The mechanics and electronics designed for the realization of MyzharBot are licensed under TAPR Open Hardware.
For all devices and items purchased from third parties applies its own license.
The electronics of MyzharBot may be subdivided into two main branches: Low Level and High Level.
Electronics
High Level Electronics
The High Level Electronics is the part that contains the “intelligence” of MyzharBot. An embedded ARM board runs the control algorithms and decides what to do and when to do it, according to signals coming from sensors and to the control mode set by the remote user.
The Motor Control couple
Pandaboard ES: the first original brain!
One of the embedded ARM boards that control MyzharBot is the Pandaboard ES. It runs an embedded Linux operating system based on Ubuntu Server distro. Pandaboard also handles the communication with a remote operator by TCP/UDP channels providing him with video streaming, messages about the state of the robot and receiving commands and configurations.
Pandaboard ES was the first embedded ARM board mounted on MyzharBot… MyzharBot is attached to its first brain 🙂
Pandaboard ES
CubieBoard2: the other brain!
The second ARM board that controls MyzharBot is the Cubieboard2. It runs an embedded Linux operating system based on Debian. Cubieboard2 handles the navigation control algorithms.
Cubieboard2
BeagleBone Black, yet another brain
The third ARM board that controls MyzharBot is the BeagleBone Black. It runs and embedded Linux operating system based on Ubuntu. BBB will be the voice module.
BeagleBoneBlack
NVidia Jetson TK1: the most powerful brain
Since June 2014 MyzharBot can count on the most powerful embedded board ever created: NVidia Jetson TK1 (Official Wiki). Jetson board is powered by a Tegra TK1 SOC.
Tegra K1 SOC (CPU+GPU+ISP in a single chip, with typical power consumption of roughly 5W):
- GPU: NVIDIA Kepler “GK20a” GPU with 192 SM3.2 CUDA cores (over 300 GFLOPS!)
- CPU: NVIDIA “4-Plus-1” 2.32GHz ARM quad-core Cortex-A15 CPU
Jetson TK1 will be the “Computer Vision” brain of MyzharBot. It will perform every Vision Task and will give to MyzharBot awareness about the environment that surrounds it.
NVidia Jetson TK1
Low Level Electronics
The low level Electronics is composed by all the electronics boards that performs low level tasks: motor driving, motor powering, sensors acquiring, energy managing, ecc.
Each board requiresa chapter apart.
Power Distribution v1.0
The “Power Distribution” is the electronic board that takes the battery power as input and distributes it to the various modules of the robot. The components of the board are sized to be connected to the Lipo 4S 30C battery and is protected by power inversion and by power spikes thanks to an automotive 15A fuse and a 1.5KE18A Transil. The power is filtered by a 3rd order Pi Filter in order to decouple the powering of the motors by the powering of the logic modules.
Power Distribution PCB
Robocontroller V3 (Prototype)
Is the board that provide the motors control. It is still at prototype stage, we are working hard on the firmware to make it more stable as possible.
Robocontroller V2
Roboponte-MD V2
Is the board that receives control signals from Robocontroller V2 and provides power signals to motors.
Roboponte-MD V3
Intelligent DC-DC converter with USB interface
Is the circuit that regulates the power for Pandaboard ES. It is a board designed for Mini-ITX systems, but it is very good for robotic applications. It is programmable by USB to choose the output level.
Intelligent DC DC USB
RoboDiscovery-F4 (Prototype)
Is the board that handles the obstacle sensors, it is a new project fully described on its own site: robodiscovery.com. Its core system is a STm32F4-Discovery board suited on a self made carrier board. The carrier board has connectors for 16 sonars or 16 analog infrared sensors.
RoboDiscovery-F4
