Duckietown Hardware#

We are firm believers that you can’t learn about robotics without a robot.

Our core objective in the design of the hardware was to provide a platform that is as simple and inexpensive as possible, but still able to provide a wide range of challenging and reproducible learning experiences.

See also

To acquire Duckietown hardware, visit the Duckietown online store.

Duckiebots#

The Duckiebot is a small differentiable drive robot that is simple yet powerful. It is equipped with a camera, wheel encoders, as well as other sensors. It is powered by a custom battery that we have built to enable live diagnostics and advanced power management behaviors. The DB21 family of Duckiebots use NVIDIA Jetson Nano for computation.

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Fig. 164 The Duckiebot is a small-scale robot that we have developed for autonomy education and research.#

The platform has gone through several iterations, for a full breakdown of the configurations see Duckiebot Models.

Also, for complete detail about the components of the Duckiebot, as well as its operation, refer to the Part 1 of this book.

Duckietown#

To guarantee the reliable performance of the Duckiebot, we have also designed a custom environment, the Duckietown, for the Duckiebot to operate in.

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Fig. 165 Duckiebots operate in Duckietowns, which can have aribitrary topologies as long as the appearance specifications are respected.#

The environment is very tightly specified. For full details, visit the Duckietown Operation Manual.

You might be tempted to build a Duckietown out of off-the-shelf components. While it is totally possible, make sure to understand the underlying design criteria to prevent future headaches.

Duckiedrones#

We have also more recently developed a flying robot, that we refer to as the Duckiedrone.

Duckiedrones are Raspberry Pi-powered autonomous quadcopters, and are designed to introduce younger learners to robotics and autonomy.

For full details on the platform, visit the Duckiedrone Operation Manual.

The Duckiedrone is a Raspberry-Pi based autonomous quadcopter.

Fig. 166 The Duckiedrone is a Raspberry-Pi based autonomous quadcopter.#