Developers, hobbyists and robot enthusiasts looking for a way to easily build complex robots using Adafruit’s range of Feather boards, may be interested in a new shield created by David Bershadsky and Alexander Kirillov. RoverWing is part of the Microchip Get Launched design program, using the SAMD21G microcontroller.
The RoverWing uses same connectors for the battery, motors, and encoders as the REV Robotics Expansion hub used in First Tech Challenge robotics competition, so it can be easily used with the same motors and sensors. It’s creators explain a little more about the inspiration and design of the Feather shield.
“RoverWing is an expansion board (or “wing”, following Adafruit’s terminology) for Adafruit’s Feather boards. This wing provides motor drivers that can handle motors of 6-12 V, Inertial Motion Unit (IMU), and connection ports for servos, sonars, GPS, and other peripherals commonly used by mobile robots. All at an affordable price, with a powerful Arduino library, and excellent documentation. It also contains a microcontroller preloaded with firmware to control these peripherals, which communicates with the Feather board using the I²C protocol, thus freeing resources of the Feather board for other purposes.”
“The RoverWing can be quickly deployed in variety of DIY robotics applications ranging from simple cars to robot tanks, to bipeds, to segways, to any application you can think of that needs 2 high-power motor drivers as well as integrated sensors and sensor ports.
The RoverWing library allows it to be used by any maker regardless of their experience level, making it perfect for both educational settings as an introduction to robotics, as well for any seasoned maker looking for an all-in-one control board for their project.”
- Power: Can be powered by 7-14 V power source
- Contains a voltage regulator providing power to the Feather board
- On-board microcontroller: Microchip SAMD21G
- The same MCU that is used in Arduino Zero
- Takes care of low-level operations such as counting motor encoder pulses, using preloaded firmware
- On-board IMU: 6-DoF Inertial Motion Unit (IMU)
- Based on ICM42605 chip, which can be used for tracking robot orientation in space
- Motors:
- Connections for two brushed DC motors, at up to 2.9 A at 14 V per motor
- Quadrature encoders for each motor
- Sonars: Support for three HC-SR04 or compatible ultrasonic sensors (sonars)
- Servos: Connections for four servos (5 V)
- Analog Inputs: Six (3.3 V max)
- Peripheral Support:
- Provides the hardware and firmware support for connecting the following external peripherals (peripherals themselves are not included)
- Neopixel smart LED strips
- GPS sensor
- One additional I²C port via Qwiic/Stemma QT connector
- Provides the hardware and firmware support for connecting the following external peripherals (peripherals themselves are not included)
- Compatibility: Only uses 2 pins (SDA and SCL) of the Feather board
For more details on the RoverWing shield for Adafruit’s Feather boards specifically created for building complex robots with ease, jump over to the official Crowd Supply product page by following the link below.
Source : Crowd Supply
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