This mobile robot is constructed of mainly piece parts by AACC Adjunct Professor Tom Kibalo.   All the electronics are custom designed. The frame was recovered from an old HERO robot (circa 1984) --basically a tricycle.     The front drive consists of a DC motor mounted to a wheel that is geared down.  It can be turned forward, backward, and uses PWM for speed control.  The whole front wheel assembly is also mounted to a geared down stepper motor to turn the wheel left or right.   One of the back wheels is monitored by an optical encoder to determine number of spins traveled.  The geared assemblies provide excellent torque from all the motors.    The electronics consists of a PIC microcontroller with custom firmware written in C for all functions including motor controls.  It interfaces to a quad set of transistor drivers for stepper coils and an Allegro Motor Control IC with H-BRIDGE for the DC Motor.  The PIC counts pulses from the optical encoder and responds to commands transmitted at 2400 Baud with a radio chip set.  The radio chip set is a 300 MHZ AM TX/RX built from components from ALBACOMM (Canadian Company).  The system runs on regulated power from a fused Motorcycle Battery.  Commands to the robot are issued using another TX/RX set connected to a laptop with RS-232 interface running HYPERTERMINAL

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