Roboard RB-100 - x86 Based Robot Board
Introduction
The Roboard RB 100 is an Embedded Board for Robotics applications that runs
an x86 class processor (Vortex86) at 1Ghz.
The board features PWM interfaces,
TTL COM, A/D ports, SPI/I2C and comes with 256Mb memory and runs off an SD Card that serves as a Hard
Drive.
It is compatible with KHR, Robonova, Bioloid, Robobuilder and many other
Robots as it supports almost every standard available in today's Robotics
applications.
The board is capable of running DOS, Windows XP, Windows CE and any standard x86
Linux distribution. An open source library is available for the various
operating systems to interface with all of the board's features.
Highlights
- 24 servo connections (PWM)
- 1x Comm port with RS485 interface
- 2x Comm ports at TTL level (1 full duplex + 1 half duplex)
- 1x Regular RS232 Comm Port
- 8x A/D ports
- SPI/I2C interface
- Mic In
- Sound Out
- 10/100 Ethernet
- 3 USB ports (1 on board and 2 additional using the cable provided)
- x86 Processor uses less than 1 W - DC input from 6V~24V, at 2W. (that's 0.3Amp
at 6V .. less than a servo)
- Mini-PCI socket interface (VGA card and Wireless 802.11b/g card available on
Robosavvy)
- Accepts 6V~24V. (The voltage applied on the Input is also supplied for Output
on the Vdd pin of PWM and TTL/RS485 COMM ports.)
Operating System Compatibility
- Linux
Debian is nativelly supported and an optimized kernel version/compilation is available.
Other x86 distributions are compatible but may require a kernel recompile.
- Windows XP
Running a full Windows XP installation is supported.
Alternatively, given the board's specifications, we recommend running a slim/optimized installation of Windows XP called Windows PE / BartPE for maximum performance.
BartPE installations contain only the kernel, the base drivers and the base Win32 API. On top of this you add your own layers of complexity (more Windows XP drivers to support your hardware, more libraries/APIs, etc.) making it an ideally efficient platform for the Roboard.
- Windows CE
- DOS
FreeDOS installation and application samples are available at the Roboard website.
An Open source library is available to interface with the Board's components.
The Roboard in Detail
Servo Interfaces (PWM)
The servo interfaces are compatible with Kondo and Hitec servos in that they
can also read back the position of the servo using the ICS protocol. This means
that you can take your humanoid robot and replace the microcontroller board with
full blown PC as a brain.
COM ports
(RS232, TTL & RS485)
Because it comes with 2 COM ports at TTL level, it can also replace the
controller board of the Bioloid (no need for USB2Dynamixel !!) and Robobuilder,
talking directly to the servo bus.
It also comes with RS485 which used by other robotics applications such as the
high power robotis servos.
In you want to keep the robot board then you can still use the board by
connecting the controller cable to the RS232 COM port.
(!) Bioloid Alert: the COMM ports typically operate at 115Kbps. This is OK for
most Robotics applications but for Bioloid you will need to take a preparation
step and lower the speed of
the Servo's COMM ports from 1Mbps to 115Kbps. In practice there should be no noticeable
performance impact though as other competing products such as Robobuilder work at this speed.
Power Supply
The board accepts 6V-24V DC input. It comes with a standard connector that
lets you connect the Robot battery directly to the board or, you can use a
regulated power adapter to receive power from a regular Wall Plug.
The board also has the particularity of supplying the same Input voltage to the
Vdd PIN on both the PWM connectors and the COMM connectors.
This means the board can power the servos, making it a direct, drop-in,
replacement for the Robot's controller boards.
Included Cables
The Roboard comes with a set of cables to get you started:
- 1x Dual USB female connectors (the 2 additional USB ports)
- 1x LAN connector
- 1x Sound Out
- 1x Mic In
- 1x RS232
- 1x Power
- 1x SPI/I2C connector
- 2x 4-wire connector from TTL COM + RS485 (Vdd, Gnd, Rx and Tx)
- 1x 3-wire connector for Half Duplex TTL COMM (Vdd, Gnd and Data)
Open Source Library
The board comes with an Open Source C library for Linux, DOS and Windows.
Details about the library interfaces, usage and compatibility can be found here:
RoBoard_Training_SW.pdf.
Updated versions of the library can be found on the Roboard Download Section:
http://www.roboard.com/download_ml.htm
For Bioloid and Robobuilder, because the communication is done through the COMM
port, you can simply use the OS functions to talk to the COMM ports.
For PWM servos, the library includes methods for setting servo Position, reading
current position. For advanced application you can also send PWM pulses
manually.
For additional features (such as reading A/D, I2C, etc.) please refer to the
file above (Roboard_Training_SW).
Complete Hardware Specifications
The Roboard processor is an 486 class SoC (System on Chip) running at 1Ghz.
Both the Northbridge and Southbrige are embedded on the chip and the power
consumption is extremely low, considering it's an x86 processor.
The operating system runs off a MicroSD card that appears to the OS as a
standard IDE hard drive.
The board supports SD HC (SD 2.0) meaning it can use high capacity SD cards.
Currently the SD HC specification sets an artificial limit at 32Gb although is
it technically possible to create much larger cards.
The 256 Mb of RAM may not seem much but with a high speed SD Card running the
Pagefile you should be able to minimize this limitation.
Full hardware specifications can be found here
RoBoard_Training_HW.pdf
The document explains all the specifics for Processor, COMM ports, SPI and I2C,
PWM, LAN, USB, Audio Connectors, etc.
Mini-PCI Expansion Cards
VGA Card
The VGA card is an addon for the Roboard that we highly recommend. It helps
you in debugging setup, setting up the whole OS and enables the use of Remote
Desktop to communicate with the board in Windows.
The board can run without the VGA card but, in that case, you only get command
line access to it.
There BIOS can also be used via COM port but again, this option is not enabled
by default on first boot.
Here are a couple of pictures:
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Wireless 802.11b/g miniPCI card
There is also available a wireless miniPCI card. However, given the Roboard
includes 3 USB ports you use a Wireless 802.11USB adapter instead, leaving the
miniPCI slot available for other expansion parts.
Board Pictures
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x86 Roboard Rb-100 
£113.98 inc. VAT
