Developer and engineer Hans Jørgen Grimstad has launched a compact service board for robotics initiatives, powered by the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) and designed for straightforward integration with Xiaomi CyberGear and ROBOTIS DYNAMIXEL motors: Overlord.
“‘Overlord’ is a service board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5,” Grimstad explains of his creation. “The board facilitates straightforward integration with Xiaomi CyberGear motors and half duplex DYNAMIXELs, just like the AX-12A, MX-12W servos. The service board has an onboard can controller, CAN transceiver, a nine-axis IMU [Inertial Measurement Unit] with 100Hz sensor fusion, half duplex line driver circuitry for DYNAMIXEL servos and has a suitable energy enter vary from 5 to 36V.”
The Overlord service is designed to offer a quick-start to driving robotics initiatives with a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5. (📷: Hans Jørgen Grimstad)
The open-hardware service board is designed to just accept the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 —the computer-on-module offshoot of the favored Raspberry Pi 5 single-board laptop, powered by the identical Broadcom BCM2712 system-on-chip — on the middle then convey out wired Ethernet, USB, and robotics-specific connectivity.
“This board was designed for simplicity and ease of use with the first aim being actuator management and balancing,” Grimstad notes. “Other than the onboard IMU, there isn’t any sensing or GPIO [General-Purpose Input/Output] entry. It’s nonetheless potential to immediately join the board to a different [Raspberry] Pi or every other board that helps auto-MDI-X immediately utilizing an ordinary Ethernet cable. Entry to GPIO, digicam, and so on. can then be carried out through a easy TCP consumer/server.”
Grimstad has revealed supply code and design information, together with examples of CyberGear, DYNAMIXEL, and IMU use, on GitHub below the reciprocal GNU Basic Public License 3 and the strongly reciprocal variant of the CERN Open {Hardware} License 2 respectively. “For firms or people who want to use this venture in a closed-source product, or don’t want to adjust to the phrases of the open supply licenses,” Grimstad notes, “a business license is out there.”
