SRV-1 Blackfin Mobile Robot – Meet Wall-Eâ€™s Grandpa

Sure any sci-fi geek can differentiate a cheesy T-800 from a sexy TX, but it takes a true science fan to own a robot and much more to operate one. Having fun with robots doesn’t need a fat research fund or a PhD in engineering. A few technical know how and some cash can easily get you an out-of- the- box robot like the new SRV-1 Blackfin Mobile Surveillance Robot.

The SRV-1 is a fully assembled miniature mobile robot that can be controlled virtually anywhere thru Wi-Fi using a web browser with live video feed. It uses a 1000 MIPS 500MHz Blackfin processor, 32MB of SDRAM and 4MB Flash memory to store, process and execute instructions. It is built on a machined aluminum chassis equipped with a 1.3 Megapixel camera for surveillance (spy missions come to mind), 2 laser pointers for ranging, and additional ultrasonic ranging modules and I2C sensors for navigation. It can travel at a speed of 20cm – 40cm per second using tank like threads with differential drives motorized by four precision motors.
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The SRV-1 is powered by a Li-poly battery pack that can operate the robot for 4 hours per complete charge. This robot is the closest thing any aspiring robotics enthusiast can get to a military Predator or NASA Mars Rover. Using the robot is another story though as some technical knowledge of configuring a basic web server is needed to set up and operate the robot’s software.