Controllable Swarm Robot: KOBOT

KOBOT KOBOT has been designed and is currently being manufactured by KOVAN research lab for use in swarm robotic studies. It features:
  • a symmetrical body having a circular shape with 120 mm diameter and 70 mm height
  • 300 gr weight with standard robot configuration
  • differential steering system using two high-quality low-power DC gearhead motors
  • 4 hours of autonomy with Li Polymer batteries
  • PXA255 processor for processing images coming from the omnidirectional viewing system
  • remote programming capability via IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee compliant XBEE OEM RF modules
  • 3 bright LEDs and a buzzer on-board to indicate the robot's internal state

Block Diagram

Block Diagram of KOBOT

 

KOBOT Sensors

Camera Board of KOBOT

KOBOT can view its environment through an omnidirectional mirror it carries on top of itself, and a camera located to face with the mirror. OmniVision 6620 Single-Chip Cmos CIF Color Camera is used for this purpose. It has the following features:

  • 352 * 288 resolution
  • 60 frames per second
  • Focal length: 6.0 mm
  • F#: 1.6
  • Analog video output in black & white PAL format

Incoming image frames that are being outputted by the camera in 25Hz are kept at AverLogic AL422B FIFO memory until PXA255 processor is ready to process the frame. The FIFO buffer has:

  • 384K * 8 bits DRAM
  • Independent read/write operations, which enable different reading and writing speeds
  • Access time: 15 ns
Sensor Board of KOBOT

For sensing the obstacles located in short-range positions, KOBOT features a short-range sensing system, consisting of 8 modules IR sensors with the following properties:

    • PIC12F683 for each sensor
    • PIC16F877A for controlling all sensors
    • Measurements using 38 KHz infrared signal
    • Very low ambient light interference
    • Outputting object distances at 8 discrete levels from ~0 up to 30 cm range
    • 10-12 Hz update rate depending on object distance
    • Power consumption: around 60 mA for 8 sensors & controller

Current Status

The current status of KOBOT manufacturing process can be viewed from the KOBOT blog.