Designers, Try These Robotic Components for Automation Solutions

New Tech Tuesdays

Join journalist Tommy Cummings for a weekly look at all things interesting, new, and noteworthy for design engineers.

Published September 8, 2021

Once you've entered the world of engineering, you start looking at science-fiction action movies, such as The Terminator franchise, in a whole different way.

Before, you could suspend reality, accept the cinematic special effects, and appreciate the futuristic T-800 cyborgs while not thinking about the plausibility of their actual engineering.

But now, with engineering in your skillset, you're now wondering about how the Terminator is walking up the stairs without tripping, what colors is it seeing, and how much memory would it need? Cyborgs would need a lot of technology.

Typically, most design engineers don't have cyborgs on their projects list—unless, of course, they're on the Hanson Robotics team that's developing humanoid-like robots like Sophia aimed at human interaction. You've seen the videos.

Whatever lab they're in, design engineers are working on ways to develop, build, upgrade, or optimize their latest robotic projects with the component solutions.

In this week's New Tech Tuesdays, we'll look at new products from Trinamic, Intel®, and Renesas that help robots see, move, and think.

The Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D455 is a depth-tracking camera that offers additional range and precision, exactly what's needed to develop robotics and drones. The D455 features stereo cameras that provide depth information for various uses, indoor and outdoor. The camera has an extended distance between sensors that measures 95mm, meaning that at 4m, the depth error is less than 2 percent. The camera also integrates an inertial measurement unit (IMU) to allow applications to refine depth awareness in any situation where the camera moves, which is a valuable feature in robotics. The camera's optimal range is 6 meters, twice the D400, without a cut in field of view.

Looking for a versatile, discreet gate driver to power up? The Trinamic TMC6140-LA 3-Phase BLDC MOSFET Gate Driver is suited for applications that operate in the range of 5V to 24V and supports motor power ratings from 1W to 1kW. It's ideal for generating power for industrial drives, power tools, pumps, fans, battery-operated devices, factory and laboratory automation, and robotics. The TMC6140 is designed to work with a single external power supply rail. The fully integrated 3-phase MOSFET driver works with Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSM) and Brushless DC (BLDC) motors. Size-wise, the driver comes in a QFN35 package (0.5mm x 6.0mm).

To evaluate the TMC6140, designers can turn to the Trinamic TMC6140-EVAL-KIT Evaluation Kit. The board uses the standard schematic and offers several options to test different modes of operation. The kit includes an MCU board Landungsbrücke, Eselsbrücke bridge board, and the TMC6140-EVAL driver board.

Renesas Electronics RA6M5 32-Bit Microcontroller Group is a family of microprocessors based on the 200MHz Arm® Cortex®-M33 core with TrustZone®. They're ideal for Internet of Things (IoT) applications requiring strong security, rich connectivity, and a large amount of embedded RAM for connectivity stacks. You'll find them in such applications as wired Ethernet, enhanced security, metering, and industry, and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. They also feature a broad range of connectivity interfaces, such as CAN FD, Ethernet MAC with DMA, USB Full Speed, High Speed, and more.

As the technology evolves, design engineers will be tasked with developing and maintaining robotic technology. They have a wealth of robotic solutions to develop efficient and practical machines. If we learned anything from the Terminator movies, it's important to create efficient and practical robotics for the good of humanity.