URSA

URSA (Urban Robotic Sensor Array) is a project I started a few years ago and placed on the back-burner. I have brought the robot out of mothballs and starting again from scratch! My thinking here is to incorporate the BEAM ideas (a core environment response) with a separate processor operating as a higher level 'brain'. So to start, I stripped out all the existing Arduino components and building a cortex response processor to handle the 'core' movement and responses of the platform. These core movements and responses would be things like 'move forward', 'spin CCW', if right front crash bumper is triggered: move back a few centimeters, spin CCW a few millisecs, then again proceed forward, etc. As can be seen in the picture:

I have added a breadboard mounted inside the base with a PIC 16F1829 and a Sparkfun motor controller. Also installed on the inside wheel axles are Dagu Simple encoder sensors to track the axle speeds. Next: some coding!