Robotino hardware analysis

Marco Maissan
0949830

Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences

Festo BV

supervised by:
G. Maas
W. Volders

June 27, 2021

Contents
1 Device analysis 2

2 General overview 2
2.1 Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.2 Sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 Actuators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4 Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3 Currently available version 7

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1 Device analysis
It is of importance to know the hardware and software specifications of the Robotino
before starting any research on possible additional hardware or algorithmics.

Figure 2: Robotino 3

2 General overview
There are a total of 4 generations of Robotinos which have been produced by Festo. The
available version for this thesis is the 3rd generation. The Robotino is the “Premium”
edition (article no. 8029256), which compares to the standard edition as follows:
• Premium Edition: Intel i5, 2.4 GHz, dual core, 8 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD
• Basic Edition: Intel Atom, 1.8 GHz, dual core, 4 GB RAM, 32 GB SSD

2.1 Dimensions
The Robotino is a circular shaped Autonomous Guided Vehicle (AGV). It has a diam-
eter of 450mm. Including the controller housing, the height is 290mm. Without any

2
accessories, the Robotino is approximately 20kg in weight. The Robotino can handle a
payload of max. 30kg. The Robotino contains omnidirectional drives that are are pro-
tected by a circular stainless steel frame. Around the steel frame is a rubber protection
strip which contains a collision-protection sensor. Embedded in the steel frame are 9
infrared distance sensors. A base plate contains an inductive sensor and two optical
sensors. The Robotino comes equipped with a full HD (1080p) color camera which con-
nects via USB. The premium edition, which will be used for the project, comes with a
mounting tower with three types of mounting platforms. More information about the
sensor specification follows in an upcoming paragraph.

2.2 Sensors
The Robotino contains multiple sensors that can be used for navigation purposes. This
section describes each sensor.

Camera The Robotino contains one Full HD, It has a recording resolution of 1080p
camera that records in the RGB color spectrum. It has a resolution of 15MP with
20-step Autofocus. The camera contains dual stereo microphones with built-in noise-
cancelling. Although the specifications do not show support for Linux drivers [1] (which
is necessary for the Robotino that runs on Ubuntu), Ubuntu contains a video driver
which works out of the box with this webcam.

Inductive Sensor The default Robotino is delivered with an inductive sensor (Or-
der no.: 8029483). The inductive sensor can be used to sense metallic strips on the
floor or other metallic objects. This could be used for determining position, e.g. via
line following algorithms. This inductive sensor can be mounted on three predeter-
mined positions in the base plate, like in figure The inductive sensor has the following
specifications:

• Diameter: M12

• Measuring range: 0 - 6 meter

• Switching frequency: 1000 Hz

• Protection class: IP 67

• Pepetition accuracy: 0.01mm

Distance sensors The Robotino contains a total of nine infrared distance sensors
(Sharp GP2Y0A41SK0F) [2]. Each distance sensor is placed around the perimeter (in
steps of 40◦ ) of the metal bumper strip of the Robotino. The sensors read a voltage
which corresponds to the measured distance. The distance sensors are always activated
and are effective in a range of 4 to 30cm. A convenience of these sensors is that they are

3
easy to install, only containing two electrical connections, one to the power supply and
one output signal. The sensors have a voltage and distance characteristic as described
in figure 3. There are no specifications regarding the precision or accuracy of the sensor.

Figure 3: Distance sensor characteristics

Optical sensors The Robotino is shipped with two opto-electronic sensors [3]. The
sensors are from Festo’s own product line (SOEG-L-Q30-P-A-K-2L). These sensors
contain a fibre-optic unit which can be pointed towards the floor via the base plate.
The sensors can be used to detect different surfaces and colors based on the varying

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degrees of reflectivity. The projected light, used to measure the reflectivity, is red light
in the visible color spectrum.

Figure 4: Opto-electronic sensor mounting [3]

Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) According to the Robotino Wiki [4], the
Robotino contains a MPU-6050 6-axis IMU. The MPU-6050 combines a 3-axis gy-
roscope with a 3-axis accelerometer and a Digital Motion Processor (DMP) all in one
package. No information about this was found on the original Robotino website or
in the manual. The enclosure of the Robotino was removed in order to validate this
claim. A Inversense MPU-6000 was found instead after inspection. After inspecting
the datasheet [5], the only difference found was that protocols, where the MPU-6000
communicates both via ISP and I2C, where MPU6050 only communicates via I2C.
Functionality-wise, they are identical.

Rotary encoders For driving, the Robotino contains omnidirectional wheels (more
about that in the “actuators” section). Each of the wheels is equipped with a motor,
which on its turn is equipped with an incremental encoder (RE 30-2-500) [6]. The en-
coder’s main functionality is to regulate the actual motor speed compared to a setpoint.
The encoders have a impulses per revolution (ppr) value between 100 and 512.

Others Lastly, the Robotino contains some internal sensors for measuring current
draw, battery status, cpu temperature and more. There are no specifications about
the exact sensor types.

2.3 Actuators
The Robotino can move using omnidirectional drives, also known as omnidrives. Be-
cause of this, the Robotino can drive in all directions and rotate on the spot. The

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omnidrive system consists of motors, incremental encoders, gear units and wheels.
These are all integrated in the enclosure of the Robotino.

Motors The Robotino is equipped with three sets of brushed motors (Dunkermotoren
GR 42x40) [7]. The motors control the three omnidirectional wheels independently.
The incremental encoder is mounted directly to the motor to the rotations. The motors
are controlled via a onboard microcontroller. Each motor is connected to a gear unit
with a ratio of 32:1, which makes it possible to drive the Robotino with high accuracy
at minimal speeds.

Wheels Omnidirectional wheels are attached to the gearbox. The wheels allow the
Robotino to move in all possible directions, as well as rotate at fixed positions. This
makes the Robotino highly flexible. The omniwheels are supplied by Rotacaster Wheel
Limited (R3-1258-85). An example of the wheels can be seen in figure 5.

Figure 5: Omnidirectional wheels

2.4 Interfaces
For communication purposes, the Robotino is equipped with several networking inter-
faces [8].

WLAN Out of the box, the Robotino is equipped with a WLAN-USB adapter from
NETGEAR, model number N150. The adapter can be plugged into one of the USB
ports and supports up to 150mbps WiFi. It is the slowest WiFi adapter in the “N-
range” of WiFi adapters. It supports IEEE 802.11 b/g/n at a frequency band of 2.4
GHz. According to the manual, it is only adequate for simple email, chat, music
listening or video streaming.

Ethernet There are two ethernet ports available on the Robotino. One of the ports
is connected to the embedded PC, while the other is connected to the onboard pro-
grammable microcontroller. No further specifications are given.

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I/O interface External IO can be connected via the available IO interface. The
interface connections are described below and tell the maximum of voltage (V), wattage
(W), current (A) and input frequency (Hz):

• DI1 ... DI8: Digital inputs, 24 V, protected against overload

• DQ1 ... DQ8: Digital outputs, 24 V, short-circuit protection, 1 A or 24 W max

output

• AI1 ... AI8: Analog inputs, 0 to 10 V, 50 Hz

• NO1 ... NC2: Relay, 24 V

• + / -: Power supply, 24 V, Max 3A total draw (72 W)

The power supply can be used to add peripherals to the system, like sensors or
processing boards.

Motor/Encoder There is a connector for an external motor on the front panel of

the Robotino. The output is capable of supporting a current of 5A for a four quadrant
chopper (H bridge). The speed can be controlled via PWM and the direction can be
controlled via a direction bit signal.

USB The Robotino contains 6 USB 2.0 ports. They interface directly with the
operating system on board.

PCIE The Robotino contains two PCI Express 2.0 ports for additional expansion
cards. The cards can be accessed when removing the cover of the Robotino. The ports
support both 12V and 3.3V (max. 100mA) interface cards. There is also an ATX
power connection provided.

VGA A VGA port is available for connecting a monitor and navigating the operating
system. It is useful for debugging purposes. Navigating the operating system visually
can be done in combination with a USB mouse and keyboard.

3 Currently available version

The Robotino that is available for this project has been used in the past by other
organisations. Ever since, it has been modified quite a bit compared to the description
of the manual.

• The WiFi USB adapter has been exchanged for a different version (TP-Link TL-
WN722N). This WiFi adapter ended up being unusable, having speeds of less
than 1mbps.

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 • The inductive sensor is missing;

• The additional metal mounting platform is added;

• A gripper is added to the mounting platform;

• The webcam is missing;

The WiFi adapter being slow is a problem for downloading and upgrading Linux
packages. With speeds of less than 1mbps, it takes an entire day to do a system update.
Since the Festo internal WiFi reaches speeds of over 50mbps, this should be upgraded.
When the entire available bandwith can be utilized, installing system updates and
packages takes only a few minutes. Also, faster internet allows the Robotino to be
controlled remotely (e.g. via SSH), which produces a more convenient work flow.

8
References
[1] Logitech c920 hd pro webcam. [Online]. Available: https://www.logitech.com/
nl-nl/product/hd-pro-webcam-c920.
[2] [Online]. Available: https://ip.festo-didactic.com/InfoPortal/Robotino/
Hardware/Sensors/EN/DistanceSensors.html.
[3] Opto-electronic sensors. [Online]. Available: https : / / www . festo - didactic .
com / int - en / services / robotino / hardware / sensors / opto - electronic -
sensors/?fbid=aW50LmVuLjU1Ny4xNy4zNC4xNDU1.
[4] Mpu6050. [Online]. Available: https://wiki.openrobotino.org/index.php?
title=MPU6050.
[5] Mpu-6000 datasheet, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://product.tdk.com/info/
en/documents/catalog_datasheet/imu/MPU-6000-Datasheet1.pdf.
[6] Incremental encoder. [Online]. Available: https://ip.festo- didactic.com/
InfoPortal / Robotino3 / Hardware / DriveSystem / EN / IncrementalEncoder .
html.
[7] Drive systems motors. [Online]. Available: https://ip.festo-didactic.com/
InfoPortal/Robotino3/Hardware/EN/index.html.
[8] Interfaces robotino. [Online]. Available: https : / / ip . festo - didactic . com /
InfoPortal/Robotino3/Hardware/Interfaces/EN/index.html.