Modules

A system of modules connect to the laptop, allowing it to interface with devices such as the motors, joystick, and sonar. Some devices are connected directly to the laptop, such as through the firewire port. However, a large proportion of devices are connected to the laptop's parallel port via the CAN bus.

View a schematic diagram of the modules, power distribution, and code.

CAN Bus Devices

CAN (Controller Area Network) is the chosen protocol for networking several of the modules on the IGVC robot. Much information exists on the workings of CAN, but I have selected several presenations that give a detailed description of CAN's physical layer, data link layer, and silicon implementation. They are kind of long reads, but are worthwhile especially if you wish to program the hardware.

CAN Presentation on the Physical Layer CAN Presentation on the Data Link Layer CAN Presentation on Silicon Implementation