Facts About the New Four-Legged Robot

Interfaces

On the new robot's back a mini display (with two lines of 16 characters each) is provided enabling some online monitoring and debugging of the software currently being executed on the main computer of the robot. Four push buttons enable programmable commands like start or stop. Both, display and push buttons, are accessed by RS232.

Several further interfaces are provided at the new robot's backside behind a "hatchback" which can be opened and closed. The shaft in the bottom middle contains the LiPo batteries. A Compact Flash Card Reader can be used to load software developed and compiled on a remote PC or Laptop on the robot's main computer. A 100 MB Ethernet interface at the robot's back enables debugging and monitoring also in cases when this is not possible by WLAN because of too large net traffic. A monitor can directly be connected to the robot for debugging also. Two free USB slots enable to connect a large variety of devices directly to the robot, e.g., keyboard and mouse for direct programming of the robot, a second camera, or a microphone and a loudspeaker.

For the final design the interface connectors shown in the image above will be collected in a specially designed plate.