Microrobot Troubleshooting: AVR Port Malfunction

Perhaps the most serious of all hardware issues that we are facing right now is the problem of malfunction of the AVR ports. Although it is still unknown how many of the reported issues are caused by this problem, recently many teams have noticed strange behaviors that match the symptoms of malfunctioning AVR ports.

Typically either or both wheels stop completely or show very jerky movements as if its spinning velocity was disturbed by some kind of noise. This is the only noticeable symptom under normal usage conditions.

Robots with AVR port malfunction, despite the obviously noticeable wheel spinning problem might pass all of the following tests -- note that not passing any of the tests below does not mean the robot does not have AVR port malfunction, it might just mean it has a more complex combination of different problems:
-- ARM programming is OK, program checks and runs smoothly and console debug shows no problem at all.
-- AVR programming is also OK, program checks and runs smoothly, with console debug also fine.
-- ARM might listen fine to infrared commands, and respond appropriately.
-- AVR and ARM communicate just find with each other through the SPI port.
-- Connectors show no mechanical problem, there are no short-circuits in the boards, the solders are fine.

Please report here: http://mixedreality.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/index.php/topic,118.0.html

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Microrobot
• micro
• robot
• micro-robot
• CITIZEN
• RoboCup
• Hardware
• Troubleshooting
• ARM
• AVR
• malfunction
• deffect