Using linux to power your robot doesn't have to be big, difficult, and expensive...
What you're looking at is a tiny computer (the little box the mouse is plugged into), that uses ~8 watts, running off a beach-towel-sized solar panel.
No more large-base linux robots! You could probably run this thing on D-cell batteries, and without the GUI, I bet they'll last quite a while too.
Oh yea, and they're only about $250 (or $120, I'm not sure if the two are exactly the same)
Check out the full Linux Screw article.
PS - I will put up a follow-up post with a collection of open-source tools for linux based robots.
Edit: Here's the $120, virtually identical pc it costs a little more for wifi/ethernet though. Also, you can get that solar panel (12V, 25W) separately
8 watt pc: Ideal for robotics?
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4 comments:
Cool computer, but robotics? Come on. This costs $250.
Killing a fly with a hand grenade.
Or just just a Linksys NSLU2 running linux. $75, plus the cost of an external hard drive. Mine has gentoo installed, nice and easy to develop for. Throw on a phidgets I/O board, and a SSC-32 servo controller and you're set.
where do you get a beach towel solar array?
> Cool computer, but robotics? Come on. This costs $250.
> Killing a fly with a hand grenade.
WTF? I'm wondering if it has *enough* CPU to do anything useful, and you're already implying it has *too much*?
Hate to break it to you, but robotics will eat up all the CPU power you can throw at it. Try doing vision, kinematics, motion planning, AI, etc. on-board a robot and see how far you get.
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