New Components for MARVIN II (Week 4)

  MARVIN II - Week 4 (January 2005):
 
This gallery highlights some of the progress made between Week 1 and Week 4 of Marvin 2's development. Since software is not too exciting, this gallery is limited to photographs of actual components that we are working with on the new rover. Over the next few weeks, several additional components should arrive such as our custom equipment box for the rover's cockpit..

Clicking on the thumbnails below will allow you to see a larger image. Use your browser's back button to return. Photos and description copyright Richard Stansbury.

In order to keep the original vehicle controls intact (for manual driving if necessary), new higher performance linear actuators were required to provide the force necessary to open and close the hydraulic valves that drive the vehicle's left and right motors. A custom assembly was constructed to support the original cables and the linear actuators under the seat. We have used direct linkages between the actuators and the valve handles because this was the most mechanically simple and reliable method available. The picture to the right shows the control boxes and power supplies that are necessary to drive the actuators.

Marvin 2's embedded systems are currently under construction. We are utilizing a Memec Spartan 3 Evaluation board with a Xilinx FPGA and embedded Microblaze soft processor. This board will interface with our actuators' control box, the speed sensors, kill switches, the vehicle's starter sytem, joystick, and several other components of the mobile robot. A custom expansion board can be seen on top which provides the I/O for all of these components. To the right, Torry Akins, one of the PRISM project's research engineers, is working with us to write drivers for a joystick that will be interfaced with the new embedded system.