VIA-based Mobile Robot Design For Download

An anonymous reader writes "This article at DeviceForge introduces the "PC-bot" -- a new mobile robotics demonstration platform design that is being made available for free download from Roboteq. PC-bot was designed to be highly flexible and extensible so that it can serve as the basis for a wide range of customized mobile robot designs featuring web cameras, motion detection software, and more. Details on the mechanical, electronic, and software design are available at Roboteq's website. Currently the bot runs Windows, but Roboteq expects that one of the first enhancements from the user community will be Linux support." Unfortunately, there's no way to download the RoboteQ motor controller the design requires -- that will cost you about $500.

Comments

Via is showing the way

[Max Romantschuk]

Intel and AMD may have the fastest processors, but I'm much more interrested in Via's small and cool (low temperature) processors... The possibilities just seem to grow with each generation :)

The new Via Eden-N is especially interesting.

Re:Via is showing the way

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel and AMD may have the fastest processors, but I'm much more interrested in Via's small and cool (low temperature) processors...

Intel and AMD also have low-power (therefore low-temperature) x86 processors, such as laptop chips and the AMD Alchemy line, and there are lots of companies manufacturing low-power non-x86 processors. Many are less powerful than the Via chips, but there are some which are equal or faster.

But Via is one of the few companies producing products for end-users. I've tried to look up information on similar products - they're either extremely expensive, or don't list prices at all (often saying something like "contact sales" or "available only in 1000-unit quantities").

$495 for Windows Support ... Code Your Own Linux

[H8X55]

Roboteq expects that one of the first enhancements from the user community will be Linux support.

so Roboteq wants linux users to purchase it for $495, and write their own code for it? Sounds awefully cocky to me. "Buy it, write the software for it, pass it on to us, and we'll distribute it to the masses, and cut $100 or more from our expenses per unit. We'll then market it to the Linux masses, and we may or may not pass that price break on to them, as well."

is it wishful thinking to hope that these companies might donate a few of those puppies to a major, or even a few minor sized open source shops and let them write the software for it and get some well earned name recognition?

SRI Centipod is already Linux based

[Anonymous Coward]

SRI Centipod is also based on VIA technology and already runs on Linux. It was demonstrated at Linuxworld 2003 in San Francisco. clicky

Sounds familiar...

[kris0r]

Actually, in the ARL (Algorithmic Robotics Lab) at RPI, I'm working on a research robot based on the Via Epia ME6000. In fact, we've just switched away from the Ampro Encore PP1 (a powerpc board) because of Ampro's complete lack of support and general flakiness of the board. So far I'm reasonably pleased with the Via board, though we'll see how it works out in terms of power consumption (though even with conservative power usage estimates we still expect to get 3+ hours, down from about 4.5-5 with the powerpc). It was certainly trivial to get Linux 2.6.0-test7 up and running on the board, though I haven't tackled setting up the onboard firewire (for our camera) yet. From what I've seen so far, it's hard to beat the sheer functionality you get with the Epias, for the low price (we paid about $120 compared with $1000 for the PP1 with baseboard).

More info on our project here.