Servo - 201306

Jasmine Swarmbot Date: 2005 Hardware License: GNU GPL Software License: GNU GPL

The Jasmine Swarmbot project maintains the design for a small (less than 3 cm cube) robot optimized for swarm-related research. Their goal is to maintain a per-robot cost of $133 USD or less. The robots have differential drive, a variety of sensors, and robot-to-robot communication. The robots have been widely used in research projects; in some cases, in swarms of over 100 robots. The design is robust and stable. The Jasmine robot was originally developed at the University of Stuttgart, but the design is now maintained independently. No kits or assembled robots are currently available.

Photo by Jasmine swarm robot development team Get the design: www.swarmrobot.org

Photo by oomlout, CC BY SA 2.0

SERB Date: 2008 Hardware License: CC BY-SA v3.0 Software License: CC BY-SA v3.0 (See note in article about CC licensed software)

SERB (Arduino-based SErvo RoBot) was a completely free/open hardware and software robot design created in 2008 by Oomlout, a UK company that developed DIY Arduino-based projects and kits. The robot consists of laser-cut acrylic combined with two RC servos, an open hardware Arduino microcontroller, and assorted off-the-shelf hardware. The resulting differential drive robot uses whisker sensors for impact detection. For a while, kits were available from Oomlout and other online DIY stores. Interest in the design has declined and kits are not available at the time of writing, nor is the design still under active development. Some ideas from SERB were included in a later free hardware design — the Tiny Wanderer robot — also included in this list.

Get the design: http://oomlout.com/a/products/serb

Veter Date: 2010

Hardware License: GNU GPL Software License: GNU GPL

A small team of robotics enthusiasts in Germany have been hard at work on a project called Veter for several years. The first public release was made in 2010, and the group has continued to revise and improve the robot. The hardware and software are released under the GNU GPL license and all design files are available from a Git repository. The latest version of the robot is a differential drive tracked robot. It uses a combination of off-the-shelf parts, 3D printed parts, and open source boards like the BeagleBoard-xm. The robot is equipped with ultra-sonic rangers, stereo video, compass, GPS, and other sensors. The robot can communicate via Wi-Fi. It can operate autonomously or can be controlled by a human operator from a navigational interface that includes real time streaming video. The software for autonomous navigation is well developed and utilizes PID control, as well as a Kalman filter and particle filter for position estimation. No assembled units or kits are currently available, but the website suggests that a kit is under consideration and might be available in the future. For more information, see the main Veter website or the Veter blog.