System Summary

MAX is a compact low-cost 4-wheel drive, 4-wheel steer, high-clearance agile durable chassis, outfitted with sensors and electronics that make it ideally suited for supporting research relevant to intelligent teleoperation and as a low-cost autonomous robotic test bed and appliance.  The suspension has adequate travel to allow for sufficient dexterity to run on rugged outdoor terrain. MAX is a highly compact yet incredibly versatile COTS rover that is field-serviceable and easily repairable.  The chassis is designed so that it is modular and reconfigurable with a wide variety of sensors and actuators to suite the user’s needs, making it ideally suited for robotics research and development.

Physical Modules:

• Four wheel drive with front and rear differentials
• Twin, independent Ackerman steering with tight turning radius (25 cm)
• Carbon fiber composite frame
• Compact (18” x 15” x 19” LxWxH), lightweight chassis design (gross weight: 9.5kg)
• Running gear attached to sophisticated suspension system capable of carrying up to 7 kg of extra payload
• Top speed of 5 m/s, sufficient for lab and field deployment
• Stereo camera pair (640x480 @ 30fps or 1280x960 @ 7.5fps 24-bit color) mounted on an articulated panospheric pan and tilt unit
• (On select models) Inertial Navigation Unit (3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis magnetometers) with integrated, WAAS enabled GPS and DGPS option
• 10 strategically placed sonar rangefinders with integrated photo sensors
• Large variety of peripheral connectivity via FireWire (IEEE 1394), USB 2.0, Serial (RS232, 488, I2C), Gigabit Ethernet, PCI, CANBus, GPIO, A/D, PWM, Quadrature and counters, Parallel, DVI and S-Video

Computational Modules:

• High performance 1.6 GHz Pentium-M processor, upgradeable to 2.2GHz
• 512 MB DDR RAM (up to PC3200) upgradeable to 1GB
• Low-power consumption, Industry standard x86-based mini-ITX form factor
• I/O board with a real-time kernel and DIO/AIO/PWM peripheral support

Starting at $20,000 USD