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ZaurBot

Tags:
Category: Rolling
Cost:

ZaurBot is my tread-based robot project. It uses an OOPic-R Microcontroller for motor control and reflexes. The "brain" of the robot is a Sharp Zaurus SL5500.


Components:
  • Abrams Tank - The body of the robot is an IR Controled M1-A1 Abrams tank from Toys R Us
  • OOPic-R - An OOPic-R Microcontroller. provides the I/O to and from the various sensors and components in the robot. It is connected to the Zaurus via a serial cable.
  • Zaurus - The Sharp Zaurus SL5500 is a Linux based PDA that acts as the brain of this robot. The code was written in C and could be edited and compiled on the Zaurus itself.
    • 200Mhz StrongARM CPU
    • 64Mb RAM
    • 128Mb of flash storage on Secure Digital card
    • Wireless Networking via Ambicom 802.11b compact flash
  • Gear Box - The gear box from the original tank is still in the design. I may add some sort of odometry here in the future
  • Original Circuitry - I am using some of the original circuitry from the tank to control the gear box motors. Four wires connect this circuitry to the OOPic. This circuitry also gets power via 5V regulated power pins on the OOPic.
  • Devantech Compass - This digital compass communicates with the OOPic via i2c networking. Information from the compass can be relayed to the Zaurus. The compass is mounted atop an acrylic tube to reduce interference from the other circuitry.
  • Sharp GP2D120 - This unit provides short-distance range finding. It is connected to the OOPic via one of the A/D lines.
    Long distance range finding will be added as Polaroid Sonar in the future.
  • Bumper Switches - These two micro-switches have wire "whiskers" attached so that right and left front-end collisions can be detected. These wire the first sensors that the robot had.

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Comments

bot-thoughts's picture

I like it. Sounds like the

by bot-thoughts - 01/08/2011 - 12:10am

I like it. Sounds like the Zaurus is a great idea for a robotics control platform and has quite a bit of power. Could probably handle just about any sensor input you throw at it. I wonder if it could do some kind of vision processing... port OpenCV to OpenZaurus? :)