What this is About

This is my Robots file cabinet and it contains information about my various projects related to the subject of robotics. I have focused my interest in robotics on mobile autonomous vehicles i.e. robots which move about their environment to accomplish a specific set of tasks without outside guidance or intervention.  Environment examples include the home, table tops, mazes and line following.
 

EasyC

The Easy-C is language has similar expressive power to that of the popular ANSI-C language but avoids many of the issues that make ANSI-C difficult and/or tedious to use when writing code. Easy-C is a strongly typed object oriented language.
 

Robobricks2

The RoboBricks2 project consists of a collection of specialized modules or "bricks" each of which is dedicated to support a specific device like a servo or an IR detector.  Combining Bricks dedicated to a specific function effectively creates a distributed processing network that relieves the user having to incorporate each of the device's housekeeping code in his top level code.  This means that the top level user code is significantly easier to write and hence it is easier for the user to develop a more creative and useful robot behaviors.

RoboBricks2 is the second generation of the original Robobricks design and it takes advantage of newly available technology to provide higher speed and easier use. RoboBricks2 is based on 9-bit serial UART (Universal Asynchronous Receive/Transmit) and CAN (Controller Area Network) bus transceivers. The following is a list of the existing Robobrick2 modules presently available.

• Controller28 - This module is the where the user's program resides and is used to communicate with all of the brinks attached to the network.  It can accept any Microchip® microcontroller that is compatible with the 28-pin skinny DIP package. This module has a 5 volt 1 Amp fused on-board power supply with an on/off switch.

• DB9RJ11 - This module is used to interface an coiled handset cable ("RJ11") to a to a 9-pin serial cable ("DB9").

• IO8 - This module provides 8 lines of I/O. Each line can be independently selected to be either a digital input, a digital output, or an analog input. The analog input can be measured to 10 bits between 0 and 5 volts.

• IRDistance2 - This module can read distances from up to two Sharp® GP2D12 sensors. This module is fully opto-isolated to deal with the extremely nasty non-linear current draw of the GP2D12 (between 220mA and 9mA.)

• LCD32 - This module is provides 2×16 character LCD module for output.

• MidiMotor2 - This module can drive up to two medium (aka midi) motors with a maximum current draw of 3.5 Amperes.

• MiniMotor2 - This module can drive up to two small (aka mini) motors with a temporary peak current of 1.2A and maximum continuous current draw of 600mA each.

• Servo4 - This module can run up to 4 hobby servos with complete opto-isolation.

• Shaft2 - This module can keep track of up to two quadrature rotation sensors.

• Sonar6 - Controller board for 6 Ping, SRF04, SRF05, or EZSonar ultrasonic sensors. There mays still be some firmware issues with this board.

• Terminate2 - A dual RoboBricks2 bus terminator. It can also be jumpered to be Robobricks2 bus splice.

• WireHost - This module is used to download code from a host computer via a wire.

Product Data Sheets

Project Notebook

Python Programming -

Robotics/Programming/HelloWorld!.pdf