Drone Flying
Posted inComputing & Networking Electrical & Electronics Systems & Sensors

Drone Sensor Payload Design Hands On

This post is part of the Hands on Robot Design series. See here for the full list of posts/topics http://robotsforroboticists.com/hands-on-ground-robot--drone-design-series for information on mechanical, electrical, motion control, computing, sensors, and more. Once we had a drone we needed the sensors and computer to make this drone operate. Keeping with the idea of trying to make the drone as light as…
router and access point
Posted inComputing & Networking

Wireless Radio Selection

Radios are used for different things; data, audio, video, etc.. In robotics they are most often used for transmitting data wirelessly. There are many different types of radios available to choose for your robotic system. There are probably hundreds of individual radios to choose from. This post will look at some of the different categories. I am partially sorting this…
sensor payload
Posted inComputing & Networking Electrical & Electronics Systems & Sensors

Sensor Payload – Hands On Ground Robot Design

This post is part of the Hands on Ground Robot Design series. See here for the full list of posts/topics http://robotsforroboticists.com/hands-on-ground-robot--drone-design-series for information on mechanical, electrical, motion control, computing, sensors, and more. Sensor Selection Based on the system requirements we determined that we needed RGBD cameras in all four directions to help find required artifacts (survivors, fire extinguishers, cell phones,…
R3 motor controllers
Posted inComputing & Networking Electrical & Electronics

Motor Controls & Computing – Hands On Ground Robot Design

This post is part of the Hands on Ground Robot Design series. See here for the full list of posts/topics http://robotsforroboticists.com/hands-on-ground-robot--drone-design-series for information on mechanical, electrical, motion control, computing, sensors, and more. Check out the post below for some pro tips on getting better support when talking with motor controller vendors. Motor Controls We used Copley BPL-090-30 and Copley ADP-180-30…
fstab options for mounting drive
Posted inComputing & Networking Mechanical

How to Mount an External Removable Hard Drive on a Robot

We often want to add an external hard drive to our robots in order to have a dedicated drive for data collection. Having the dedicated drive lets the primary drive remain uncluttered, have less wear-and-tear, split logging between drives for performance, and potentially be a larger spinning disk (as opposed to an expensive SSD). It is also useful when the…
USB Port
Posted inComputing & Networking

USB device configuration: Alternative to udev

Hi all Every time I need to add multiple USB devices to a computer I get nervous and dread the architecture. The problem is when a computer boots it automatically brings up USB devices in whatever order it sees fit (think crazy race conditions). So if you have a motor controller, a camera, and a LIDAR that all use USB…
pc104 computer
Posted inComputing & Networking

Convert Linux into an Embedded System

Hi all Running Linux on your embedded system can be great for giving you a stable base, lots of tools, and you can often solve problems with a quick google search. I define embedded as any custom-built computer system, not only tiny devices. In many cases you can develop on the computer itself for ease of development, however in other…
TOUGHBOOK
Posted inComputing & Networking

TOUGHBOOK: The Super Rugged Laptop Teardown

Hi all Today I have a Panasonic Toughbook CF-18 that I will have the opportunity to tear down and see just what makes these computers so rugged. Please keep reading for the details of scan through for some nice pictures (you can click an image for the larger version). The computer weighs 4lb 10.8 oz and feels as solid as…
computer repair
Posted inComputing & Networking Testing

Computer Field Recovery Kit

Hi all So I got a question about what I bring to the field with me when I am taking a robot out for testing. The simple answer is everything that I might need. Here is a list of the basics that a carry with me. I have a box labeled Computer Recovery Kit that I always keep complete and…
CAN topology
Posted inComputing & Networking Electrical & Electronics

CAN bus (CANopen & CiA) for Motor Control

A Controller Area Network, or CAN for short is a common message based protocol used in cars and other vehicles. If you are trying to interface with a car/truck/bulldozer, there is a good chance that you will be reading data its CAN bus, and sending it commands via its CAN bus. It is also used in industrial/robotic applications such as…
kernal panic
Posted inComputing & Networking

Read Only Operating Systems

Hi all Most robots have a computer inside that is responsible for controlling the robot. Many robots will have multiple computers, each responsible for a different part of the robot. How do you make sure that the operating system and possibly the software that runs the robot does not get corrupt (and avoid kernel panics)? To solve this problem we…
satellite internet remote location
Posted inComputing & Networking

Remote Internet Access

When you are in the middle of nowhere how can you get online? Often while working with robots you must travel to remote locations with no wired (copper/fiber) internet connection or wifi. In these cases you have two primary ways to get online. When I say "you" it can really be either you or the robot. There are times when…
robot networking
Posted inComputing & Networking

Networking for Robots: A crash course

Hi all There are many people who are familiar with setting up a home network, but now lets look at how to setup a network on your robot. There are two parts to setting up a network; the hardware and the software. This post will go into both of those topics. Before I begin to talk about networking, we must…
TS-7800 SBC
Posted inComputing & Networking

Embedded Computers

Hi all When choosing a computer for your robot there are many options to choose from. How do you decide which one is correct? This post is going to go through some of the standard computing platforms and explain the good and the bad. We will look at both some standard form factor computers as well as some specific single…
ubiquiti wireless router
Posted inComputing & Networking

Wireless routers for robots – Ubiquity

Hi all This is going to be a quick post. I have used many wireless routers on robots over the years and they have all failed on me. Most of them probably failed due to the vibration, shock, and dust. The one vendor that I have found so far that has a reliable product is Ubiquiti. Not only is it…