Microraptor® Omnidirectional Rover

The Microraptor® Rover was developed to for the Networked Robots Platform. The Microraptor® Rover is Omnidirectional and has four Mecanum Wheels, see , with four independent motors. The Rover is packed with sensors that include a 3 Axis Accelerometer and Gyro, a 3D Magnetometer, four Ultrasonic sensors and a four channel ADC. The 4 Motors are interdependently controlled using PWM signals generated using two PIC16F1825 SoCs. Each supports two independent PWM signals.

Figure 1 shows an IONOTRONICS Microraptor®.

Figure 1 Microraptor®

The architecture of the Microraptor® is shown in Figure 2. Note that key role that I2C plays fir both sensors and motion control.

Figure 2 Microraptor® Architecture

Note that parts MK-34765, MK-24316, and MK-95157 are from IONOTRONICS.

Figure 3Microraptor® Annotated

For Software Development we use the Microchip MPLX IDE with PLIB. For integration into Networked Robots we have implemented the Remote Robotics Control Program (RRCP) that supports all Omnidirectional Movements possible with the four Mecanum Wheels. Code for fully autononomous operation has also been developed with collision avoidance by processing all four ultrasonic sensors. The Microraptor® Rover is a great platform for coding mobile robots.

The next generation Microraptor will use an ST Micro 32 bit ARM Cortex M4 based System on a Chip. The code has already been developed and a prototypeMicroraptor® with an ST Micro STM32 Evaluation board has been built and tested with full Omnidirectional Motion Support. See this link for a photo.

Photos of the Microraptor Rover

Figure 4Microraptor® Side View

Figure 5 Microraptor® Buttom View Showing TT Motors and Mecanum Wheels

Figure 6 Microraptor® Side View Angle

Figure 7 Four DC Motorcontrollers with Two PIC16F1825 I2C Slaves ( 2x PWM Each)

MAX14870 Single Brushed DC Motor Driver Carrier (Pololu 2961)

Microraptor® Prototype ST Micro 32 bit ARM Cortex M4 SoC

Figure 8 Photo of ST Micro 32 bit SoC Microraptor® Prototype.