BArd

Beagleboard & Arduino Robot

BArd is a general purpose ground robot that is being designed to fill many roles. It's immediate goal is entry into the Trinity Firefighting Competition in the Spring of 2012. However, the main goal of this robot is to become a platform that can be used extensively in MDRC for AI research, programming workshops, and many other tasks.

Sensors

BArd will comprise a full sensor suite allowing it to perform complex autonomous tasks. Among the sensors that will be included on BArd are:

• 6 DoF IMU (ArduIMU v2)
• 1Hz GPS (EM-406A)
• 5x Sonars (SRF08)
• Rotary Encoders on motor output shafts
• UV Tron flame detection
• Webcam for image processing

Processing

At its heart, BArd is comprised of a BeagleBoard rev. C4 computer running Ubuntu. This computer, running at 720MHz, will allow extensive onboard processing and basic image processing without having to offload any work. BArd's programming is being built over top of the ROS messaging layer.

Custom Beagleboard Expansion

A custom Beagleboard expansion is being designed to allow extensive use of the various IO signals available. The board is being designed in such a way that all the available signals are routed to a female header so that the signals can be repurposed via a smaller card without having to redesign the whole expansion board. The board also includes an ATmega328 primarily for additional PWM output, however nearly all of its I/O is available as well.

This board breaks out:

• From Beagleboard
  • 2x TTL Serial
  • 2x I2C
  • 12x GPIO (2 PWM)
• From ATmega328
  • 4x Analog In
  • 12x Digital IO (6 PWM, SPI)
  • TTL Serial

In order to use the Expansion's motor output, 6 of the GPIO pins (including the 2 that can be used as PWM) must be redirected back to the L298N. In order to use the odometry data, 4 addition GPIO pins will be used by the quadrature encoders on the motors.

Last Updated: Tuesday, February 14 2012 @ 10:56 AM EST|