Saturday, March 8, 2008

iRobot Create with Sun SPOT (2)

I introduced a brief iRobot Create + Sun SPOT demo on the previous post, so here let me explain a bit deeply how this demo works.

Sun SPOT has many built-in devices, such as LEDs, light sensor, switches, accelerometer and GPIO (general purposes digital I/O) on its eDemo Board and also serves as an IEEE 802.15.4 wireless network node. You can write your programs using these devices as inputs (sensors & switches) and outputs (LEDs) as well as sensor networks with (your favorite!) Java language. It's because Sun SPOT platform has a main processor running the Java VM "Squawk".

I'm planning to write complete details for Sun SPOT on later posts, but here it's enough to go further to know that Sun SPOT has 3D accelerometer, digital I/O pins from/to external devices and IEEE 802.15.4 wireless network capability.

iRobot Create has driving motors and sound devices in addition to LEDs and digital I/O pins. So, now you can imagine how these two can be combined together.
  1. This demo uses one iRobot and two Sun SPOTs.
  2. One Sun SPOT (we call it "sender SPOT") works as a remote controller (you know Wii?) and measures 3D gravity accelerations with its accelerometer.
  3. Then, the sender SPOT tells these values to the other Sun SPOT (we call it "receiver SPOT") via wireless connection.
  4. The receiver SPOT receives these values via wireless connection and calculates which direction & how fast iRobot Create should move.
  5. Then, the receiver SPOT tells its calculation to iRobot Create via serial connection. This interface is called OI (Open Interface).
  6. iRobot Create moves around dynamically .
Next, I'm planning to delve into this iRobot Create OI (Open Interface) without Sun SPOT.

2 comments:

wayne said...

hi there, i'm interested in ur project about the sun spot and the irobot. could you please post something about how to wire up then and some code i can try? thx alot.or maybe we can contact by email
my email is : wayne_cen1985@hotmail.com

wayne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.