[Tyler]

Axon II Microcontroller and Open Source Library
     



John Palmisano of the Society of Robots writes with
news of the Axon II
microcontroller, and a matching software
library designed specifically for robotics. The board is about 2.5
inches square (even though it looks 12 stories tall in the animated 3D
tour above!)

The Axon II, the microcontroller that powers my ERP, has finally gone on
sale today. It runs a new open source library called WebbotLib, which
works in a similar way to drivers on a PC. A user no longer needs to
deal with low-level coding for any common external hardware, as the
library is bound to already have a driver for it. Just plug and play, as
the demo videos demonstrate.

The Axon II, which sells for $118, is based on the ATmega640
processor with 64KB of flash, 4KB EEPROM and 8KB of SRAM. It includes 58
total IO ports, 16 ADC, I2C, SPI, 3 UARTs, USB, 15 PWM channels, support
for 25 servos, and 6 timers.
The WebbotLib
software library is written in C and licensed under the GNU GPL. For
more technical information on the Axon II controller, see the Axon
II specifications page. For
more video of the Axon II in action, check the Axon II
video page.
   

http://robots.net/article/2958.html