1. Design of the New Handy Board for Robotics Using the NI LabVIEW Embedded Module for ADI Blackfin Processor Fred Martin, Assistant Professor, Computer Science Eric Morrison, Undergrad, Electrical Engineering University of Massachusetts Lowell

2. Overview Brief history of educational robot control boards The Blackfin Handy Board hardware BF-HB LabVIEW VIs LabVIEW starter projects for an undergrad mobile robotics course The future

3. The Original Handy Board Developed for MIT LEGO Robot Design Competition (1991) Goal: Give students everything they need to start building robots –2 MHz Motorola 68HC11 –32,768 bytes of RAM –4 motor outs –7 analog, 9 digital sensor inputs –Built-in battery pack; LCD screen –Interactive C language Open-source design; over 10,000 in use

4. More Influential Robot Control Boards (A biased history – dates approximate) Mini Board (1988) Handy Board (1991) Parallax Basic Stamp (1990s) MIT Crickets (1990s) LEGO Mindstorms RCX (1998) Note #1 – Whole concept of single-board computer for robots was once new! Note #2 – All make entire robot system design easy— including sensors, actuators, and programming

5. Design Goals for the Blackfin Handy Board Expose power of ADI Blackfin processor – a 16-bit DSP + 32-bit RISC core Build a cool set of robot-friendly I/O onto a single board Keep what made the original HB successful: –All-in-one solution –Good in the classroom –Low threshold, high ceiling

6. The Blackfin Handy Board

7. Blackfin Handy Board Feature Set 600 MHz ADI BF ’537, 64 MB SDRAM, 256 MB NAND flash, 1 MB boot flash Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA, end-user-programmable, with “board support package” 4 DC motor outs (12v, 1A) and 8 servo motor outs LCD screen, buttons, knob, speaker, DAC 12-bit ADCs with 12 external analog ins, integral 2-axis accel, 8 digital ins 8 digital outs; i 2 c interface Blackfin PPI port for Omnivision CMOS cam Integral 12v, 2 AH batt pack, batt charger, 5v, 5A p/s ADI “Debug Agent”; 10/100 Ethernet; RS-232 serial

8. LabVIEW Toolkit for the Blackfin Handy Board Expose all of the BF-HB’s cool features to LabVIEW users Leverage the NI LabVIEW Embedded Module for ADI Blackfin Processors

9. DC Motor Outputs Choose Sign/Magnitude PWM or Locked Antiphase modes with motor enable VI Set motor power and direction Disable motor output

10. Back EMF Motor Sensing Reports motor velocity from any DC motor

11. Servo Motor Control Individually enable and disable servo motor outputs Establish servo motor setpoint Report previously- established setpoint

12. Analog Inputs Read external input Read accelerometer channel Read knob Read battery level

13. Sonar Decoding Use low-cost ultrasonic sensors for distance sensing Up to 8 sonars; each requires one digital in and one digital out

14. Shaft Encoder Tracking on Digital Inputs FPGA-based quadrature shaft decoding Report position and velocity

15. Digital Outputs Set, clear, or toggle output bits Report value of output bit

16. LCD Screen Display messages on BF- HB’s built-in LCD screen

17. User LEDs Control any/all of the 4 user LEDs

18. User Buttons Report press and release for user “Start” and “Stop” buttons There’s also a user knob in the analog palette

19. Sample Projects for Mobile Robots Course Light avoidance & attraction (Braitenberg-style) Obstacle avoidance Line-following Sonar space-seeking Subsumption

20. Braitenberg Vehicles

21. Light Seeking

22. Light Avoiding

23. Obstacle Avoidance

24. Line Following

25. Sonar Open-Space Seeking

26. Subsumption Architecture Control architecture for mobile robots developed by Rodney Brooks in the mid-1980s Layered approach where advanced competencies build upon or override primitive ones Our implementation includes object avoidance, dark avoidance, and random explore From Dautenhahn/Coles, 2001

27. Subsumption Architecture Front Panel

28. The Future First LabVIEW Embedded mobile robotics course will be run in Fall 2006 semester; courseware online Blackfin Handy Board and LabVIEW Toolkit will be available to public also in fall 2006 – sign up for info at www.cs.uml.edu/blackfin Questions?