RCID

Gumstix Embedded Development

Problem

The RCID was approached to design a plug and play interface for removable modules on a robot system. Each module required a universal power supply and data connection.

Solution

The RCID produced a proof of concept hardware interface for power and communications.

A Gumstix Verdex XM4 motherboard, with console-vx and netmicroSD-vx expansion boards, was used as the robot module processor.

The Gumstix processor module is provided with Linux 2.6 OpenEmbedded. A Java Virtual Machine was compiled and added to the Gumstix to provide access to the Java communication libraries.

Java software running on the Gumstix processor was then able to connect to and communicate with Java software running on the robot base computer using TCP/IP and UDP over Ethernet.