1.

1 Design Calculations
1.1.1

Drive motor calculations

The CIM motors used on the prototype weighed 14 pounds each and were 8x5
roughly. They took up a lot of space and were heavy. The redesigned robot uses
Andy-Mark PG71 motors (with built in encoders!). These motors weigh 2 pounds
each. To make sure these motors would be sufficient to drive the robot the
following calculations were done.
Assumptions:

Robot weighs 80lbs

Case 1, one wheel touching the ground (drive wheel)
Case 2, two wheels touching the ground (drive and castor wheel)
o Note: the drive system was designed for the robot to rock back and
forth so that the drive wheel and only one set of castor wheels
touches the ground. So at any time, only four wheels are touching
the ground the others slide, but take no load.

Case 1
Motor Data: Andy Mark PG71
Motor
Gear Ration:71:1
No Load Free Speed: 75rpm
Stall Torque: 16.6 ft-lbs
Stall Current: 22A
c.o.f wheel and carpet: 1
Red arrow: weight (mg)
Blue arrow: Reaction force (lbs)

F x =0=F T F f
F f = F N
T =R F
The force imparted by the motor torque, F_T, must be
able to overcome the frictional force F_f.

FT = F N
FT =( 1 ) ( 40 lbs )=40lbs
Meaning the torque the motor needs to produce is:

1
T =R F= ft 40 lbs=13.3 ft-lbs. The stall torque for the motor is 16.6 ft-lbs.
3
Case 2

F y =Rxn Drive+ RxnCastor mgCM

M Drive=CM ( dist 1 ) + RxnCastor ( dist 2 ) =0
2.85

11
M Drive=40 lbs
RxnCastor =10.36lbs RxnDrive =29.64 lbs
F f =1 ( 29.64 lbs )
1
T =R F= ft 29.64 lbs=9.88 ft-lbs
3
These calculations show the motor picked will have sufficient torque to drive the
robot given the assumptions.

1.1.2

Guy wire tension and buckling calculations

The amount of tension the guy wires can be loaded with is related to the critical
buckling load of the steel pole. This is calculated first:

2 EI
Pcrit =
Leff 2
Where E is the elastic modulus, I is the second moment area, and L_eff is the
effective length of the pole give the boundary conditions. This pole can be modeled
as a cantilevered beam with a clamped-free boundary condition. Thus the equation
becomes:

Pcrit =

2 EI
2
2L

The pole used is an 18-gauge galvanized steel pole with an elastic modulus of
29000 ksi. The second moment area is calculated as:

4
r o r i4 )
(
4
Where r_o is the outer radius and r_i is the inner radius of the pole. The second
moment area of the pole is: .06165 in^4.
Thus the critical buckling load of the pole is:

.06165 4

120

2
2

2 ( 29000 ksi )
P crit =
The calculation above uses the length as 120in, because this is the length of the
pole in its longest configuration. To relate this to the amount of tension needed in
the guy wires, first a static analysis of the pole and guy wire is done using vector
notation. By establishing a coordinate system and using the lengths from the solid
model, a direction vector models the wire as:

^
^j120 k^
r^ =13.5 i15
Normalizing this:

^
^j.986 k^
e^ =.111 i.123
Now we can write this into a force balance equation and say that any force acting in
a given direction can be balanced by applying an appropriate tension force acting
along this unit vector to cancel out inertial forces on the pole.
Now, given the pole can only hold 306lbs before buckling
and there are 4 wires, thats 76.5lbs/wire acting directly
down (in the k direction). For a small factor of safety, no
more than 70 lbs of tension should be applied to the
cables.

^
^j69.02 k^
70 lbs ( e^ )=7.77 i8.61

So the total downward force is 276.08lbs, giving this a

factor of safety of

F . S .=

306
=1.12
276.08

This also mean in the forward direction (j_hat) the cables

will dampen 17.22lbs of inertial forces. In the lateral direction (i_hat) it will counter
15.54lbs.