Hardware design and distributed embedded control architecture of a mobile soccer robot

Designing robust, modular and fast mobile robots, operating in high dynamic environments is a challenging task. This includes design of the mechanics and the control system of the robot. This paper presents the modular hardware design of a mobile soccer robot platform, including the mechanics, electronic system and the low-level distributed control architecture of the robot. The basic idea behind this paper is not to introduce a new distributed control architecture, both at low and high levels of control, but to focus on a novel approach to manage the distributed control system of a single robot, consisting of a number of microcontroller based modules connected together through a data bus.