Part of the team took care of the “elec plate”. This particular mechanism centralizes all the electronics on the robot. This year’s novelty is that it is not made of wood and that CAD was used. The elec plate of this year is really well designed, we’d never had such a well-conceived elec plate since the beginning of Robo’Lyon.
This electrical plate includes:
- The PDH (Power Distribution Hub): it provides electricity to all the components of the robot
- The Roborio: it’s the robot’s brain, it takes care of the calculations and manages the functioning of the robot
- The Wifi terminal: it ensures good communication with the drivestation
- The PCH (Pneumatic Control Hub) : it manages all the power supply of the pneumatic system (compressor, solenoids activation)
- The compressor : it sucks the air to put it in the tanks, which will compress the air
- Solenoids: they manage the air flow (a door that lets air pass or not)
- Motor controllers : they manage the flow of current and decide at what power to send it to the motors
- Main breaker : emergency stop of the robot
In short, the elec plate is a central element of the robot, which allows the pneumatics and electricity to work!