Build a four-wheeled or four-motor robot with matched motor control and encoder feedback.
Order manufacturing-ready circuit boards directly using the included fabrication files.
Add tilt and orientation sensing to a robotics project using the built-in IMU.
| minindupasan/nexus | 100/rutgers-pbl-dining-2015 | a15n/a15n_old | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 0 | — | — |
| Language | HTML | HTML | HTML |
| Last pushed | — | 2015-12-01 | 2016-06-18 |
| Maintenance | — | Dormant | Dormant |
| Setup difficulty | hard | easy | easy |
| Complexity | 4/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 |
| Audience | developer | general | general |
Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.
Requires KiCad software plus ordering a physical PCB from a manufacturer before it can be used at all.
NEXUS is a physical circuit board design, not software you install and run. It is a small robotics controller board, about 70 by 70 millimeters, made by a hardware brand called casper.robotics. If you build one, it lets you drive four separate small motors on a robot at the same time, each with its own feedback sensor so the controller knows exactly how far and how fast each wheel or joint has moved. The board is built around an STM32F415 microcontroller chip, which is the brain that runs the motor control logic. Each of the four motors gets its own driver chip that handles the actual power switching, plus a way to measure how much current that motor is drawing, which helps catch stalls or overloads. The board also includes a 9-axis orientation sensor, so a robot using it can sense tilt, rotation, and heading, and a power monitor chip that tracks battery voltage and current draw. It runs off a small rechargeable battery pack, connects to a computer over USB-C for programming, and has a tiny screen, status lights, and a buzzer so it can report what it is doing without needing a laptop attached. To actually use this project, you need KiCad, which is free software for designing electronic circuit boards, plus access to a PCB manufacturer to actually produce the physical board from the design files included here. The repository also includes the manufacturing files needed to order boards directly, along with a full bill of materials listing every part. This is aimed at people building robots, whether hobbyists, students, or small companies, who need a compact and thought-out four-motor controller rather than wiring one together from scratch. It is licensed under the CERN Open Hardware License, an open license for physical designs: anyone can study, build, and sell boards from it, and if you publish a modified version you must share your changes under the same terms. The NEXUS name and casper.robotics branding are kept reserved and are not covered by that open license.
An open-hardware circuit board design that lets a robot control four motors at once with sensors for position, tilt, and power monitoring.
Mainly HTML. The stack also includes KiCad, STM32F415, DRV8874.
Free to study, build, manufacture, and sell boards from this design, but if you publish a modified version you must share it under the same open license.
Setup difficulty is rated hard, with roughly 1day+ to a first successful run.
Mainly developer.
This repo across BitVibe Labs
double-check against the repo, no cap.