Gumstix announces Robostix robotics board

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

gumstix announces robostix expansion board
designed in collaboration with robotics customers around the world

World's smallest Linux Computers drive high function, low cost 
solution for robotics

Palo Alto, Calif., June 28, 2005 - gumstix, inc., maker of the 
world's smallest full function miniature computers (FFMC), today 
announced its robostix board, the company's first expansion board 
specifically designed for robotics.

"The new robostix board meets so many of our design goals, and 
perhaps dreams," said Professor Richard Vaughan of the Autonomy 
(Robotics) Lab in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser 
University (SFU) near Vancouver, Canada, "The overall robotics 
solution from gumstix gives us complete freedom of movement and an 
efficient design at such a low cost. We will be using the gumstix in 
our design and testing of forty robots working together".

The Autonomy Lab at SFU has standardized on the gumstix connex 
platform, robostix and cfstix (for WiFi). "These gumstix products 
have reduced the size, power consumption and student programming time 
while increasing the robot's mobility and our control," continued 
Professor Vaughan. "Additionally, we are able to use, and make 
available to everyone, our existing Player software on the gumstix". 
Player is an open-source project for robotics interfacing.

In addition to signals from the gumstix motherboard, the robostix 
expansion board exposes 6 PWM Channels (2x8 bit, 6 programmable), 8 
A/D, 24 GPIO, 2 UART at logic levels and an in-system programming 
port. The Atmega128 has 5V logic. robostix offers three power inputs: 
V-RoboBatt, V_Power and  V-Motor. The connectors use 
industry-standard 0.1 inch spacing and, if wanted, the robostix board 
connects to the 60-pin hirose connector available on the gumstix 
basix and connex platforms. robostix may also be used stand-alone.

Designers seeking bluetooth wireless networking can use robostix with 
either the basix platform or the connex platform now. For projects 
seeking higher speed wireless connectivity, robostix and the gumstix 
connex platform may be connected to the cfstix expansion board, which 
offers a compact flash adapter that may be driven by a wide range of 
WiFi compact flash cards.

The form factor of robostix is roughly the same as the waysmall 
expansion board: 80 mm x 35 mm. The robostix expansion board costs 
$49.

In an unprecedented move for hardware design companies, Gordon 
Kruberg, Founder and CEO of gumstix, inc., published the development 
schematic of the robostix board on the gumstix website.  "We wanted 
gumstix to meet the real challenges and needs of robotics designers," 
stated Kruberg.  "Requesting direct feedback from our customers 
ensured that our robotics solution was on the mark," he added.

The production robostix board was finalized after many design 
iterations, each of which caused much debate and comparisons of 
practical needs between customers, educators and the gumstix design 
team.

"One of my key goals in creating our whole company, and the gumstix 
product line, was to make a difference in the robotics industry", 
Kruberg shared. "We've had positive feedback for robostix to date and 
can foresee achieving our goal".



About gumstix

gumstix develops and sells small, inexpensive, high performance, Full 
Function Miniature Computers (FFMC). Built on an open source 
platform, the award winning gumstix product line supports the growing 
Linux devices market and offers motherboards, expansion boards and 
waysmall computers. The company sells directly to commercial users, 
designers, and open source enthusiasts in the embedded, wired and 
wireless devices, and application-server markets.

Based near Palo Alto, California, gumstix is privately owned and 
operated.  For more information, visit    http://www.gumstix.com

And of course, check the robostix schematics at:

http://www.gumstix.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=+Robo...

About Simon Fraser University

Simon Fraser University, named after the explorer Simon Fraser, 
opened in September 1965 on Burnaby Mountain, near Vancouver, BC, 
Canada. In less than  40 years, SFU has gained an international 
reputation for its strengths in the liberal arts and sciences, as 
well as for its innovative interdisciplinary and professional 
programs. SFU offers programs at the graduate and undergraduate level 
to approximately 25,000  students.

The Autonomy Lab builds life-like machines. Their goal is to increase 
the autonomy (i.e. self-direction and self-maintenance) of robots and 
other machines. More information about the SFU Autonomy Lab may be 
found at this link:

http://autonomy.cs.sfu.ca/








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Don Anderson		http://www.gumstix.com


Education & technical info: 	http://www.gumstix.com/support.html

FAQ			http://www.gumstix.org/tikiwiki/tiki-list_faqs.php

Mailing list:  
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