Freescale’s Tower mechatronics board combines 32-bit computing, sensors and actuator control into a single standalone board with an onboard battery supply. The board has a 32-bit ColdFire microcontroller with 64 KB of RAM and 512 KB of Flash, and supports the full range of Freescale Xtrinsic sensors via plug-in daughterboards.
The board can directly control up to eight actuators (PWM controlled RC servos) via the eight industry standard 3-pin connectors. In addition to standalone operation, the board can be plugged into the Tower system, whereupon it becomes a controller module capable of interfacing with all peripheral modules available in the Tower system family to expand its capabilities.
The associated robot is a sensor development kit in the form of a four degrees of freedom (DOF) bipedal walking robot, controlled by the Tower mechatronic board. Included are simple development tools that will help users learn to write software for sensors, while making a robot walk and respond to touch, motion, vibration, tilt and other external stimuli.
The board is supported with a full range of software. RobotSee is a scripting language as easy as BASIC but with the power of C. Using RobotSee, Freescale claims that even people with no programming background can use the Tower mechatronic board to create innovative projects. When used with the Freescale Robot, RobotSee makes it easy to learn about electromechanical designs using sensors.
For the more advanced programmer, C is also supported. Using the onboard OSBDM debugger and CodeWarrior Special Suite integrated development environment (IDE), the board can be programmed in either C or assembly (C++ is available with the CodeWarrior Professional Suite). CodeWarrior Special Suite plus OSBDM is a complete debugging solution that includes Flash programming, run control (source level single step) and trace.
Code samples make getting up and running easy, and both the robot and the mechatronics board are backed up with many samples in both C and RobotSee. RobotSee examples are available to make the robot walk, talk, access various sensors and even read minds. A complete C CodeWarrior project is available with examples of how to make the robot walk and access its sensors.
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