RP6 ROBOT SYSTEM - 1. Introduction
1. Introduction
The RP6 is a low cost autonomous mobile robot system, designed for beginners as
well as experienced electronics and software developers as an introduction to the
fascinating world of robotics.
The robot is delivered completely assembled. Thus it is very well suited for all users
who are unexperienced with soldering and tinkering and want to concentrate on soft-
ware development. However, implementing your own circuits and adding additional
things to the robot is easily possible, too! In fact, the RP6 offers a lot of expansion
possibilities and may be used as a platform for a variety of interesting electronic ex-
periments!
It is the successor of the very popular "C-Control Robby RP5", which had been re-
leased in 2003 by Conrad Electronic SE in Europe. The shortcut “RP5” is to be inter-
preted as "Robot Project 5". The new robot and the predecessor system do not have
too much in common except for the mechanics. The C-Control 1 Microcontroller of
Conrad Electronic has been replaced and thus the new robot can not be programmed
in Basic anymore. Instead, the far more powerful ATMEGA32 from Atmel is used and
is programmable in the more advanced language C.
The new design includes an USB interface, a new expansion system with improved
assembly options, high resolution odometry sensors (resolution is 150x higher com-
pared to the predecessor system), a precise voltage regulator, a bumper composed of
two microswitches with long levers and many other things.
Basically the mechanical design has been adopted from the RP5 system. However, we
did optimize the design for lower noise operation and now it provides some additional
drilling holes for mechanical expansions.
The RP6 robot has been designed to be compatible with our other robots, ASURO and
YETI, both using the smaller ATMEGA8 and identical development tools (WinAVR, avr-
gcc). In contrast, ASURO and YETI are delivered as do-it-yourself construction kits
and have to be assembled by the user. The RP6 has been designed for the more de-
manding users, looking for good expansion options, bigger microcontrollers and more
sensors.
Beginning of 2012 the original RP6 (which was released in 2007) got a small refresh
and is now called RP6v2. For simplicity, we still call it RP6 most of the time in the doc-
umentation materials. The System itself did not require many changes, so the inten-
tion was not to develop a completely new Robot, but only to improve some details. For
more information take a look at chapter 1.4!
Several expansion modules are already available and can be used for expanding the
robot's capabilities. For example, there is an expansion module providing an extra AT-
MEGA32 with doubled clock frequency and of course the experiment expansion board
for individual electronic circuitry. Recently a Wireless LAN Expansion module with the
very large ATMEGA2560 has been released. This allows you to remotely program and
control the robot via a wireless network connection.
We wish you a lot of fun and success with your RP6 Robot System!
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