Biorobotics Laboratory BioRob

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Design of an ARM based microcontroller circuit board for the Amphibot II robot


Semester project, summer 2005

Author : Alain Dysli
Supervisor : Alessandro Crespi
Professor : Auke Jan Ijspeert

Goal of the project

The goal of this project is to design a new controller circuit board for the Amphibot II robot using a new more powerful microcrontroller. The software to handle this device will also be written.

Abstract

The Amphibot I robot was built in the purpose to mimic animal locomotion like the snake's or lamprey's. But the lack of independence due to weak microcontroller and bus performance haven't allowed the robot to be autonomous. The Amphibot II robot comes with a new, more spacious design that allow a more powerful microcontroller to be integrated.

The Philips ARM LPC2129 is chosen to fulfill the increased demand in computational power in this new robot. Along with the ARM more connectors appear on the circuit and the Amphibot II becomes a powerful and expandable robot. But designing the hardware parts doesn't come alone and the software to control those new high performances functionalities must be written.

The result is a powerful and expandable circuit that can handle several external high performances sensors and devices and communicate with all the other circuits of the same kind through its high speed CAN bus.

Pictures

Picture of the top side of the SALAMCTRL printed circuit board.


Picture of the top side of the SALAMPROG printed circuit board connected to a serial port.


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