A microprocessor, or CPU, is like the ‘brain’ of a computer. It is mounted on a circuit board along with memory and other chips. There is usually a heat sink and fan to keep it from over heating. Our rover robot is using a system that has been tried and proven reliable.
Each subsystem on the rover has at least one embedded control microprocessor, the 80K85 Intel processor developed by NASA. To insure reliability each processor has a built in test program called Smalley3. This system gives extra reliability in the software programming. [17]
There is redundant control over each of the rover’s systems. The onboard computer has a dual processor and 2G Ram.
The computer programming controls all of the functions of the robot. It also has software for completing commands sent via the tele-operator on earth. The wheel and front cams that aid in navigation and the vision system, along with the other sub-systems are controlled by the computer.
