Arduino Controller

[Kylepowers]

Im working on a robotics plateform but i need to know how would i get enough servos connected to control about 10 to 12 and two dc motors. Im new to arduino and i am unsure if there is one with enough pin outs or a way to do this thank you.

[retrolefty]

The standard  mega328 based arduino board has 19 I/O pins (counting the analog pins that can be used as digital pins) that you can utilize. If that fits your total input and output needs then it's all software and proper power supply design after that. If more I/O pins are needed then you can either add shift registers to add I/O pins or go with a mega1280/2560 based arduino board that has 54 I/O pins.

[Kylepowers]

ok now another question is if I use the mega328 how many pins are out puts and how many are inputs. Also how do I connect 2 dc motors to this card? Do I just use any motor controler or is there a special one?

[graynomad]

mega328 based arduino board has 19 I/O pins

All these pins can be set as I or O individually.

As for the motor there are many driver chips. If you don't need FWD/REV then just a resistor/transistor/diode is all you need.

Search on the forum, there's been a 1000 threads about driving DC motors.

Having said that I can't find a single tute on the subject, I know they are around so someone will post here soon I'm sure.

Meanwhile look at this

http://arduino.cc/playground/uploads/Main/relays.pdf

It shows a relay but the idea is the same, just substitute the relay with a DC motor.

Another simple way to get FWD/REV is with a DPDT relay.


______
Rob

[jraskell]

A shield like http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/renbotics-servoshield-rev-11-p-498.html?cPath=132_134&zenid=e6894fd90e9670f6645d24c3faa83100 will give you control of up to 16 servos using only 4 Arduino pins.  A motor shield could be stacked with that to give you motor control capabilities as well, and still leave plenty of IO available for stuff like sensors (which are essential if you're thinking of building an autonomous robot, not so necessary if you're just interested in tele-operation).

[Kylepowers]

Thank you for your help on this matter. Now for another question about the Arduino. With this project im looking to do remote access from the arduino to a pc or laptop. the communication would basically be to store information like sensor data and more complex algorithms to help the robot move around. I was wondering if you have ideas on how to accomplish this? Secondly how would i expand the memory for the arduino using eprom's?

Thank you for your help and please let me know your ideas. I basically trying to make a small two legged robot plateform with a slight capability of A.I. if you will. Not fully A.I. but a semplance of it.

Note: I would like the communication to be wireless and possiably use the internet to perform this task. Thanks again.

[jraskell]

The most common method of wireless communication with Arduinos is with Xbees (basically wireless serial port modules).  It is relatively easy to set up and gives about 300 feet line of sight range or 100 feet obstructed range.  There is also bluetooth and wifi ethernet available as options as well.

If you really want to have an internet accessible robot then a wifi module would be the appropriate route to go.  There are libraries readily available to turn an Arduino into a web server.

[Kylepowers]

Ok now the question is when this communication is setup is the robot able to use it like a storage zone. Also what im planning needs to be able two things one the arduino has simple instructions for movement and sensor reading. When its connected to the pc though it should be able to do more advanced tasks like object recognition or more refined arm movements. Is this possable? Also i want it to be able to lean a bit if it can perform those tasks. Its just a question of can it be done to any ability and if so what would be the course to take?

[AlphaBeta]

The standard  mega328 based arduino board has 19 I/O pins

Hmmm, 14 + 6 is 20?

[Ro-Bot-X]

I am using Arduino to build robots. A simple robot that moves around using DC motors and has a few servos to pan sensors or pick up objects is easily doable with an Arduino Diecimila (or Uno). A wireless serial link is also easy to set up using xBee radio modules or Bluetooth, so the computer can decide where the robot should go, send the command, the robot executes it, sends back sensor data and what ever is needed. The only hard part to do is wireless video. As the Arduino does not have enough video processing capabilities, the computer has to do all that. You may try using a wireless network camera or a wireless surveillance camera with the receiver connected to a video capture card on the computer. Another approach can be to use a wireless router (on the robot) that can accept a wired IP camera and has either a serial interface to connect to the Arduino or use an Ethernet shield wired to the router. Or, you can have a Chumby on the robot, with a webcam, and an Arduino. I guess it all depends on what you have available or fits your likeness and budget better.

[Kylepowers]

With its limited abilities can it us a 1.3 mega pixel camera to do video and some object recignition or am I better off doing something else for it?

[PaulS]

With its limited abilities can it us a 1.3 mega pixel camera to do video and some object recignition or am I better off doing something else for it?

"It" is a pronoun that has no referent. There is no way to know what "it" refers to, so there is no way to know if "it" is capable of using a 1.3 mega pixel camera to do video and object recognition.

If "it" refers to an Arduino, the answer is no.

[Kylepowers]

Yes I meant the arduino and ok so I would have to use a router or something like it to make a video go to the computer.

[zoomkat]

Yes I meant the arduino and ok so I would have to use a router or something like it to make a video go to the computer.

Below is some tinkering I did for making a simple router bot. You could connect an IP cam to the router for vision.

http://www.lynxmotion.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6343

[Kylepowers]

Ok thanks any suggestions on router brand and camara brand and type.