CORE2 and CORE2-ROS boards side by side | Image credit: Husarion

CORE2 was showcased earlier this year at the Hannover Messe trade fair, and just like previous generation it is part of Husarion’s robotic development platform which is focused on making robot building more accessible for everyone.

What can Husarion CORE2 do?

CORE2 comes in two flavors. There’s the standalone low-power real-time connected computer with on-board ESP32 WiFi module for energy efficient or cloud-based projects.

Robot Operating System

CORE2-ROS harvests the processing power of an attached single-board computer such as the Raspberry Pi 3 or ASUS Tinker Board, while retaining real-time capabilities. This combo can run an Ubuntu based ROS image and lets you develop more advanced projects such as the ROSbot autonomous robot.

Everything is on-board, this makes things easy primarily because no additional hardware shields or interfaces are required for connecting motors or sensors. There are 4 DC motor ports with integrated H-bridges, 6 servo interfaces, a DC/DC converter for selecting voltage independently for each servo, 42 I/O pins, WiFi and other communication interfaces.

Husarion CORE2 robot controller | Image credit: Husarion

CORE2 is compatible with Arduino libraries — for every sensor or peripheral you want to connect there’s already a library written for it you can use without modifications.

Real-time processing. CORE2 controllers do not use up CPU cycles for high frequency data polling, relying instead on dedicated timers, DMA channels and interrupts, all driven by a RTOS (real-time operating system) and optimized libraries.

CORE2brick is an optional add-on interface and accessory kit for easily connecting LEGO Mindstorms hardware, accepting 4 LEGO motors and 6 LEGO sensors.

CORE2 servo controller module can control up to 12 servos delivering a selectable output voltage of 5-8.6 V, and 4 A maximum current. Each CORE2 or CORE2-ROS accepts up to 4 such servo controllers.

CORE2block is an adapter kit with required electrical connections for the Makeblock platform.

Here you can find several interesting projects made with CORE2 and CORE2-ROS controllers.

And there’s also the programming.

Programming the CORE2 controller

The easiest method to start programming is of course through the online web-based IDE. Simply log into your Husarion Cloud account, and create a script using templates in a few easy steps. Build the generated code and download it to the CORE2 controller.

Husarion cloud IDE workflow

You can also create a web-based control interface with video streaming and WebRTC support in no time. Simply select your project, define access rights and everything will be in place at the generated URL. A secure SSL connection is established between your robot and the cloud.

Program your CORE2 robot offline either by installing the Husarion extension to Visual Studio Code, or simply use the Husarion SDK in any mainstream IDE.

The powerful hFramework open-source real-time library lets you write some pretty advanced code in a very efficient manner.

CORE2 controller board specs

CORE2 controller board features | Image credit: Husarion

Real-time MCU: STM32F4, ARM CORTEX-M4, 168 MHz, 192 kB RAM, 1 MB Flash;

hRPi – expansion port for add-ons depending on version:

CORE2-ROS: optional SBC – either Raspberry Pi 3 (ARMv8, 1.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 16GB Flash) or ASUS Tinker Board (ARMv7-A, 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 16GB Flash);

CORE2: included ESP32 based Wi-Fi module;

hMot: 4 DC motor outputs + 4 quadrature encoder inputs 1 A cont./ 2 A max. current per output (2 A/4 A current in parallel);

hServo: 6 servo ports with selectable supply voltage (5-8.6 V) 3 A cont./4.5 A max. current total;

hSens: 6 sensor ports (4xGPIO, ADC/ext. interrupt, I2C/UART, 5 V out);

hExt: Extension port (12xGPIO, 7xADC, SPI, I2C, UART, 2x ext. interrupt);

USB serial port through FTDI chip

USB host with 1 A charging capability

micro SD card slot;

CAN interface with onboard transceiver;

DBG SWD (Serial Wire Debug): STM32F4 debug port;

Supply voltage: 6-16 VDC (built-in overcurrent, overvoltage, and reverse polarity protection).

Let’s take a look at the CORE2 boards and some of their features.

#gallery-0-3 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-3 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-3 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-3 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

jh

Nickel-cadmium battery inner structure

Lead-Acid battery inner structure

Sealed (valve regulated) lead-acid battery

Roof of a house plated with solar panels

sss

Solar power system diagram using a focusing collector

Lead-acid battery inner structure

Common Ni-Cd battery

Domestic hot water solar panel

Ni-Fe cell schematics

z

Pipe heated by focusing mirrors

Photovoltaic cell principle of operation

z

za

k

a

zz

s

Navigation scale

Navigation principles

Carnegie Mellon’s Tartan driving around

Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout – ADXL335

DFRobot ±1.5, 2, 4, and 6g Triple Axis Accelerometer

Phidgets USB 9 DoF

Parallax MMA7455 3-Axis

ADXL321

WiTilt V3.0 Wireless Accelerometer (Photo source )

LilyPad ADXL335 (Photo source robotshop)

Machine Science Sensor / GPS Board (Photo source robotshop)

BMA180 Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout (Photo source geeetech)

Senix TSPC-21S-232

Grove – Ultrasonic Ranger (Photo source seeedstudio.com)

Parallax PING (Photo source parallax.com)

Maxbotix LV-MaxSonar-EZ1 (Photo source pololu.com)

Devantech SRF01(Photo source robot-electronics.co.uk)

LV-MaxSonar-EZ4 (Photo source maxbotix.com)

Maxbotix XL-MaxSonar-WR1 (Photo source maxbotix.com)

DFRobot URM05 (Photo source dfrobot.com)

Smashing Robotics in Winter

smashing robotics

Smashing Robotics

Image credits: Husarion

Where to buy

There are only a few days to go of the CORE2 campaign. For US $89 you can get the standard CORE2 controller with WiFi.

For US $99 you can buy the CORE2-ROS board and accessory kit for attaching to a SBC. You will need to fork out about $140-160 for a complete CORE2-ROS kit including an SBC of your choice.

Complete robot building kits are also available — the CORE2 telepresence robot kit costs $249, while the complete ROSbot autonomous robot kit will set you back $1,290.

CORE2brick, CORE2block and servo controller optional modules cost $39 and 24 respectively.

RoboCORE

Do you have an idea for a robot and want to quickly start building it? Or maybe you would like to build one but don’t have that much expertise with electronics? What if you have an already built project and want to add more features to it? Worry no more RoboCOREhas been just launched on Kickstarter, this is a cloud powered development platform that promises to let you focus on your creations…

Intel Galileo, an x86 Alternative to ARM Development Boards

Galileo is a microcontroller board featuring the first implementation of Intel’s Quark architecture, which is basically a 32-bit x86 Pentium class system-on-a-chip (SoC). The board is designed as an actual Arduino product, therefore it is fully compatible in terms of both hardware and software with the Arduino ecosystem. More than that, Galileo is the first Arduino board with a standard PC…