Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: spizzak on September 20, 2011, 09:21:41 AM

Title: Board selection help
Post by: spizzak on September 20, 2011, 09:21:41 AM
I'm working on a project that involves an autonomous RC car. The car will have a vision system and need to be controlled by an on-board micro. I'm having some difficulty deciding what setup to use.

The image processing will probably be done on the car on a Beagleboard using openCV, but I'm looking for another micro to do some of the hardware interfacing. The car has an esc to control the motor so I just need a couple of servo controls from the micro and some inputs (maybe a hall sensor for speed and a IR rangefinder, etc.)

I've been looking at getting one of the arduino's but I'm wondering how you would connect multiple devices as there is no Vcc and Gnd bus on all the prebuilt boards I've seen. I've also thought about using my $50 robot board, which should be able to handle these tasks but then I'm not sure how difficult the communication between the beagleboard and the $50 board would be.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks guys!
Title: Re: Board selection help
Post by: joe61 on September 20, 2011, 10:55:22 AM
You might want to look at the Chumby Hacker Board (http://www.adafruit.com/products/278) It might be easier to interface with. It's certainly cheaper than a Beagleboard.

Joe
Title: Re: Board selection help
Post by: spizzak on September 20, 2011, 11:56:37 AM
Hm that looks interesting, will it have enough power to do some video processing? Also, there does appear to be MUCH more support for openCV on the BB. I have no experience with this so I'm not sure how difficult it would be to figure it out.
Title: Re: Board selection help
Post by: joe61 on September 20, 2011, 12:22:09 PM
No idea about that, sorry, just not my thing. I might have more to say in a few days when mine arrives.

Joe
Title: Re: Board selection help
Post by: spizzak on September 20, 2011, 02:34:48 PM
okay thanks, if I decide to stick with the Beagleboard what would be the best way to communicate with an arduino or homebrew atmega board?
Title: Re: Board selection help
Post by: joe61 on September 20, 2011, 03:03:01 PM
Honestly, I wandered away from Beagle board because of all the 1.8v interface issues, so I'm not a good person to ask. Mine has been sitting in a drawer waiting for me to get time to figure that stuff out. It will probably be there for a while yet.

Sorry, I'm not much help today...

Joe