ratio of the two motors in case of my son's robot

As the diagrams show, DC motors of this low-cost robot kit are very different. Therefore a calibration step was introduced. Once you assembled the robot and made sure that the wheels are indeed spinning in the right direction (check out this sketch for basic motor test), you should upload the calibration sketch and execute it. This sketch measures the power curves shown above by applying increasing power to one of the motor and measuring the distance run with the specified power in 3 seconds. As only one motor is tested at a time, the robot will rotate so give the robot enough space and a stable, even surface.

The calibration sketch saves the measured values that the robot library uses later. Check out TwoWDRobot::init_motors() to see, how the calibration data stored in EEPROM is read and TwoWDRobot::get_pwm_from_power_percentage to see, how the PWM value is calculated from the power percentage value.