The robot is based around a Dell Latitude CPi laptop motherboard with a PII 400 processor and 128megs of RAM. The harddrive is included just for booting and a custom linux distrobution will run directly from a 128meg usb flash drive. The project has been split into two parts to help with conflicting schedules. One half is the sensor subsystem where IO is handled by an OOPic(PIC running a propritory OS with serial eeprom for programs). The other half is the drive subsystem which is being handled by an ADR board(Preprogrammed PIC Mircocontroller). Since we have second full dell latitude laptop on hand we can develop software indepentantly at this stage.
For object detection and avoidance we are using 4 sharp analog infrared range finders mounted on RC servo motors. Two facing forward and two facing downward at 45 degrees. This give us close range object and drop(stairs) detection. We may add a set of ultrasonic range finders if budget and time permits.
Base of the robot will be a zagros robotics Max 97, which is very simlar to the Rex 12 used in the prototype. For motor control we are using a L298 motor control kit from HVWTech.