The Hemisson is a small two-wheeled robot designed for education and teaching. Equipped with several sensors and a programmable 8bit MCU, the Hemisson is able to avoid obstacles, detect ambient light intensity and can be programmed to follow a line on the floor. Other equipment on the basic Hemisson robot include programmable LEDs, a buzzer and switches. It works with a standard 9 Volt battery. Pre-defined modes include dancing, line-following, and object avoidance.

The Hemisson has a serial command interface to externally control Hemisson's functions and to retrieve Hemisson sensor data. The same serial interface is can be used to control and retrieve data from the robot's external modules due to the design of its extension bus. This serial interface is also used to download new or user-modified (PIC-compiled) firmware to the Hemisson.

The beauty of this serial interface control is that it allows external command, control, and data acquisition of the Hemisson. The robot can either be tethered with a physical RS232 cable to your PC (included with the Hemisson Pack), or have a virtual RS232 serial connection using Hemisson's Wireless BlueTooth module (sold separately). For example, you can initiate a command to move the Hemisson using a simple command over the serial port of "D,5,-5 ". This will move the Hemisson in a circle (holonomic motion), the left wheel moving forward at a speed of 5, and the right wheel moving backwards at a speed of -5. You can also retrieve sensor data. A command such as "N " will return back the 8-bit proximity sensor readings of each of the 8 proximity sensors. To test Hemisson's interface, you could simply use the program "hyperterminal" that comes with Windows, and configure it to Hemisson's serial COM port. This serial interface opens up the possibility that almost any language or operating system can be used to develop robot brains of unlimited complexity, since your brain-power can reside on a host PC. For example, the open-software Pyrobotics at www.pyrorobotics.org can be used to facilitate the development of a Hemisson artificial brain. Or, you can develop your own robot software applications in Python, Java, Visual-C, C#, ruby, perl, etc., as long as you can establish a serial connection.

Webots STD is available as a separate software package that includes a Hemisson 3D simulator and a visual programming interface (BotStudio). With Webots, you can build your own robot's behavior by linking motor states to transition on sensor readings. Then, you can either simulate the behavior with Webots, or compile it (PIC compiler not included) to transfer the program directly to the on-board processor. Webots will allow you to model your environment and simulate the robot's behavior in 3D.

The Hemisson Extension Bus system provides a great and easy way to extend the robot capabilities. Several modules are available and all the technical details are available to design your own extension. With the Extension Bus system, the robot can be improved without limits. Please send us an email or call us if you have any questions. There is also an on-line Hemisson forum at :kforum.k-team.com

Hemisson is designed and manufactured by K-Team Inc, Switzerland.

Manufacturer's information may be found at: www.hemisson.com

Slide show: Hemisson Slide Show