DPRG mailing list archives: [DPRG] Processing unit for mobile robot

Wed Apr 23 08:23:04 CDT 2008

> ed at okerson.com said: Sunday, April 20, 2008 9:59 AM
>> Somewhat dated and no longer in existance, but the DPRG club
>> robot GARP had a 486 based PC as the only controller.  I
>> know, because I installed it.  It drove the H-bridges from
>> pins on the parallel port.  It was running RT-Linux
>> generating the PWM pulses.
>
> Yes, you may have one example from history there, but I admit,
> Garp must predate my being active in the club by a bit or the
> RBNO's or such. I never saw it. I know it collected dust, and
> the tires rotted off (reported on list) and was given away. But
> tell, me, did it ever operate, and to what extent was it
> functional? Just what did it actually do which we consider a
> test of it's robotic-ness?
>
> And if you were to do it again today, would you go straight PC,
> or could you even do that now that the parallel ports and serial
> ports are no longer included?

I had GARP to the point of running the motors via PWM from the PC parallel
port, and that was as far as I got before I moved to California.  To my
knowledge, no one ever did anything else with it.  It would have been
possible to add sensors, but after I left there just wasn't enough
interest or experience with Linux in the club to continue at that time. 
There were also plenty of nay sayers who were worried about liabilities of
a robot the size of GARP.

Today I would probably go with one of the many smaller processors capable
of running Linux, but it could still be done witn a PC.  My current
favorite is the AVR32 processor from Atmel.  There are still many PC
motherboards available with parallel ports on them, and I have several in
my garage should the spirit ever move me. :)  Real time processing on
Linux is now easier than ever.

Ed

Ed