Cytron Blog has a new home

This blog no longer be used as we has migrated to this site blog.cytron.com.my. Feel free to visit it !

Humanoid Project (Collaboration with UTM)

1st Malaysia made Humanoid – Result of Collaboration between UTM and Cytron Technologies

Want to see Malaysia 1st Humanoid Robot? Here you are! Fully built in Malaysia by Malaysian!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo shows two Humanoid robots on table at Cytron RnD Center. Both are yet fully constructed. If you notice the wiring, those are servo motor wires. The controller, sensor and software are still under development stage. Anyway, this is the early stage of Humanoid.

With the mission to create 1st Malaysia made humanoid robot, Cytron Technologies has team up with Prof. Dr. Shamsudin Hj. Mohd Amin (FKE, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia) for collaboration work under MOSTI grand. We have formed a UTM Humanoid Research Group. The objective is to build humanoid robot that have stability and balancing capability, vision, even a Humanoid research platform. This robot should have the outlook of human and able to perform action human alike movements. These include walking, turning, dancing, push up, standing up and more. Cytron Technologies has played our roll in:
a. Sourcing suitable sensor and digital servo motor which is powerful enough to support dynamic movement and weight of humanoid robot.
b. Technical Consultation of controller development which integrate sensor, wireless communication and microcontroller
c. Fabrication of humanoid robot body which has been designed by one of the final year student
d. Offer the facilities and equipment needed during the construction of humanoid robot
e. Discussion and ideas exchanging on mechanical design, controller design and software development.

Here some photos one of the humanoid doing “push-up”. The 1st photo is “push down”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is push up.

It can also perform dancing! “Kung-Fu Fighting”

Now, Malaysia have Humanoid robot built by Malaysian. Not one, but several set with different capabilities. Besides being on stage during ASIMO visit to UTM, two humanoid robot has also being invited to be on-air at Bernama studio for Hello Malaysia program. We will continue the close collaboration to ensure more enhancements to be carried out on this project. We are also looking forward for more collaboration project between university and industry to produce Malaysia Boleh Technology!

Here, we included the video taken during Bernama program, Hallo Malaysia with the title “Malaysia Boleh – Humanoid”. Hope you enjoy it.

Of course, there are still plenty of improvement and enhancement needed before it can go to public, we will work hard for that! Do not worry! Malaysia Boleh!

Cytron Technologies as 3rd Party Microchip Training Center

 

Cytron Technologies Sdn. Bhd. has been appointed as 3^rd Party Microchip Training Center in Malaysia.

Microchip Technology Inc. is a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, providing low-risk product development, lower total system cost and faster time to market for thousands of diverse customer applications worldwide. Headquartered in Chandler, Arizona, Microchip offers outstanding technical support along with dependable delivery and quality. In few years, Microchip 8 bit and 16 bit Microcontroller have gained its popularity in Malaysia especially in industrial and also education sector.

With the strong technical knowledge of PIC and dsPIC Microcontroller, Microchip Technology Inc. has appointed Cytron Technologies Sdn. Bhd. as First 3rd party training center in Malaysia. Microchip is convinced with the experiences and professional training conducted by Cytron Technologies Sdn. Bhd. Cytron Technologies are pleased to accept the appointment and committed to conduct more seminar and workshop for engineers, lecturers, researchers and also students. With comprehensive development tools and hands-on workshop offered, participant will gained more valuable knowledge in designing embedded system, producing proper source code, debugging and simulation.

This is an effort of Microchip after the launching of its global network of Regional Training Centers (RTC) earlier of 2006 to meet customers’ demands for more frequent training. Many engineers are looking to improve their knowledge base and skill sets on a regular basis. Together with Microchip RTC, Cytron Technologies will offer a multitude of courses covering a wide range of applications. These courses provide expert instruction in a small classroom setting on new design methodologies, board-level “tips and tricks” and hands-on development tool projects that can make engineers more productive while increasing their own professional value. Additionally, these courses help the attendees’ organizations more successful by speeding time to market and lowering total system costs.

Cytron Technologies has been working actively to prepare venue, courses, facilitators and courses material. For the time being, Cytron Technologies only accept participants of 10 persons or more in group.

We have started our 1st PIC Workshop at USM (Nibong Tebal). 13th Jan 2009. Please refer here for details. Welcome to contact sales@cytron.com.my for further information or inquiries. Thanks

Benefit of attending Microchip Courses:

• Hands-on experience in using Microchip development tools (MPLAB, Simulator, Development boards and many more).
• Trained by qualified and recognized trainer.
• Certificate issued by Microchip.
• Build up confidence and acquire latest technical information.
• Internationally recognized courses.
• Bring back knowledge that no one can take away from you.
• Every participant have chance to purchase development tools with discount on the spot.

Who should attend?

• Engineers responsible in designing microcontroller embedded system.
• University and College Lecturers
• Engineering students
• Electronic hobbyists

Dredging mobile robot (DredBot)

What is Dredbot??

Yes, a picture tells a million words, it is a robot inspired from the dredging machine. It can actually do what a dredging machine can do. Not believe? let’s go to the details of Dredbot.

Normally, the arm of a dredging machine has two degree of freedom(DOF), so as for Dredbot. The DOF is offered through 2 servo motor combined with two sets of servo bracket as shown in figure above. The end effector of the arm is a bucket for carry and load objects. The bucket is created by a combination of 4 unused PCB board and it is  save, light and easy.

Let’s see some performance of the arm of Dredbot!

The base of the bucket is touching the ground. This allow Dredbot to shovel any objects on the floor.

The bucket can be left a little bit from the ground but it is still parallel with the ground. This is due to the two degree of freedom of the arm. This arm and bucket position can used to hold objects for short distance and slow move.

For fast and long distance move, to avoid the loaded objects from being thrown off the bucket and allow the mobile base move smoother, the bucket has to left higher and make some curve. In the same height, the bucket can be curved until its base is perpendicular to the ground as shown in figure above.

To unload object to the ground which is same level with the mobile base, the bucket can be curved as shown in figure above. The curve allows objects to slide down from the bucket.

Thats all for Dredbot? absolutely not, a dredging machine must have some extra ability to make it works safely and perfectly in bad condition working side. Next, i will introduce to you some additional feature of Dredbot just like the real world dredging machine.

Yes, one of the important features of a dredging machine is the headlight and spotlight which allows it to work at night. The two lights on the buckets are the headlight to light up the surrounding of taken objects, meanwhile the two light on the top of the mobile base are the spotlight to light up the surrounding of the working side. The on/off of the 4 lights are controllable.

Between the two spotlight, there is a controllable caution flashing red light. It is used to aware the surrounding people that the machine is in operation and be caution. In the real world, the flashing light is fairly important especially at night to minimize some careless accident.

Another safety features of Dredbot imitated  from the real world dredging machine is the cornering signal, brake signal and reverse signal. The three signal will be delivered through two yellow light located at the back of Dredbot. To deliver left/right cornering signal, left/right light will be blink in certain frequency, to indicate reverse move, the both light will be blink in another frequency and to show brake effort, the both light will be on.

thats all for the features of Dredbot, how about we go into the details of the components used in Dredbot.

CYTRON 18 pins PIC Start-up Kit (SK18A)

The SK18A comes with a 18pins PIC, the basic circuit to support the PIC ,the ICSP programming port and on board expansion area for other circuit. The size and the wide expansion area of the board make me easy to develop the application circuit (without another donut board added) and fit it into the small dredbot.

CYTRON USB ICSP PIC Programmer (UIC00A)

The UIC00A is a very convenient programmer which can be directly plugged to the programmer port of SK18A and burn the PIC through the USB port of PC. A free pc software (PICKIT2) is used to mange the process of transferring .hex file from pc to PIC.

CYTRON Mobile Robot Base

Actually, the base is designed for dc brush motor, but due to stepper motor is used in this project, some modifications (location of holes) must be made to fit the stepper motor on it.

MINEBEA Stepper Motor

The stepper motor can be analogy as the engine of the Dredbot which provide mobility to it. Stepper is a much more accurate and powerful motor if compare with dc brush motor due to the operation concept. But, the method to drive it is also much more complicated compare to dc brush motor. For dredbot, accuracy and high torque is a significant factor for high load mobility, tats why i chose stepper as the ‘engine’ of Dredbot.

CYTRON Coupling and wheel

As shown in figure above, Cytron’s coupling is designed for dc brush motor. So, to mount it on the stepper motor, some modification have to be carried out. Mounting the coupling with cytron’s wheel is not a problem.

CYTRON Enhanced 2A Stepper Motor Driver (SD02B)

(coming soon!)

As i said before, the control method of a stepper is quite complex especially to control speed, limit the current consumed, encoder count and etc. A SD02B can solve all the problems. By using it, i can control the stepper motor as direct as only connect the driver with the I/Os from PIC. Another method to control the driver to drive stepper is using UART protocol (i chose to use UART because it needs only 2 pins from PIC).

CYTRON PS Controller Start-up kit(SKPS)

The real world dredging machine is totally manual controlled so as for Dredbot. The only different is the operator for dredging machine is sitting inside the machine but dredbot cant! For moving flexibility, i chose to use wireless control , so SKPS is an ideal device for me because it supports wired and wireless control through PS2 controller. PS2 controller is a very convenient yet ready to used joystick for any manual operation.

CYTRON servo motor

Servo motor is the motor used to operate the arm of the dredbot. two servos on the arm offer two degree of freedom motion. Due to servo motor is specially designed for position control, it is the most suitable motor to control the angle of dredbot’s arm.

CYTRON Servo Motor Brackets

Cytron comes with two kinds of servo brackets as shown in figure above. Any creative servo based creation can be created using these two kinds of brackets. Dredbot’s arm is one of the creation from two set of the these brackets.

That’s all,  let’s watch video!!!

Rechargeable LED Torch

 

 

Rechargeable LED Torch is a DIY pocket size LED torch light using single AA rechargeable battery, super bright white LED and rechargeable using standard USB port. This is a great DIY project where you can learn about voltage booster and USB charger for AA rechargeable battery.

 

 

Step by step guide

 

 

First of all, you have to gather all the components required.

Component list:

 

 

2. 1 x 3.9K Ohm 1/4W resistor
3. 1 x 10 Ohm 1/4W resistor
4. 1 x 1.5K Ohm 1/4W resistor
5. 1 x 470 Ohm 1/4W resistor
6. 1 x 6.8K Ohm 1/4W resistor
7. 1 x 10K Ohm 1/4W resistor
8. 1 x 100K Ohm 1/4W resistor
9. 1 x 150pF Ceramic capacitor
10. 1 x 16V 100uF Electrolyte capacitor
11. 1 x 1N5819 diode
12. 1 x USB-Type B female connector
13. 1 x 5mm super bright white LED
14. 1 x 3mm red LED
15. 1 x 22uH inductor
16. 1 x BC557 PNP transistor
17. 1 x 2N2222 NPN transistor
18. 1 x Single Pole Double Throw slide switch
19. 1 x Push button
20. 1 x LM358 IC
21. 1 x AA rechargeable battery
22. 1 x 7cm x 3cm donut board

Normal electronic store doesn’t sell 7cm x 3cm donut board, so, maybe you have to cut the donut board from a larger donut board.

 

 

Divide the donut board into 3 parts: battery, charger, and LED.

 

 

Start by soldering the USB Charger circuit. You may need to drill a 2mm hole at the donut board to insert the USB B-type connector.

 

 

Place the USB B-type at the end of the board so that it is easier to plug in the USB cable to charge the torch. Also try to organize the board, like how much spaces will the battery take, slide switch, and also components.

To reduce the size of the board, you may try to put the resistor at “standing” position.

 

 

Finish doing the charging circuit.

 

 

Continue with the voltage booster circuit.

 

 

Complete the circuit, and use double sided tape to hold the battery to the donut board.

 

 

Place the battery to the donut board and solder wires to the positive and negative terminal of the battery.

 

 

Switch to charging operating mode, and connect to USB cable to charge the battery. Make sure the charging red LED is turned on.

 

 

After finish charging, switch the slide switch back to normal operating mode, and have fun!

 

 

 

 

Circuit description

 

 

The description of the circuit will be divided into 2 parts, USB charger and voltage booster.

 

 

USB Charger

The USB AA battery charger is basically constructed by 2 main blocks, one is the comparator, and another one is the transistor charging circuitry. LM358 consist of 2 voltage comparator and its design to operate from a single supply.

In the charger circuit, we use comparator to compare the voltage of the battery with a fixed voltage from 3 resistor voltage divider. Once the battery is fully charge, the comparator will turn off the charging circuit.

R1, R4 and R6 are voltage divider and the output voltage of the nod A and nod B can be calculate by following equation:

These Va and Vb will be connect to the negative input of the comparator 1 and comparator 2 which will be compared with the voltage of the battery. Once the voltage of the battery reach 1.386V, the Out 2 will equal to one, and the red led will be turned off. Once the voltage of the battery reach 1.396V, the Out 1 will equal to one, and the transistor charging circuitry will be turned off.

 

 

The transistor charging circuitry is mainly build by a PNP transistor, BC557 which will be turn on when Out 1 equal to zero. The typical charging current for the setup is around 80mA.

 

 

Voltage Booster

The voltage booster is basically a boost converter where the output voltage can be greater than the input voltage. Since the super bright white LED needs around 3V to operate and the output of rechargeable AA battery is only 1.2V, then this boost converter is suitable for our application.

In general, a boost converter consists of an inductor, a switching circuit and a capacitor storing circuit. When the switching circuit turns on the inductor, the current flow through the inductor will increase. After a certain period, the switching circuit will turn off the inductor. As we know the current flowing in an inductor must be continuous, and at this time, the current is being force through the diode into the storing capacitor.

 

 

Overall Circuit

 

 

 

 

To separate the charging and booster circuit, the battery is being connect to a slide switch where it determines the operating mode, either charging or normal operation.

Cytron’s Blog Released..

This is the new created blog from cytron to share all the idea and knowledge in embeded system. Mostly are talking about buiding circuit and robot from scratch. Yeah.. feel free to give any comment.

XBot – a mobile robot with unlimited potential!!

The creation of XBot is inspired from the on road vehicles, the idea of XBot to lift object with a gripper is derived from tractor. The additional function of sparkling LEDs and siren on Xbot is to simulate the Police car light and siren.

1.0 Introduction…

######################################################################################

As for the capabilities for XBot to do line following will be another interesting idea to be implemented in our daily life. Just imagine in future, we will have our own line following vehicle like  in the movie “WALL-E”. Wow!! How wonderful it can be!! Let’s see a introduction video…..

But wait!! That’s all XBot can do? No no no, with an embedded system, Interface Free Controller (IFC), which offer interface free with plug and play feature, simple control with IFC function library and flexible with stackable ability, XBot can do more than that!! With this powerful yet easy to use embedded system, you can control XBot through PS2 controller, sound good? Oh, won’t it be a crazy idea to control your vehicle by PS2 controller? I bet the answer is a big “NO”! since James Bond’s car can be driven remotely(in “Tomorrow Never Dies”) , why not our future car?! Yeah, it would be like a dream come true to have a car like that.

Want to see Wireless PS2 in control? Here you are:

if you want to see more, just stay tuned and scroll down (or search it from youtube), there are more videos about this robot.

Have other bombastic idea to add on XBot? Fear not, with IFC, XBot offer unlimited potential for different application, additional features can be added to this robot as easy as 1, 2, 3!

Curious on how XBot being made? Here come the description!!

Minibot

using 2 mini dc motors, 2 mini lithium cells, zigbee trasceiver, pic microcontroller …………..

the idea of this MiniBot comes to my mind after i read this article (http://www.instructables.com/id/Building-Small-Robots-Making-One-Cubic-Inch-Micro/) about an 1 inch cube micro sumo robot. to enter this micro sized robotic world, i start my mini robot with the size 1.5inch x 1.5inch x 2inch cube. maybe next time i will try smaller one called MicroBot, so for now, lets discuss about this MiniBot i am currently developing.

finding suitable component

A) motor

the motor must be very small in size, small current consumption (due to small size of battery), and powerful enough to drive the MiniBot. the first motor i found is a vibrator motor from my old nokia 3310 phone. its small, and i believe it is also small current consumption, but the problem is i dont think its powerful enough to drive MiniBot, because it doesnt have gear box (this mean the gear ratio is 1:1), and another reason is i only have 1, i need to find another for left and right wheel. at the end i decided to use Pololu 30:1 Micro Metal Gearmotor.

 

B) battery

as for the battery, of course the size need to be small and light, as it need to be fitted in the small size robot. “small and light”, the first thing that comes to my mind is lithium polymer battery. li-po is very popular for gadget like handphone, mp3 player, camera, and laptop. its popular due to its high capacity to size ratio, in the other words, its smaller compare to other types of battery with same capacity. so, i found two cell of li-po from some old mp3 player with build in battery. beside from mp3 player, you can get it from sparkfun, single cell li-po. You can always contact cytron sales to place special order on the battery for you. For li-po battery, its advised to charge it using li-po charger. overcharging li-po will cause this battery to explode. be ware of that! We don want you to burn your house down…

li-po from mp3 player

li-po from sparkfun

C) controller

for this minibot, the controller i use is dspic30F4012 from microchip. its actually up to you, any microcontroller will do, but still it need to be small, and also make sure that you have enough I/O for your motor and also sensors. for my case, currently i dont have any sensor, only 2 dc motors, 2 switches, 2 leds, 1 buzzer and a zigbee module. so, i use only 11 I/O; 6 for motors (3 for each motor including pwm control), 2 for switches, 2 for leds, 1 for buzzer and 2 for zigbee (uart). for dspic30F4012, there are 19 I/O (not including mclr and osc pins). i used 11, so i still have 8 I/O, for maybe i can add in sensors.

D) Etc

besides those listed hardware for A, B and C, you will still need donut board, switches, leds, buzzer, and motor driver. motor driver that i choose is L293D that can drive 2 dc motor, with pwm input. for other hardware, i think its quite easy to find. just bare in mind that you are building a 1.5inch x 1.5inch x 2inch cube robot. all components must be very small and light.

 

building process

In the process of building minibot, you have to always remember that you are building a very small size robot, and you have to squeeze all the components into the predefined size of your robot.

cut the donut board into the size of the minibot.

to make the robot as small as possible, the motor will be place in the “half standing” position, with one a bit to the front and another one a bit to the rear. to “stick” the motor to the donut board, i simply solder some part of the motor gear box to the donut board. you have to be very careful about the alignment of the motor on the donut board.

the 2 wheel is not side by side. one is a bit to the front, and another, a bit to the rear. this is what you have to pay to reduce the size of the robot.

wheel i use for this robot is something like a rubber wassher that normally come together with servo motor.

the size of the rubber wassher fit perfectly to the Pololu 30:1 Micro Metal Gearmotor.

after mounting the motor to the board, i solder 2 small multilayer capacitor at the bottom of the donut board that will play the roll as the castor of the robot.

completed with the hardwares, now the circuitary. lets start with the motor driver. i use L298D as the motor driver for Pololu 30:1 Micro Metal Gearmotor. L293D support up to 800mA current, and i think that is more than enought for the tiny motor. i solder L298D directly to the donut board as there is no extra space for the ic socket.

continue with the battery connector.

on/off switch.

voltage regulator and capacitor.

i use plastic pcb stand to support the upper circuitary. the reason of using plastic type is to reduce the weight of the robot. (sorry for the blur image)

the lower circuitary consist of voltage regulator, motor driver, on/off switch, battery connector, and leds. for the upper circutary, it will consist of the microcontroller, switches, and zigbee.

for switches at upper circuitary, i use small limit switch that i desolder from a broken cdrom.

now complete with the zigbee module.

Scorpion Mobile Fighting Robot (ScorBOT)

The Idea of Scorbot comes from the Hollywood famous movie ‘The Scorpion King’ starring by the retired star wrestler ‘The Rock’. The outlook of Scorbot is illustrated to a scorpion with 2 arm and a powerful and poisoning tail behind. Scorbot can perform some human like  fighting movements for example right hand front punch, side punch, defend posture and etc (Scorpion Kung Fu seven styles). The scorpion’s stinger which is illustrated by a gripper is one of the weapons for fighting. For mobility, Scorbot is driven by two dc brush motor at the base and this allows Scorbot to move quickly, stably and effectively.

Scorbot is a semi auto robot which the mobility and body movements can be controlled through PC and PS2 controller wirelessly. There are three kinds of wireless communication protocols or device can be used to control Scorbot. They are Bluetooth protocol by using Cytron bluetooth starter kit (SKKCA), XBEE protocol by using Cytron XBEE starter kit (SKXBEE) and PS2 wireless controller protocol using Cytron PS2 Controller starter kit (SKPS).

 

Now, let’s see what Scorbot can do better than The Rock’s scorpion king!

This is the initial posture of Scorpion kung fu to show respect to its opponent and ready to fight! The scorpion tail is taken up and the stinger (gripper) is open to attack in any time! OK! Now let’s see how it perform the kung fu and how it is being built!

 

Scorpion kung fu first style – Scorpion two claw front punch!

 

Scorpion kung fu second style – Scorpion right claw sudden front strike!

Scorpion kung fu third style – Scorpion left claw sudden front strike!

 

Scorpion kung fu forth style – Scorpion right claw sudden right bite!

 

Scorpion kung fu fifth style – Scorpion left claw sudden left bite!

 

Scorpion kung fu sixth style – Scorpion stinger attack!

 

Scorpion kung fu seventh style – Scorpion defend!

 

Cytron Bluetooth starter kit (SKKCA) allows Scorbot to be controlled wirelessly through PC by using graphical user interface (GUI).

 

Cytron XBEE starter kit (SKXBEE) allows Scorbot to be controlled wirelessly through PC by using graphical user interface (GUI).

 

Cytron PS2 controller starter kit (SKPS) allows Scorbot to be controlled through wired or wireless PS2 controller.

 

The scorpion mobile robot graphical user interface (GUI) shown above is created for my ease to control Scorbot through PC via Bluetooth or Xbee communication. From the GUI, I can control the mobility, predefined movements of the body and even the position of all the servos by using keyboard or pc mouse (click the button on GUI). But, before that, i have to connect the PC to the virtual com port created by the wireless device. The rate of the data transferred is 115200kb/s.

 

For Bluetooth communication, a bluesoleil software is being used to connect the Bluetooth dongle with SKKCA and a virtual com port will be created. At the COM port area of the Scorbot’s GUI, select the created virtual COM port and clicks connect. Now, connection between Bluetooth dongle and SKKCA is ready.

For XBEE communication, a already predefined address of SKXBEE (source and destination address) must be plug to the pc in order to communicate with the SKXBEE on Scorbot.  At the com port area of Scorbot’s GUI, search for the new created COM by the pc’s SKXBEE and clicks connect. Now, connection between two SKXBEE is ready.

Next, let’s go to the assembly process of Scorbot!

 

This is the nice looking yellow transparent Scorbot base with two dc brush motor and two casters mounted on it. The vertical PCB stands are placed to support the circuit board and body of Scorbot.

 

Figure above shows how the wheel is mounted on the dc brush motor using the coupling. The coupling is fit for any SPG model dc brush motor and the wheel from Cytron.

 

Next, locate the flexibot dc brush motor driver (FD04A) on the base and firm it together with the base. The rainbow cable is the signal cable from the driver to connect to PIC.

 

From the figure above, the left motor is connected to motor1 port at FD04A and right motor is connected to motor2 port. The yellow/green cable at the left side of FD04A is the power supplement cable to the driver. 12V is enough for the two dc brush motor to operate.

 

Top view of the hand made circuit board for Scorbot. It is quite simple with few connectors and a set of 6V regulator circuit.

 

Bottom view of the circuit board. Jumper is used to link all the components with SK40B 40 pins PIC start-up kit.

 

The LCD connector is placed with a LCD to display the selected mode and value received from sensors.

 

The SK40B which is the brain of Scorbot is placed at the predefined location. The SK40B is removable.

 

Switch 1 (SW1) and switch 2 (SW2) are programmable buttons but the RESET labeled button is a fix function button to reset the PIC.

 

The figure above shows the IDC connector to link the I/O pins of PIC with the signal control pins of FD04A.

 

Connect the signal control pin of SC16A with the main board through 2510 connector and rainbow cable.

 

The wireless starter kit can be directly plugged to the connector at the main board shown above but to allow me to change the wireless device easily, I extend the connection to the top of Scorbot using rainbow cable.

 

Figure shown is the 6V regulator circuit set to generate 6V for the needs of the 11 servo motors.

 

After the main board is perfectly functioning, it is mounted on the base.

 

Scorbot needs two 7V above battery to power it up. One battery is for the circuit and dc brush motor and another 1 is for servo motor. 11.1V Li-Po battery is being chosen as the power source for Scorbot because it is light in weight and rechargeable.

 

The base of Scorbot is complete!!

 

Now, let’s go to the upper body of Scorbot. Scorbot contains 11 servo motors on Its body offers 9 degree of freedom ( 9 axis ) motion. The shape of the body is the combination of the servo with two types of servo brackets which are servo holder and U-joint. The end of its tail is the servo based gripper.

 

This is the driver for all the servo motors (SC16A). It is located at the back of the scorpion body. As you can see, all the servos are connected to it and the signal control pins are connected to the SK40B at the main board through rainbow cable.

 

This is the tail of Scorpion! The tail provide 2 degree of freedom with two servo motor and one servo motor for the gripper.

 

Figure shows the two DOF joint of the scorpion tail using two servo motor and few servo bracket.

 

The fierce Scorpion stinger (gripper)!

 

The gripper is operated by a servo motor inside.

 

Now, come to the scorpion king arm! Each arm has 3 servo motor which provide 3 degree of freedom motion to the arm.

 

The combination of the first 2 servo motor is shown in figure above. They are likely to illustrate the shoulder of human.

 

This is the third servo motor of the arm which illustrate the elbow joint of human.

 

The servo allows the body of scorpion to rotate in one axis and it is like the waist of human.

 

The head of the scorpion is a servo motor which can turn right and left.

 

At last, to mount the upper body of the scorpion on the mobile base, another robot platform has been used as the supporting layer.

 

The upper part of Scorbot has been done, it is ready to combile with the base. A wireless device is mounted beside the scorpion tail and it link to the main board through cable.

 

Here come the new Scorpion king, The ScorBOT has boned!

 

What components actually used in ScorBot? Very simple, let’s look to the details!

 

CYTRON DC Gear Mobile Robot Base

This is the material I used as the base of ScorBOT and the supporting layer for the body of ScorBOT (servo and bracket). The base is ready with holes to mount the DC gear motor, caster and PCB stand.

 

CYTRON DC Gear Motor, Coupling and Wheels

Since Cytron’s product range also provides DC gear motor together with its coupling and wheels, this make me feel very convenient because by using the robot base, dc gear motor, coupling, wheels and caster, I can built up my ScorBOT base within few minutes! Hardware construction is always not an easy part for robot lover because it may need some expansive tools and machine to process. The DC gear motor I used is the SPG30-20K model with 185 R.P.M. The speed and torque of the motor is just enough for ScorBot.

 

CYTRON RC Servo Motor

11 servo motors are being mounted on every joint of ScorBOT body, and resulting in 9 degree of freedom motion. The capabilities of Cytron RC servo motor are fit for Scorbot to perform any body movement and posture.

 

CYTRON Servo Bracket

It is good to hear that Cytron now provide two types of servo bracket for their servo motor which are servo holder and U joint. With the combination of these two type of brackets, any creative shape and joint can be assembled just like Scorbot.

 

CYRON enhanced 40 pins PIC start-up kit (SK40B)

The main controller I used in this project is the PIC16F877A microcontroller. In order to avoid possible soldering error and save development time, I choose to use the CYTRON SK40B as the basic circuit for this project. SK40B is a very useful start up kit for the PIC users especially for beginners because it provides all the basic elements required to operate the PIC microcontroller. The start-up kit comes with a 20MHz crystal oscillator, 5V regulator to convert supply voltage (usually 7-12V) to 5V (required for PIC), reset button to reset the PIC, 1 programmable push button, on/off switch for main power, UIC00A (CYTRON ICSP programmer) programmer port, RS232 hardware for serial communication to PC, DC adaptor socket for adaptor power input and an alternative 2510 connector for battery power input.

 

CYTRON USB ICSP PIC Programmer (UIC00A)

ICSP stand for in circuit serial programming which mean the process of writing the machine code to the microcontroller can be done on the circuit board without plugging out the microcontroller. The input of UIC00A is connected to the USB port of PC and the output is connected to the ICSP port of microcontroller. The SK40B PIC start-up kit do provide the ICSP programming port. The PICkit2 free version software is used to transfer the .hex file (compiled machine code) from PC to the PIC through UIC00A.

 

CYTRON 16 channels servo controller (SC16A)

In the robotic market nowadays, there are many servo controller had been designed for the convenient of servo motor driving. Cytron has now come out with a reasonable yet reliable servo controller for hobbyist. The SC16A provides 16 channels of independently servo driven port so the driver is more than enough for Scorbot which has only 11 servo motors. Since the driver can be connected to a pc and interface with user through a user friendly GUI, I can monitor the value of all the servos and position Scorbot easily.

 

CYTRON Flexibot Driver (FD04A)

FD04A is designed to drive 4 DC brush motor. The advantages of the driver are it supports 4 DC brush motor in bidirectional control, every port has independent PWM function to control the speed of motor, the control pins can be directly connected to the I/O of PIC and the driver is protected by over current. Since Scorbot has only 2 dc brush motor for mobility, the FD04A driver used is more than enough to use in this project.

 

CYTRON KC Wirefree Bluetooth Module Starter Kit (SKKCA)

As mention earlier, there are 3 method to control Scorbot which are Bluetooth communication, XBEE communication and PS2 controller wireless communication. SKKCA is a extremely convenient kit for Bluetooth user because it is ready to interface with 5V operate PIC microcontroller without any additional circuit. UART protocol is used to interface between PIC and SKKCA. Besides, the SKKCA is also able to connect to PC through USB port as wireless transmitter or receiver. With the SKKCA on Scorbot, I can now control the robot through the Bluetooth dongle or another SKKCA connected to PC.

 

CYTRON XBEE Starter Kit (SKXBEE)

SKXBEE provides XBEE communication protocol which is different with Bluetooth protocol. For me, XBEE based application is much more simple to develop compare with Bluetooth based application even through Bluetooth is more popular nowadays. XBEE has wider reception range and low power consumption compare to Bluetooth but the maximum data transfer rate is slower. Similar to SKKCA, SKXBEE is ready to interface to any 5V UART communication and also connectable to PC.

 

CYTRON PS2 Controller Starter Kit (SKPS)

The SKPS supports both wired and wireless PS controller. For Scorbot, wireless PS controller has been used to reduce the messiness from using cable. The interface to the SKPS is also the 5V UART at PIC. All the button and joystick of the PS2 controller is programmable. SKPS provide a very convenient method to control the mobility of robot.

 

For more information about Scorbot(program, GUI and schematic), please download the following file.

Scorbot_info.zip

We hope you enjoy what we did! Please give your comments!