Projects

ANT Robotic Vehicle

Built by the Canadian Department of National Defence, Vehicle Concepts Group, the ANT vehicle is an articulating, 4 wheel drive, 4 legged vehicle. This vehicle can lower itself to go under obstacles under 2 feet tall or raise itself to step on to obstacles higher than itself. It combines the efficiency of a rolling vehicle with the maneuverability of a walking vehicle. A 4 cylinder, horizontally opposed gas engine powers the hydraulic pumps that supply pressure for all the hydraulic motors and actuators.

The vehicle will initially have four CAN nodes;
The first node is a PC104 format 486 communicating through a spread spectrum Rf modem to the control station. A solid state hard drive provides the control program and converts the RF protocol to a Zanthic PC104 CAN card connected to the other three nodes.

The second node is a 68HC11 running the Zanthic Cheetah Monitor software providing analog and digital I/O and current drivers to the various engine controls.

A third CAN node is a stepper motor throttle controller. When a specified rpm is sent to this node its internal feedback loop will maintain the desired rpm regardless of the hydraulic load placed on it.

The fourth node resides in the center body and provides hydraulic control and sensor feedback for the center body actuators. All electronics (except for the 486 processor) and all software was provided by Zanthic Technologies Inc.