Is the Arduino Mega a good microcontroller?
Is the Arduino Mega a good microcontroller?
by schexnider4
Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:18 pm
Planning on building a humanoid. Does the arduino Mega have enough I/O pins and prossesing power for this build? If not what is a good MCU preferably one I can add on to eventually (sight, voice comands, etc)
by Fritzoid
Tue Jul 10, 2012 12:18 pm
An arduino mega is based on the ATMEL 2561 AVR. This is the same processor used by most of the "first generation" humanoid robots found on this forum. The Bioloid CM-5 and the Robonova-1 C-3024 both use the AVR Mega. So clearly the arduino can handle the most basic job of moving the servos and reading some sensors.
On the down side, the arduino mega's footprint is quite large and at 16 MHZ, it is very slow. It is also limited by its 8-bit architecture and lack of numerical processor. For this and other reasons the "second generation" of humanoid robots, like NAO and DARwIn-OP, have found it necessary to supplement the AVR with a more powerful processor. High bandwidth (sight) and signal processing (voice) applications will certainly be beyond the capabilities of an arduino.
On the down side, the arduino mega's footprint is quite large and at 16 MHZ, it is very slow. It is also limited by its 8-bit architecture and lack of numerical processor. For this and other reasons the "second generation" of humanoid robots, like NAO and DARwIn-OP, have found it necessary to supplement the AVR with a more powerful processor. High bandwidth (sight) and signal processing (voice) applications will certainly be beyond the capabilities of an arduino.
