Robot "Alubot"

Robot "Alubot"

Introduction

The intention for building this robot was to have a flexible platform for all kind of experiments with different technologies like mechanics, microcontrollers, looped feedback controls, embedded systems, FPGAs etc. As the building material I choose aluminum which is cheap, very strong for its weight and easy to handle at home even without a proper workshop. The preliminary picture below shows the current state of the robot:

Milestones

As of now the robot is a constant work in progress. In order to have some goals to work towards, I defined some milestones for the development:

1. Build an aluminium frame with enough space for a strong battery pack, one or two carrier PCBs, two or three embedded systems and several sensors. Also two strong motors with wheels and one pivoted support wheel should be included
2. Next step is to choose and install a battery with a fuse and a main switch as well as a mini Linux computer which will bring a lot of computing power to play with.
3. In order to bring things to life, a motor driver board that can communicate with the Linux system is needed. Ideally, this board is programmable with an open source tool chain which make things easy to develop on a Kubuntu desktop PC. To control the motors through the embedded Linux system, basic communication and control routines are needed.
4. Next step is to install wheel encoders and get them to work with the motor driver. This can be used for looped feedback control of the motor´s speed which will allow accurate control of speed and direction of the robot.
5. Another plan is to use a common TV remote control to directly control the robot in the field and e.g. override driving controls or choose between different behaviours.

Work In Progress