The SRV-1-X is a flexible expansion platform for the Surveyor Corporation SRV-1 robot.  It allows a rich variety of modern sensors to be added to the robot, giving it many new abilities for autonomous operation.

SRV-1-X takes the form of a 2.1x2.6" printed circuit board, the same format as the SRV-1 Blackfin motherboard and the Matchport combo board.  It fits between those two on the robot stack. 

Features:

  • 16-bit dsPIC33 digital signal controller core for rapid first-stage processing and efficient communication over SPI to the Blackfin processor on the SRV-1.
  • u-blox LEA-5 GPS with active antenna featuring excellent weak signal performance, "KickStart" rapid startup acquisition, WAAS support (~1 meter accuracy in North America, ~3 meter elsewhere).  GPS provides good quality heading information making it valuable even in applications where the position error is too great to be of direct use.
  • 3-axis accelerometer - ADXL330 MEMS inertial sensor measures accelerations up to 3.6g in any direction.  Ideal for tilt sensing, UAV autopilot or IMU Kalman filter applications.
  • 3-axis gyroscope - IDG300 and LISY300AL MEMS rate gyroscopes measure rate of turn up to 300 degrees per second in all axes.  Suitable for UAV artificial horizon or strapdown INS applications.
  • Magnetic compass - Honeywell 2-axis magnetometer gives magnetic heading information, essential as a steady reference for a Kalman filter-based IMU, as well as for general navigation orientation.  Accurate approx. 1 degree with motors off, but quite strongly affected by motors - correction may be applied in software, or stop the motors to take a compass measurement.
  • 31 general purpose I/O pins, compatible with 3.3V and 5V logic, brought out to 0.1" headers for easy connection to your own circuits and sensors.
  • 9 of the GPIO pins may be reconfigured as up to 9 analog inputs with 12-bit resolution reading from 0 to 3 volts.
  • 16 of the GPIO pins may be reconfigured as up to 16 servo outputs or radio-control inputs.
  • COMING SOON: Revision 5 boards with SCP1000 altimeter for precision barometric pressure and temperature measurements.  Available for pre-order.
  • MicroSD socket, supporting cards up to 1GB, providing bulk storage for the Blackfin - e.g. store an hour of high-quality recorded video.
  • Open source firmware for the dsPIC and firmware patches for the Blackfin. Easy to use functions allow you to use the extra features whatever your experience and comfort level - either from a PC through an extension of the simple SRV protocol, or by editing the gcc source code of the SRV firmware using a well-documented API.  The circuit schematic for the expansion board is freely available.
  • Compatible with Surveyor Corporation's Blackfin camera board, SRV-1 robot and stereo vision system.  Also may be used independently of the SRV-1, adding GPS, inertial sensors, compass, microSD storage and GPIO to any embedded system capable of SPI communication.

Pricing and sales:

PLEASE NOTE: We have started to ship boards, but at present they are custom-assembled for each order, not kept in stock - so expect to wait approximately 3 weeks for delivery.

The following prices apply to small quantities (less than 10) - email srv [at] pericynthion.org for details on higher volume pricing.


SRV-1-X revision 4, fully assembled and tested, without GPS
(approx 3 weeks for delivery)
$245
SRV-1-X revision 4, fully assembled and tested, u-blox 5 GPS
(approx 3 weeks for delivery)
$385
SRV-1-X revision 5 - As above but with SCP1000 pressure/temperature sensor. 
This is a pre-order for delivery mid-November 2008.
$399

Open documentation:

Circuit schematic diagram.  First revision firmware (documentation and SVN coming soon)