User manual

RP6 ROBOT SYSTEM - 2. The RP6 in detail
2. The RP6 in detail
This chapter describes the most important hardware components of the RP6 ROBOT
SYSTEM. We will discuss the electronics, the microcontroller and the interaction of
software and hardware. If you are already familiar with microcontroller technology
and electronics, you will probably just glance through this chapter. Beginners in robot-
ics however should study this chapter to gain insight to the RP6 basics.
If you do not want to wait and rather like to test the robot, then please proceed to
chapter 3, but return to this chapter later on as it certainly contains a number of use-
ful explanations of the robot's programming details. And you do want to know what is
controlled with the software and how this works, don't you?
We will not go deeply into details, but still a few topics in this chapter might be hard
to understand – the author tried to explain things as simple as possible.
If you wish to study special topics in detail you may also look for additional informa-
tion at http://www.wikipedia.org/, which definitely is a good starting point for most
topics.
Images often tell more than words and that is why we start with an overview diagram
of the RP6. The diagram shows a drastically simplified schematic of the robot's elec-
tronic components and how they are connected together:
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