Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: Digisynth on October 10, 2009, 06:40:58 AM

Title: Computer and Robot in one
Post by: Digisynth on October 10, 2009, 06:40:58 AM

Okay, I am very new to Robotics, but master programming in various languages. I have thought of a very simple way of making a good AI with learning functions, personalities, problem solving, emotions and instincts using Perlin Noise.

This is why I want toBuild a whole computer into the robot. Now my question is how do I connect a computer with the circuits via USB, so that the computer can receive the signals form the sensors and send commands to the servos.

Title: Re: Computer and Robot in one
Post by: madsci1016 on October 10, 2009, 09:34:32 AM

There are many ways to approach this. One easy way is to just use an Axon http://www.societyofrobots.com/axon/ (http://www.societyofrobots.com/axon/) as an interface.

It reads all the senors then sends the values to it's USB Uart to your computer.

If your computer has serial ports, you can use serial ADC boards.

I work with many robots that are just computers, and they almost always have a 'slave' microcontroller that handles all the robotic functions like sensor reads and sends the information to the master computer over USB or serial.

Title: Re: Computer and Robot in one
Post by: Neophite_404 on October 10, 2009, 05:55:16 PM

Either which way your do it Digismyth, UART is still going to be your glue. You're going to have to read up on it and how to implement whichever communications protocol that you're interested in via the UART communications system. 

Title: Re: Computer and Robot in one
Post by: radhoo on October 11, 2009, 01:07:08 AM

Quote from: Digisynth on October 10, 2009, 06:40:58 AM

Okay, I am very new to Robotics, but master programming in various languages. I have thought of a very simple way of making a good AI with learning functions, personalities, problem solving, emotions and instincts using Perlin Noise..

this was my case as well. so I've started using the LPT port to control robot motors which was easy but then I realized that reading sensor data will be extremely difficult.
Also having a PC motherboard in my robot consumed a lot of power (I even bought a mini-itx board).
You can see my progress here:
http://www.pocketmagic.net/?p=520 (http://www.pocketmagic.net/?p=520)

First bot did some image processing to follow a laser pointer dot, but all processing was performed on the remote computer (directshow to gather camera feed).

Finally the best compromise I've found was to use an embedded processing unit (a WinMobile smartphone) as the robot brain, and a microcontroller (atmega8) to interface the sensors. The two components are linked successfully using a bluetooth serial link:
see http://www.pocketmagic.net/?p=869 (http://www.pocketmagic.net/?p=869)

Title: Re: Computer and Robot in one
Post by: Neophite_404 on October 11, 2009, 01:10:33 AM

Man that's really cool. The idea of using a system like a smartphone or PDA as a 'bot's brain has been really attractive to me. I think it's cool that you've done it. (Reason for the attraction: Small size, huge processing ability).

Title: Re: Computer and Robot in one
Post by: radhoo on October 12, 2009, 01:12:38 AM

Quote from: Neophite_404 on October 11, 2009, 01:10:33 AM

Man that's really cool. The idea of using a system like a smartphone or PDA as a 'bot's brain has been really attractive to me. I think it's cool that you've done it. (Reason for the attraction: Small size, huge processing ability).

thanks. Also don't forget another big advantage: power consumption (extremely small for PDAs). Good thing that nowadays you can get cheap PDAs on Ebay.