What is it?

MIKRIK - is an open-source two-wheel drive robot for robotic enthusiasts to study computer vision using 3D-cameras. Robot is fully assembled and tested before shipment. A ROS robot car to learn Visual SLAM, localisation, mapping, and navigation powered by Realsense 3D-camera. Raspberry Pi 4B 4GB included in the kit, and is used to create a ROS1 DiffDrive Controller. Use included Raspberry as SBC to have a ROS1 robot. Add any x86 or ARM single-board control computer like NUC, UP2, Radxa, Jetson or LattePanda to run your ROS2-applications to extend Mikrik capabilities.

Why did you make it?

I find out there are not so many cheap ROS-robots on the market. Either you have to buy an expensive platform like iRobot Create, Husarion, TurtleBot or just have a risk to fail following ROS1-ROS2 building tutorials.

I decided to provide developers a unified solution to learn ROS-robotics easier.

Single-Board Computers Support

MIKRIK runs ROS1 on Raspberry to read encoder data, control motors, and to create DiffDrive Controller ROS1 interface. This way Raspberry can be accessed by a ROS2 navigation node running on a separate SBC using ROS1-ROS1 bridge. Control software for Visual SLAM can be based on Intel Robotics SDK.

MIKRIK robot supports any SBC control board you have at home. Develop a ROS2-application using any x86 Intel CPU platform, or laptop.

• Connect it to a Raspberry board on a robot using a ROS1-ROS2 bridge by using Ethernet cable.
• Follow a Robotics SDK setup guide.

To make Mikrik robot work with Nvidia Jetson/Orin use a default Nvidia guide for a JetBot.

Project Documentation

You can read full project documentation, access source code and CAD-files on the Hackster project page

Included In The set

• x1 NEW MIKRIK V2 chassis made from shatterproof and flex plastic. Motors and wheels included.
• x1 Raspberry PI 4GB with 16GB SD-card and ROS1 ready-to-run system setup.
• x1 DFRobot HAT MotorDriver for Raspberry
• x1 3D-vision Intel Realsense camera D435i with cable
• Ethernet cable

Not included in the set

• Any single-board computer SBC if needed for a ROS2 development. Robot runs ROS1 applications using Raspberry included in the kit by default.
• Powerbank or a 3S Li-Po battery for an external SBC
• Li-Po battery like 2S 5000mAh to power Raspberry and motors
• Li-Po battery charger
• PS4 v2 Sony gamepad
• Micro HDMI-HDMI cable/adapter if needed.

Shipment and packaging

Robot is fully assembled and tested before shipment. Following my tutorial you can run all the commands described in the guide on Hackster project page Robot arrives fully assembled as you can see on images. You are eligible for a text consultation in case of any issues.