The MIKRIK Project Delivers an Accessible Platform for ROS and ROS 2 Robots, with Visual SLAM
This clever little robot by maker mxlfrbt can be built as a Raspberry Pi-powered basic ROS machine or upgraded with a depth-sensing camera.
Pseudonymous maker "mxlfrbt" has designed a Raspberry Pi-powered Robot Operating System (ROS) wheeled robot — with an optional DFRobot LattePanda 3 Delta upgrade to bring ROS 2 capabilities and Intel RealSense-powered visual mapping.
"Recently I was playing with robots using ROS and ROS 2," mxlfrbt explains. "I tried to build an F1tenth robot project using Intel NUC, then switched to a robot vacuum cleaners, played with omnidirectional robots. I [discovered] there are not so many x86-powered robots that you can build from A to Z just following an instruction manual. Either you have to buy expensive platform like iRobot Create, Husarion, TurtleBot or just has a risk to be [stuck] in a ROS/ROS 2 building tutorials mess all over the web."
Deciding to make life easier for those who follow, mxlfrbt designed the Mini "Kreative" Robotics Intellective Kit, or MIKRIK. A laser-cut two-wheeled robotic chassis with 3D-printed fixings, MIKRIK plays host to a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 4GB or better — serving as a Robot Operating System (ROS) controller and linking to the robot's hardware via its general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header.
That's only half of the project, however. For those who want more, mxlfrbt has designed an upgrade that adds a DFRobot LattePande 3 Delta single-board computer, powered by a an Intel Processor N5105, to add support for ROS 2 — and an Intel RealSense depth-sensing camera for real-time vision simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). "[The] Raspberry [Pi] is not powerful enough to handle [the] vision part," mxlfrbt explains, "and [the] [Intel] Robotics SDK [Software Development Kit] is not supported on Arm architecture. For MIKRIK project [the Raspberry Pi] is used only for the low-cost tasks. The high-load computer vision tasks, SLAM, and navigation will be done by a separate board."
For those who have a personal preference for a different x86 single-board computer, mxlfrbt suggests devices including the Intel NUC family or the Up Squared range could be used in place of the LattePanda 3 Delta — but in all cases will be required alongside the Raspberry Pi, rather than in place of it. "The project evolved from Raspberry [Pi], and I decided not to spend time writing GPIO support for any board that has GPIO pinout," mxlfrbt explains. "If you are willing to do so, let me know."
A full tutorial on building and programming your own MIKRIK is available here on Hackster.io; mxlfrbt has also begun selling kits on Tindie, priced at $39.99 for a base chassis, $299 for a kit with all hardware bar the LattePanda or other x86 single-board computer and batteries, or $499 for a ready-to-run version requiring only batteries.