Active Media Pioneer 3-DX (content++)

The University of Nevada, Reno Robotics Research Laboratory (RRL) is "staffed" with 11 ActivMedia Pioneer 3-DX mobile robots. You can think of these robots as your PC on wheels. Each robot came standard with an on-board Intel Pentium III-based single board computer that runs Linux and sports a bttv-based video capture card, gripper, Sick LMS 200, and Sony EVI-D70 Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera. Due to the limited horsepower and our need for real-time image processing we added a mini-itx form factor Intel Core2 Duo computer with wifi and two-channel bttv-based capture card to the systems. Future hardware additions will include microphone, speakers, and more cameras.

I actively maintain six of these robots for my research -- Godel, Turing, Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton and von Neumann. With this section I would like to archive my techniques for upgrading and maintaining these robots. My primary motivation being my legacy to the RRL. In time, there will hopefully be many links describing different aspects of system maintenance (installing OSs to routing power for new hardware to efficient experimental setup). Please check back regularly.