Conditioning Platform for RISE Legs Testing

Will and I have realised a preliminary platform for testing of sensorized leg of RISE robot. The platform allow the conditioning of 2 half-bridge configuration strain gauge and one 2-axis accelerometer. The signal outcome from the half-bridge strain gauge is amplified about 640 time previous automatic offset compensation (by a dedicated push button). The outcome signal is referred to 2,5V . Same for accelerometer signals: in this case the amplification is about 5 time. The auto-offset compensation is performed by a PIC18F1320? microcontroller.

• Picture of Electronics Board:
  

The electronic circuit schematic is reported in the file LegConditioningPlatform.ppt

The firmware of microcontroller is reported in the file LegConditionPlatformFirmware.zip

The platform is also able to acquire signals this 4 conditioned signal at about 50 Hz (not precise frequency!) and send the results of conversion through an stream of ASCII characters by RS232 connection. (Protocol is also reported in detail in the file LegConditioningPlatform.ppt; for the acquisition can be used Windows Hyperterminal).

The acquisition can be alternatively performed by a dedicated external conditioned analog output connector.