by Arthur Ed LeBouthillier

This article appeared in the May 1999 issue of The Robot Builder.

Massachusette’s Institute of Technology’s (MIT) engineering department has been famous for their annual robot competition. Developed out of a desire to challenge engineering students, the 6.270 class dares the students to go beyond mere book learning by doing rather than watching. This class requires engineering students to compete against their fellow students by designing small robots to do specific tasks.

In conjunction with their class, a 68HC11-based processor board was developed which inspired a generation of robot builders. From it, numerous
commercial products were developed to help hobbyists build small robots; the Handy Board is one example of this. The 68HC11-based Handy-
board and other similar boards represent the processing board of choice for many of today’s robotics hobbyists. However, MIT’s 6.270 has moved beyond the 68HC11-based boards and has now moved on to a new processor board based on a much more powerful RISC processor developed by
ARM, Inc.

Skiff

Dubbed “Skiff” by the board’s manufacturer, the Compaq computer company, the 3.4” X 5.1” board is based on an Intel-built Strong-ARM SA110 CPU.
It has 4 Megabytes of flash memory for permanent program storage and 16 Megabytes of RAM; it can support clock speeds from 88 to 287 MHz. It runs a variation of Unix called NetBSD as the operating system and has a Java runtime environment which allows you to develop software development on your favorite computer. The board has an optional USB interface and advanced power management features. It is designed to be run directly from a 6 Volt battery.

Built to be used in conjunction with the main processor board, is a Robot Controller Card which features a wide variety of output drivers and sensor
interfaces. The amazing array of hardware  input and output capabilities include:

•20 motor drivers
•5 servo drivers
•32 Analog-to-Digital ports
•6 buttons (4 connected to A2Ds, 2 for
resets)
•3 pots (2 connected to A2Ds, 1 for LCD)
•LCD connector

Like any Unix operating system the free, public-domain NetBSD OS provided with the board gives support for multi-tasking capabilities, numerous
RAM disks, and is compatible with a tremendous array of public domain software. As is standard with the object-oriented Java programming language, there is support for multi-threading as well as compatibility with the whole public-domain software base that supports it.
The Skiff board represents a tremendous processing package for robotics hobbyists. As representative of the next generation of embedded controllers for robots, it offers exciting possibilities.