Page 276 - Hacking Roomba

Giving Roomba chapter

a New Brain

and Senses

he projects presented so far have all been based on having the new
brains of Roomba located remotely to it. From an RS-232 serial in this chapter
Ttether to a Wi-Fi connection, in all cases, Roomba is more of a tele-
presence device than a true robot. The term robot has come to have a flexible
definition with the rising popularity of various telepresence/remote-control Understand
devices.The most egregious use of robot to mean remote-controlled machine microcontrollers
are the battle bot programs on television.The contestants are billed as robots,
but they’re all controlled by humans through radio-control transmitters. Build circuits
Perhaps in a few years we’ll have true robot battle shows where the machines without soldering
are programmed, given a strategy, and let loose to fend for themselves.
This chapter shows a few ways to sever the connection with a controlling Make a stand-alone
computer and instead replace the microcontroller brain of Roomba with one robot out of
you can program. You’ll turn your Roomba into a truly autonomous re- Roomba
programmable robot. Like all projects in this book, this chapter doesn’t harm
Roomba and its original brain is available when you remove the new one Use the Basic Stamp
you create.
with Roomba
In theory you could reprogram the microcontroller chip inside the Roomba,
as that’s what the OSMO//hacker device does to upgrade a Roomba’s Use Arduino with
firmware. iRobot has yet to release specifications on the protocol used to Roomba
upgrade firmware. They likely never will. Allowing anyone to re-program
Roomba is a sure way to brick it, resulting in unhappy customers. There has Build a
been some effort in reverse engineering the upgrade protocol, but with the
release of the ROI it’s become less of an issue, since it addresses most of RoombaRoach
what was wanted once you add your own microcontroller that speaks the
ROI protocol. Build a mobile
mood light

Microcontroller vs. Microprocessor

A microcontroller is simply a small, integrated computer system designed
for a particular purpose. Microcontrollers are pervasive in your life, yet almost
totally invisible. You may be unfamiliar with the term and never realized
there is a substantial difference between the computer in your laptop and
the one in your coffee maker.