Electronics

Electrically, the heart of Octofungi is four Microchip PIC microcontrollers. These microcontrollers use a RISC architecture to achieve high speeds combined with low programming overheads. In addition, the brain sports five kilobytes of EEPROM memory. This memory is used for the neurotransmitters of the neural network. The microcontrollers get the inputs from the eyes by way of an eight channel A/D converter. The four microcontrollers reside in two circuit boards arranged in a flying saucer configuration. These two boards and the spine boards communicate by way of a central "spine connector."

The spine boards carry signals to and from the legs. One is a simple electrical conduit, while the other translated low voltage microcontroller signals to higher voltage muscle wire signals with logic level MOSFETs.

The electrical section is the leg sensors. These determine the position of the legs at any given time and feed it to the brain where all of the actual processing is done.

Finally, in Octofungi's pedestal is a five volt power supply for the brain and a twelve volt rectified supply for the muscle wires.

For information about the materials used in Octofungi, see materials.

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eyes brain body interlocks spine boards shoulders
legs leg sensors muscle wire materials electronics
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