motor News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

November 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SaraKIT – An Raspberry Pi CM4 board with ChatGPT-based voice control, motor control, and plenty of sensors (Crowdfunding)

SaraKIT is a carrier board for the Raspberry Pi CM4 system-on-module with BLDC motor controllers and a range of sensors for robotics, support for ChatGPT-based voice control through three microphones and a ZL38063 audio chip, and two MIPI CSI connectors for cameras. The versatile board can be used for voice-controlled products, robots, home automation systems, and interfacing with smart home or office devices. The company also developed various demos such as a Smartphone-controlled LEGO RC car, a self-balancing LEGO robot, a pan-and-tilt camera, various AI demos using MediaPipe such as face tracking and object detection, as well as audio demos using ChatGPT, Alexa, and/or Google Home. SaraKIT specifications: Support system-on-modules – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) with future CM5 compatibility. MCU – Microchip dsPIC33 16-bit microcontroller with 32 KB SRAM for motor control and LSM6DS3TR sensor Audio Microchip ZL38063 (previously MicroSemi) audio processor for microphone arrays. 3x Knowles SPH0655 […]

November 4, 2023November 4, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Makeblock mBot Neo robot review with Smart World Add-on Pack

MakeBlock mBot Neo, also known as mBot2, is an educational robot that builds upon the previous generation mBot1 robot, and the company has sent us a review sample, following our earlier review of the Ultimate 2.0 10-in-1 educational robot kit, along with the Smart World Add-on Pack. The mBot Neo features a new ESP32-based CyberPi control board with WiFi connectivity for IoT and AI support. The robot is also equipped with a 2nd generation Ultrasonic sensor with improved object detection accuracy and status indicator, a built-in 4-ch RGB line sensor that can detect colors, as well as a new drive motor that comes with an encoder for more precise motion control. The mBot Neo robot kit is expandable with metal parts from other Makeblock models, mBuild modules and various electronic modules can be added making it also possible to build custom robots with third-party structural parts. The mBot Neo robot […]

September 22, 2023September 22, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

AMD Kria K24 Zynq Ultrascale+ system-on-module targets motor control and DSP applications

The AMD Kria K24 System-on-Module (SOM) with a custom-built Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC and the KD240 Drives Starter Kit are designed for the development of cost-sensitive industrial and commercial edge applications. The new Kria K24 is about half the size of a credit card and uses half the power of the larger, but connector-compatible, Kria K26 SOM that was introduced in 2021 for computer vision applications when the company was still known as Xilinx. That means existing K26 carrier boards can be reused with the Kria K24 SOM without modifying the PCB, but note there’s only one 240-pin connector on the new module, plus an extra 40-pin connector. AMD Kria K24 specifications: MPSoC – Custom-built Zynq Ultrascale+ XCK24 Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor up to 1.3 GHz Dual-core Arm Cortex-R5F real-time processor up to 533 MHz Mali-400 MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz FPGA fabric with 154K logic cells AMD Deep Learning […]

August 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

SemiDrive D9-Pro (D9360) Arm Cortex-A55/R5 processor powers industrial CPU module for motor control

MYD JD9360 SemiDrive D9 Pro Development Board

MYiR MYC-JD9360 is a CPU Module powered by SemiDrive D9-Pro (D9360) processor with six Arm Cortex-A55 application cores, a dual-core lock-step Cortex-R5 real-time core along with a PowerVR GPU, 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 VPU and a 0.8 TOPS NPU, and designed for motion control and industrial applications. The MYC-JD9360 CPU module also comes with 2GB LPDDR4, 16GB eMMC flash, 16MB QSPI Flash, 256Kbit EEPROM, and exposes I/Os such as PCIe 3.0, USB 3.0, CAN FD, and TSN-enabled Gigabit Ethernet through a 314-pin MXM connector. The company also provides the MYD-JD9360 development board to quickly get started with the module and evaluate the solution. MYiR MYC-JD9360 CPU module with SemiDrive D9-Pro SoC Specifications: SoC – SemiDrive D9-Pro (D9360) CPU Application – Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.6 GHz Real-time – Dual-core lock-step Cortex-R5 cores @ 800MHz GPU – Imagination PowerVR 9XM GPU @ 100 GFLOPS VPU – 4Kp30 H.265/VP8/VP9 video decoder, 4Kp30 H.264 […]

August 7, 2023August 6, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

SunFounder Zeus Car Kit review – A fun toy and Arduino learning tool

SunFounder Zeus Car Kit is an Arduino UNO and ESP32 Cam-based educational kit for children (and adults) that can be used to learn more about electronics, robotics, and programming. It’s a car comprised of four 6cm Mecanum wheels for omnidirectional motion and various sensors that can be controlled with an Android app enabling first-person view (FPV) thanks to the built-in camera. The company sent us a Zeus Car Kit for review and evaluation, and after assembly, we’ll use it in “Play Mode”, or in other words a toy that basically works out of the box, before checking out the “Programing Mode” and related Arduino tutorials to evaluate it’s educational potential. Zeus Car Kit Unboxing The kit comes in a nice retail package which highlights some of the capacities of the kit: FPV, Omnidrive, AI vision, compass, IR control, APP control, and RGB lights. The package itself contains four more boxes […]

July 30, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Robo Pico review – A Raspberry Pi Pico W-based motor & sensor control board tested with BocoBot robotic kit

Robo Pico Review Raspberry Pi Zero W robot

Cytron Robo Pico is a carrier board for the Raspberry Pi Pico (W) specially designed for robotics & IoT applications with a 2-channel DC motor driver, four servo motor ports, and seven Grove I/O connectors to connect various sensors and/or actuators. When the company asked us to review the Robo Pico board, I noticed they had a car robotic kit based on the board called the BocoBot that comes with installation videos and five tutorials including obstacle avoidance movement with ultrasonic sensors, light search, line following, and WiFi remote control. So I asked for the full kit to make the review more fun and interesting. Robo Pico board Robo Pico specifications: Supported MCU board – Raspberry Pi Pico/Pico W and compatible Motor control 2x DC Motor terminals with Motor status LEDs for each motor terminal 2x motor test buttons for each motor terminal Header to connect to 4x servos Expansion […]

June 27, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Toshiba “MH3 Group (2)” Arm Cortex-M3 MCU supports firmware updates without interrupting operation

Toshiba “MH3 Group (2)” Arm Cortex-M3 microcontrollers come with a 1MB flash memory partitioned into two 512KB partitions to enable firmware updates without interrupting microcontroller operation using an area swap function to rotate to the new firmware seamlessly. The new M3H Group (2) builds upon the M3H Group(1) by expanding the code flash memory up to 1MB, and the RAM capacity from 66KB to 130KB. Both are part of the “TXZ+ Family Advanced Class” manufactured with a 40nm process, and equipped with a 120 MHz Arm Cortex-M3 core as well as various interface and motor control options such as UART, I2C, Advanced Encoder Input Circuit, and Advanced Programmable Motor Control Circuit. Toshiba MH3 Group 2 key features and specifications: CPU core – Arm Cortex-M3 @ 120 MHz with memory protection unit (MPU) Internal oscillator – 10MHz (+/-1%) Internal memory Code flash memory – 512KB to 1024KB (program/erase cycles: up to […]

April 5, 2023April 5, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Renesas RZ/T2L Arm Cortex-R52 microprocessor embeds EtherCAT controller

Renesas RZ/TL2 Cortex-R52 microprocessor

Renesas RZ/T2L is a cost-optimized single-core Arm Cortex-R52 microprocessor (MPU) with an EtherCAT controller based on the same architecture as the higher-end Renesas RZ/T2M dual-core Cortex-R52 processor introduced last year, but at about half the size. The new MPU enables high-speed and accurate real-time processing performance required for AC servo drives, inverters, industrial robots, collaborative robots, etc.. used in factory automation (FA), medical equipment, building automation (BA), and other sectors and applications where EtherCAT is being adopted. Renesas RZ/T2L key features and specifications: CPU – Arm Cortex-R52 clocked at up to 800MHz with 16KB L1 I/D cache, 512KB ATCM, 64KB BTCM Memory – 1MB RAM with ECC Trigonometric function accelerator Ethernet EtherCAT slave controller: 3x ports 1x Ethernet MAC Motor control 2-channel encoder interface with support for A-format, EnDat2.2, BiSS-C, HIPERFACE DSL, FA-CODER Functional safety (FuSa) software up to SIL3 Motor current loop < 1µs 3-phase complementary PWM output for […]