eduMIP: the world’s most extensible low-cost open platform for learning Embedded Control & Robotics - AVAILABLE NOW
eduMIP is a fascinating & inspiring robotics kit that is highly extensible, open-standards-compliant, Linux-based, and low-cost. It is compatible with all of the major robotics software development platforms. The eduMIP kit contains everything you need to build the Mobile Inverted Pendulum (MIP) prototype pictured at right, including
- a robust wheelbase with motors/gearboxes/wheels/encoders/wires,
- the vehicle chassis and bumpers,
- a 2-cell 1400 mAh LiPo with custom wire harness, and
- a 12 volt charger.
The only other thing you'll need to get your eduMIP platform up and running is the BeagleBone electronics itself, which is available separately in three different configurations:
1) BeagleBone Blue,
2) BeagleBone Black Wireless + Robotics Cape, or
3) BeagleBone Black + Robotics Cape + WiFi Dongle.
eduMIP was developed in a research and teaching setting in the UC San Diego Coordinated Robotics Lab. Hardware-focused Massively-Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are currently being developed which leverage these kits, targeting both introductory STEM courses (advanced high-school / college freshmen), and professional robotics courses (college senior, graduate, and beyond).
eduMIP is a comprehensive and robust platform for learning:
- Dynamic modeling and feedback control (classical, state-space, adaptive, …) of unstable systems.
- Robot motion planning and collision avoidance.
- DC motor control via (built-in) H-bridges and encoder counters.
- Attitude estimation via (built-in) IMU and barometer.
- Communication via (built-in) WiFi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth (4.1/BLE).
- Charging, balancing, protection, and monitoring of 2-cell LiPo (included).
- Multithreaded event-driven C programming in Debian Linux.
- Multithreaded Graphical System Design for embedded applications.
eduMIP is compatible with Python, ROS, MATLAB® & Simulink®, and LabVIEW®.
[Matlab® and Simulink® are trademarks of The Mathworks, Inc. LabVIEW® is a trademark of National Instruments, Inc.]
eduMIP's robust, consumer-grade chassis was developed in collaboration WowWee®.
eduMIP is easy to extend via custom CAD/3D printing and custom PCB design/fab, and can interface easily, via JST connectors and an extensive software library, to millions of industry-standard sensors and actuators communicating over: USB, I2C, SPI, CAN, UART (GPS, DSM2), PWM (servos, ESCs), GPIO, ADC.
The connectivity of the BeagleBone upon which our solution is based, and the robustness of the wheelbase, are key features which distinguish our educational MIP kit from those available from our closest competitor.
CAD designs for the hardware in the eduMIP kit are available under the Creative Commons CC-by-v4 License.
Source code for all software in the associated codebase, down to the low-level libraries, are available under the 3-Clause BSD License.
