Alice mobile robot

The Alice is a very small "sugarcube" mobile robot (2x2x2cm) developed at the ASL at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland between 1998 and 2004.

It was designed with the following goals:
* Design an intelligent mobile robot as cheap and small as possible
* Study collective behavior with a large quantity of robots
* Acquire knowledge in highly integrated intelligent system
* Provide a hardware platform for further research

Technical Specifications

Main Features

* Dimensions: 22 mm x 21 mm x 20 mm
* Velocity: 40 mm/s
* Power consumption: 12 - 17 mW
* Communication: local IR 6 cm, IR & radio 10 m
* Power autonomy: up to 10 hours

Main Robot

* 2 SWATCH motors with wheels and tires
* Microcontroller PIC16LF877 with 8Kwords Flash program memory
* Plastic frame and flex print with all the elecronic components
* 4 active IR proximity sensors (reflection measurement)
* NiMH rechargeable battery
* Receiver for remote control
* 24 pin connector for extension, voltage regulator and power switch

Extension modules

* Linear camera 102 pixels
* Bidirectional radio communication
* Tactile sensors
* ZigBee ready radio module running TinyOS

Projects and applications

* 20 robots at Swiss Expo.02
* RobOnWeb
* Navigation and map building
* Soccer Kit : 2 teams of 3 Alices play socceron an A4 page
* Collective behavior investigations: video.mov 1 and 2
* Mixed society robots-insects as part of the European LEURRE project
* Investigation of levels of selection and relatedness on the evolution of cooperation in the ANTS project

External links

* [http://asl.epfl.ch/research/systems/Alice/alice.php] - The homepage of the Alice microrobot at the Autonomous Systems Lab at EPFL
* [http://asl.epfl.ch] - Autonomous Systems Lab at EPFL
* [http://www5.epfl.ch/swis/page1358.html] - Collaborative Coverage with up to 30 Alices
* [http://www5.epfl.ch/swis/page9117.html] - ZigBee ready radio module running TinyOS

References

* Caprari, G. Autonomous Micro-Robots: Applications and Limitations. PhD Thesis EPFL n° 2753 [http://asl.epfl.ch/aslInternalWeb/ASL/publications/uploadedFiles/Caprari_phd2753.pdf PDF] [http://asl.epfl.ch/publications.php?displayabstract=316&Search=Refresh&Team=&Type=Checked&AuthorID=0&Project=0&SearchText=%20Alice&ShowAbstracts=#316 Abstract]