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05 Mar
65

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) – Basics

In Robotics | 1 Comment

In layman language, PWM is a technique in which you vary the ratio of HIGH time to LOW time of a pulse. One of the applications is simulation of an analogue signal using digital TTL signals. What if you want to supply 2.5 Volts to a component? You can use a voltage divider circuit using R1=R2 and then supply the output across any one of these resistors to your component of interest. Simple enough? But what you are overlooking is the fact that this circuit is highly inefficient as there is always going to be power dissipation across the resistors….

27 Feb
43

WHY YOU NEED A CLOCK SOURCE

In Robotics | 1 Comment

AN INTRODUCTION TO CHOOSING AND USING CLOCK SOURCES The clock for the AVR is its heartbeat. It basically defines when a processor will do an instruction. Normal instructions for the chip take between one to three clock cycles to complete; a clock cycle is the low-hi-low transition of the clock. So the faster the clock runs, the faster the chip works. This is why a Pentium 1 GHz chip is a LOT faster than a Pentium 100 MHz chip – many more instructions are executed per second. However be careful – the speed of the clock doesn’t actually mean a…

27 Feb
8

Robotics: Origin and Latest Trends

In Robotics | No comment

Out of the shrouds of the myth of imagination, the Science of Robotics took its first faltering steps into the real world half a century back. Its infancy being over, the young discipline is now extending its arms towards diverse goals – to new applications, to new environments, to meet new demands of a new society – Still achieving, still pursuing” in its endless quest for PERFECTION. Robotics is a branch of applied science, the popular conception of which came not from science, but from drama, fiction and cinema. The word “robot” was first used in 1921 by Czech playwright…

18 Aug
20

Types of robots

In Robotics | No comment

There are many ways how you could possibly define different types of robots. As I have seen the possible divisions vary widely. The main reason of these differences is that different tutors often tend to have different views on what should be taught under “robotics”.   For example – some tutors that teach robotics usually focus mainly on industrial robotics, neglecting service robots completely. Therefore when talking about types of robots they usually talk about types of industrial robots. There is a strong reason for this though – the vast majority of robotics engineers will have to deal mostly with…

18 Aug
29

How to Use Timers in Atmel Microcontrollers

In Robotics | No comment

We use timers every day – the simplest one can be found on your wrist. A simple clock will time the seconds, minutes and hours elapsed in a given day – or in the case of a twelve hour clock, since the last half-day. AVR timers do a similar job, measuring a given time interval. An AVR timer in simplest term is a register. Timers generally have a resolution of 8 or 16 bits. So an 8 bit timer is 8 bits wide, and is capable of holding value within 0-255. But this register has a magical property – its…

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