PCBricks

A PCBrick is a complete x86-compatible PC, designed for maximum modularity in terms of mechanical construction and data interface provision. It has been designed explicitly for robotic applications. The main design goal has been to minimize power consumption while maintaining acceptable performance of the single PCBrick: if more computing power is required, multiple PCBricks can be used. In this way the use of powerful and power-hungry PCs can be confined to the applications where they are really necessary.

The PCBrick design is based on the use of motherboards with mini-ITX form factor (17cm x 17cm). Presently, the PCBrick mount VIA EN15000 motherboards, fitted with a single-core VIA C7 processor having a clock frequency of 1.5GHz, and with an extensive set of interfaces. An aluminum frame is used, made with Item profiles, for easy mechanical connections to external systems. Included in the frame of the PCBrick are an 80GB 2,5” fast (7200RPM) hard disk, 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a DC/DC power supply accepting 6V to 24V input. The frame includes the space necessary for a PCI card and fixtures for the mounting of additional hardware.

The software architecture of PCBricks is based on the Linux operating system.