ORBITRON is designed to advance the field of automation in robot combat. Its innovations are driven by the emphasis of faster-reacting software control and giving as much power to automation as possible. This is how our dual disk, gyro-canceling weapon configuration was inspired.
The spinner weapons on ORBITRON are designed to damage opponents by transferring rotational kinetic energy on impact. This is one of the most efficient ways to store and release energy in a combat robotics application, which will maximize their effectiveness in the arena.
Each spinner is designed with specialized geometry to maximize its ability to store and transfer rotational kinetic energy. The main property to optimize in this respect is the moment of inertia around the main rotation axis, which relates to the torque required to rotationally accelerate an object around an axis of interest. ORBITRON’s disk spinners are configured to place most of the disk mass as far from the axis of rotation as possible, thus maximizing its moment of inertia and the amount of kinetic energy it can store at a given rotational velocity.
The disks also use an up-cutting, single tooth configuration to maximize engagement on opponents. Using a single tooth (the minimum number of teeth possible) maximizes the disk’s engagement with an opposing robot for a given RPM and collision speed, thus increasing its ability to transfer energy on impact. To rebalance the center of mass, the opposite side of the disk has smaller cutouts to allow it to spin true to the bearing axis and not cause vibrations while running.
The spinners are driven by two redundant V-belts. The V-belts allow the drive system to slip some amount on large impacts, thus protecting the motors/shafts from extreme torques upon deceleration.
Each spinner/motor system is identical on each side of the robot, using all the same parts and mounting configurations.
One of the main drawbacks of spinning weapons is gyroscopic precession. Although vertical spinners (spinners that spin on an axis parallel to the ground plane) are debatably the most effective weapon in combat robotics due to their favorable energy transfer characteristics (launching the opponent up and driving the offending robot stably into the ground), they impact the robot’s ability to turn (on an axis perpendicular to the ground plane). Spinners will generate a torque perpendicular to their axis of rotation and the axis of rotational motion, which, in a vertical spinner application, means the entire robot frame tilts up into the air, inhibiting its ability to turn quickly.
However, using a pair configuration of spinners can decrease the precession, as long as the spinners rotate in opposite directions. In such a configuration, the precession torque generated by each spinner opposes that of the other, completely eliminating the net torque if each disk is symmetric. This inspired the front-back pair configuration that is unique to ORBITRON, as this allows both spinners to spin up (spin in a direction that launches opponents upward) while still running in opposite directions, thus canceling gyroscopic precession effects. This also creates redundancy in the weapon system, giving ORBITRON a better chance at success if one spinner were to stop working mid-fight.
ORBITRON’s drivetrain is designed to be extremely fast and powerful. We prioritized the use of higher power motors and batteries specifically to give our software control algorithms the greatest speed advantage possible.