RollaEng is a development firm providing custom solutions to a variety of clients.
  • LabRat™: Miniature Robot

LabRat v1

Blue: Bottom Board, Red: Top Board

  • Introduction

LabRat™ is a small, open-source robot designed to be used by students, researchers and hobbyists for a variety of applications.

What distinguishes LabRat™ from other small robot kits is an optical mouse sensor on the bottom of the robot, providing high-rate, high-accuracy position information, as well as the ability for instructors to incorporate machine vision into their courses, as the optical sensor is effectively a small CCD camera.

  • Features

Labrat™ has several features that make it attractive to students, researchers and hobbyists. There are many ways to communicate between LabRat™ and other devices through wire and radio methods.

The LabRat™ has the following features:

  1. Atmel AtMega324p AVR
  2. Three infrared LED/photosensor pairs
  3. Two whiskers for tactical sensing
  4. Optical sensor for position detection
  5. Two serial ports
  6. xBee capable
  7. Gumstix capable
  • Applications

The first use of LabRat™ was as an educational tool for the Introduction to Robotics Class at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Students started out by programming a simulated LabRat™ in Player/Stage. The simulation realistically portrayed the sensors and capabilities of LabRat™ so that the students would be more familiar with the platform when they received the robots later in the semester.

The LabRat™ is also ideal for research and hobby uses.

  • Resources

More information about the LabRat™ can be found below