Is the KHR-2HV right for me?

[CopperCircle]

Hi, I am new to robotics but have allot of programming experience, I want to build a bot that I can use my laptop to control via wireless?

I am hoping to run code on the laptop and possibly add a camera to the robot for visual feedback, is this possible with the KHR-2HV?
Will I need any thing extra other than the gyro and accel sensors for stability?

Thanks in advance...

[veltrop]

You would be fine with a KHR-1HV, KHR-2HV, or KHR-3HV.

You will need 2 gyros for stabilization. The accelerometer will likely just be used to know if the robot is standing vs laying on sides or front or back.

After you get the bot up and running you can get the KCB-3WL:
http://kondo-robot.com/sys/kcb3wl_detail
And then you can have laptop control and a camera with visual feedback.

But since you are experienced with programming, you should also consider using a Roboard in place of the default KHR electronics. Then instead of getting that KCB-3WL addon, you can use the Roboard. That is what I did here: http://taylor.veltrop.com/robotics/khrhumanoidv2.php

Without getting the KCB-3WL addon, or without switching to something like the Roboard, camera input and wireless laptop control with a KHR will be hacky at best, and ultimately too limited, which is what I did here: http://taylor.veltrop.com/robotics/khrhumanoid.php

Another consideration, the KHR3 uses a Kondo serial servos rather than PWM servos, and at this time it takes a bit more effort and some hacking to get these serial servos working on the Roboard than PWM, but I think there are some people working on this.

[CopperCircle]

Thanks for the info, your project looks brilliant! My background is in Windows programming I was hoping to use C# and OpenCV, im not very familiar with Linux.

I see that the Roboard can run XP which would be fine if I can send all the data to a laptop for processing.

Looking forward to seeing more of your development and starting on mine, I think I will go with the 2HV, I will also soon have access to a Makerbot so hoping to print some cool body kit parts!

Thanks, Lee.

[nunogato]

Hi CopperCicle,

As your background in programing is with windows C# and OpenCV we think that the best solution is the Roboard.

For the KHR-2HV we recomend the Roboard 100 as it has the necessary pin headers for all the servos. If you go to the KHR-3HV the best roboard is the 110 as it has a High Speed Serial (up to 12Mbps) to connect the servo bus.

And, as veltrop recomended, you need the gyros and the accelerometer.
The Roboard manufacturer also makes this kind of sensors. You can find them here RM-G144 6DOF Magnetometer & Accelerometer and the RM-G145 3-axis gyroscope

[chrisvo]

If you are writing code in plain C, also have a look at libkondo4, which is a library to control the RCB-4HV servo control board that comes with the KHR-3HV. You can access tons of functionality including playing motions, reading A/D values, writing to PIO ports, and more. It also includes a library for directly controlling the ICS servos as well, and some schematics for working ICS circuits.

There's also some slides published by DMP (RoBoard) that show you how to create a half-duplex UART for use with serial servos.

I've also written a library to control the RCB-3 servo control board that comes with the KHR-1HV kit. (There are several libraries out there, actually, you might want to check Google first. Mine has a few additional capabilities like writing .RCB motion files directly to the RCB-3 and more. Anyway, let me know if you want me to go find it and upload it somewhere... I used this on the Gumstix Verdex Pro SBC (Linux on ARM processor).

[CopperCircle]

Thanks again for the advise, I think with my budget and needs I am going with the 2HV and the RoBoard 100, I hope to get it all by Christmas and start the fun!