CAN in robotic platform
CAN Newsletter September 2010
The MDS (Mobile-Dextrous-Social) is a robotic platform that is able to communicate verbally and non-verbally. Designed primarily with human robot interaction (HRI) research in mind, it was the brainchild of Prof. Cynthia Breazeal, Director of the Personal Robots Group at MIT Media Lab, who has pioneered the field of human-robot interaction. With the ultimate research goal being to develop human to robot interaction to a level akin to the way humans interact with other humans, potential applications for these robots include care of the elderly, healthcare and education. Breazeal commissioned Xitome Design to build ‘Nexi’, a first version MDS for a joint collaboration project with UMASS Amherst. Xitome Design – a long-standing Kvaser customer – is now commercialising the project and, as a result, such leaders in robot research as the US Naval Research Labs also use it. There, capabilities such as gesture recognition and visual processing are being used to develop robot self-learning techniques. At the core of this robot is a series of high-density motor controllers designed by Xitome and based on Denali hardware. A dedicated microcontroller and power amplifier is employed for each control channel. With communication between motor control units needed in a way that achieves flexible position control in a decentralised manner, Xitome Design uses an 1-Mbit/s CAN network to daisy chain the micro-controllers together. This results in just two wires to provide motor control, power and CAN communication to the head.
