UserPreferences

Using the IntelliBrain-Bot

1. IntelliBrain-Bot

The [WWW]IntelliBrain-Bot(TM) is a small, and inexpensive robot aimed towards educational audiences. Produced and sold by [WWW]RidgeSoft the bot is also available for evaluation.

2. Technical Information

"The IntelliBrain main board provides the brain power, as well as twenty one sensor ports and two servo motor ports to control the robot’s motion. The IntelliBrain controller’s LCD display, two push buttons, thumbwheel, buzzer and infrared universal remote control receiver provide an easy to program user interface. The IntelliBrain controller’s powerful Atmel ATmega128 microcontroller and copious memory provide ample computing power to execute advanced robot control algorithms. The IntelliBrain expansion board can be used to expand the IntelliBrain controller to add four DC motor ports, six servo ports, seven analog ports, eight digital ports and more."

3. Connecting

3.1. Wired

For wired connections through USB we have found that the "FTDI US232B USB to Serial Adapter" and the Radio Shack [WWW]USB to Serial Adapter both work fine.

We have also found that some serial cords don't work. If you can't figure out what is wrong try connecting with another cord.

3.2. Bluetooth

We used the [WWW]IOGear branded [WWW]Bluetooth Adapter. However there were some problems; if you can't figure out how to disable handshaking then you need to "spoof" it. We were able to accomplish this by soldering pins (1, 4, 6) together, and by soldering pins (7, 8) together.

Solder similar colored pins together.

http://cs.potsdam.edu/~snow91/IntelliBrain-Bot/beginning.jpg

Effectively "spoofed" Handshaking

http://cs.potsdam.edu/~snow91/IntelliBrain-Bot/end.jpg

We provided power with an external adapter. Alternatively you could connect pin 9 on the DB9 connector to the adapter as the voltage is +5v.

We've been told that Aircable's [WWW]Bluetooth Adapter works even without doing the hardware modification. However we cannot confirm this.

3.3. Bluetooth Pairing

We were working under Debian GNU/Linux on a 64bit machine.

In order to pair bluetooth devices we found that the best steps to use are as follows:

  1. Under root run "hcitool scan"

  2. Place the Db Address of the Bluetooth device your trying to connect to in the rfcomm.conf file

  3. run "rfcomm bind all" or rfcomm bind "name of the device in rfcomm.conf" ie. rfcomm0

The Bluetooth devices should now be paired. You should be able to do anything with "/dev/rfcomm0" that you can do with any other serial connection.

More Bluetooth information Using the Hemisson Robot

4. More Information

Besides the normal functions(move(), translate(), rotate(), & range()) there are three more included.

beep() Causes a system beep

led(input) Turns on Main Board Leds

stop() Turns off both servos and all Leds

  1. General Information: info@ridgesoft.com

  2. User Forum: [WWW]IntelliBrain Forum

  3. Customer Support: support@ridgesoft.com

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