The Pololu Orangutan SV-328 is a full featured robot controller powered by an Atmel ATmega328P AVR microcontroller. With built in motor drivers, buttons, LED's, buzzer and removable LCD display this controller get's your robot built quickly.
Want to build a small robot that doesn’t look like a PCB on wheels? The Orangutan is small enough for integrating into a small robot, rather than being the small robot. With Atmel’s powerful ATmega328P AVR microcontroller, motor drivers, buttons, display, and buzzer, all you need to add is your own chassis, sensors, software… you know, the fun stuff!
The Orangutan SV-328 robot controller is a complete control solution for small robots running at 6 – 13.5 V. The small (2.15" x 1.9" / 55mm x 48mm) module includes a powerful Atmel ATmega328P AVR microcontroller, two bidirectional motor ports each capable of providing 1 A (continuous), a removable 8-character x 2-line liquid crystal display, a buzzer, three user pushbutton switches, and two user LEDs. Now that will save construction time!
Eight general-purpose I/O lines with up to eight analog input channels allow for adding sensors or expanding the system. These lines are brought out to 0.1" female headers as shown in the picture below; from left to right, the bottom row of pins are: PC5, PC4, PC3, PC2, PC1, PC0, PD1 and PD0. The Orangutan SV-328 features a 5V switching regulator capable of delivering up to 3 A, allowing the Orangutan to power RC servos directly from its regulated 5V power bus. This power bus can be accessed through the power and ground pins dedicated to each user I/O line.
Orangutan SV-328 top view with components labeled
(Click for a larger view)
The Orangutan SV-328 is based on Atmel’s mega328 AVR microcontroller, which runs at 20 MHz and features 32 Kbytes of flash program memory, 2 Kbytes of SRAM, and 1024 bytes of EEPROM. Because the user has direct access to the microcontroller, any development software for Atmel’s AVR microcontrollers, including Atmel’s free AVR Studio and the WinAVR GCC C/C++ compiler, is compatible with the Orangutan SV-328. An in-circuit programmer, such as our USB AVR programmer, is required for programming the Orangutan SV-328. Pololu provide an extensive set of software libraries that make it easy to interface with all of the integrated hardware. These libraries come with a number of sample programs that demonstrate how to use the various components on the Orangutan SV-328. This robot controller is also compatible with the popular Arduino development platform.
With the Orangutan SV-328 Pololu have introduced a number of substantial improvements over the original Orangutan, the most significant of which is the enhanced power system that allows an expanded operating range of 6 – 13.5 V (meaning you can power the Orangutan SV-328 from a 12 V battery), delivers higher motor current, and has much more available current on the 5 V line. The following list details the major changes:
Size: | 2.15" x 1.90" / 58mm x 48mm |
Weight: | 35 g |
Processor: | ATmega328 @ 20 MHz |
RAM size: | 2048 bytes |
Program memory size: | 32 Kbytes |
Motor driver: | TB6612FNG |
Motor channels: | 2 |
User I/O lines: | 8(1) |
Max current on a single I/O: | 40 mA |
Minimum operating voltage: | 6 V |
Maximum operating voltage: | 13.5 V |
Continuous output current per channel: | 1 A |
Peak output current per channel: | 3 A |
Maximum PWM frequency: | 80 kHz |
Reverse voltage protection?: | Y |
External programmer required?: | Y |
LCD included?: | Y |
Please see Pololu's resources page for the Orangutan SV-328 microcontroller. There is a huge amount of well written documentation, sample code and other resources!