Wireless communication with microrobots
The aim of this work has been to develop small mobile robots equipped with on board electronics which will cooperate autonomously, carrying out tasks ranging from the assembly of micro parts to the handling of biological cells. Many advances have already been in the overall realisation of this goal. One further step in the process is the development of a miniaturized wireless communication module for bidirectional communication with the robots. This has been achieved through a module with two subcomponents: a transceiver for the microrobots and the external communication transceiver. The system adopted is a single master multi slave topology, where the external unit is the master and the robots are the slaves. Robots and computer communicate using Infra Red, with data rates ranging from Slow IR (9.6 kbits/s) to Fast IR (4 Mbits/s). Receiver circuits can adapt to frequency deviations of up to 5 % in all IR modes. All the robots in a particular robot cluster can receive data simultaneously in the form of data packet. Additionally communication is possible with each robot individually through the use of unique identification numbers (IDs). Data packets containing a particular ID are transmitted and then interpreted only by the corresponding robot. Furthermore, each robot has an on-board communication subsystem. This has an Application Specific Integrated Circuit, ASIC, module which is integrated with the ASIC chip of the robot electronics and a commercial IR transceiver. This performs well with regard to size and power requirements. An additional feature is the external communication transceiver USB2.0 computer link. Successful communication between all components in the system has been indicated. Future steps will include using this wireless communication system on an industrial scale. Because of its small size and low power usage, it may be possible to use it for communication with active medical implants.
