iRobot Create is a hobbyist

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...

manufactured by

iRobot iRobot Corporation is an American technology company that designs and builds consumer robots. It was founded in 1990 by three members of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, who designed robots for space exploration and military defense. The com ...

that was introduced in 2007 and based on their Roomba vacuum cleaning platform. The iRobot Create is explicitly designed for robotics development and improves the experience beyond simply hacking the Roomba. The Create replaces its Roomba predecessor's vacuum cleaner hardware with a cargo bay that also houses a DB-9 port providing serial communication, digital input & output, analog input & output, and an electric power supply. The Create also has a 7-pin

Mini-DIN The mini-DIN connectors are a family of multi-pin electrical connectors used in a variety of applications. Mini-DIN is similar to the larger, older DIN connector. Design Mini-DIN connectors are in diameter and come in seven patterns, wit ...

serial port through which sensor data can be read and motor commands can be issued using the iRobot Roomba Open Interface (ROI) protocol. The platform accepts virtually all accessories designed for iRobot's second generation Roomba 400 Series domestic robots and can also be programmed with the addition of iRobot's own Command Module (a microcontroller with a

USB connector The initial versions of the USB standard specified connectors that were easy to use and that would have acceptable life spans; revisions of the standard added smaller connectors useful for compact portable devices. Higher-speed development of t ...

and four

DE-9 The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector. They are named for their characteristic D-shaped metal shield. When they were introduced, D-subs were among the smallest connectors used on computer systems. Description, n ...

expansion ports). , the Command Module is no longer being sold. In 2014, iRobot replaced the original model with the Create 2, which is constructed from the chassis of remanufactured 600-series Roombas; instead of replacing the old command module, iRobot encourages the use of commodity single-board computers like

Arduino Arduino () is an open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed under ...

and

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

to provide additional processing power.

Controller

Due to the limitations in storage space and processing power of the iRobot Command Module, many choose to utilize an external computer in controlling the Create robot. Since the built-in serial port supports the transmission of sensor data and can receive actuation commands, any embedded computer that supports serial communication can be used as the control computer. A number of robot interface server / simulators support the iRobot Create. Most notably, the

Player Project The Player Project (formerly the Player/Stage Project) is a project to create free software for research into robotics and sensor systems. Its components include the ''Player'' network server and the ''Stage'' robot platform simulators. Altho ...

has long included a device interface for the Roomba, and developed a Create interface in Player 2.1. The Universal Real-time Behavior Interface (

URBI Urbi is an open-source cross-platform software platform in C++ used to develop applications for robotics and complex systems. Urbi is based on the UObject distributed C++ component architecture. It also includes the urbiscript orchestration lang ...

) environment also contains a Create interface. The

Microsoft Robotics Studio Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (Microsoft RDS, MRDS) is a discontinued Windows-based environment for robot control and simulation that was aimed at academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers and handled a wide variety of robot hardware. I ...

and the

Webots Webots is a free and open-source 3D robot simulator used in industry, education and research. The Webots project started in 1996, initially developed by Dr. Olivier Michel at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ( EPFL) in Lausanne, Switze ...

simulation environment contain iRobot Create models.

Versions

iRobot has released multiple versions of the Create robot.

Community

Simulation of an iRobot Create in Webots

The iRobot Create is popular in the robotic research and hobbyist community. Some examples of iRobot create projects: * The iRobot Create has been included in parts kits for the International

Botball Botball is an educational robotics program that focuses on engaging middle and high school aged students in team-oriented robotics competitions. Thousands of children and young adults participate in the Botball program. It has been active since 1 ...

Competition since 2007. * The iRobot Create is model in the

robotics simulator * The iRobot Create is used as the main platform for the Autonomous Robotics course at Brown University. * The iRobot Create and a simulator developed in

MATLAB MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementa ...

are used in the Autonomous Mobile Robots course at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. * For , hacker Johnny Chung Lee created a Telepresence robot using the iRobot Create and a netbook. * Combining the iRobot Create with an

Xbox Kinect Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flig ...

, student Philipp Robbel created a 3D mapping robot.

Competition

In 2007 iRobot hosted the "Create Challenge", offering with the goal of creating an "innovative robot that's functional, helpful, entertaining, whimsical or simply amazing". The winner was Danh Trinh, with their "Personal Home Robot" which "reminds owners to take their medication, turns lights on and off, and controls appliances."

References

External links