Electronics
Two custom Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) were designed and manufactured for this system. One to house the MPU6050 IMU and one to facilitate the connection of both the FSR's and IMU's to the Raspberry Pi.
The PCB designed for the IMU allows the MPU6050 QFN package to be mounted along with the appropriate passive components which are configured according to the typical operating circuit as shown in the datasheet. Additionally 4.7kOhm pull up resistors are included on the SCL and SDA I2C lines.
The second board designed allows for the sensors to be connected to the appropriate pins on the Raspberry Pi. This board sits on top of the Raspberry Pi and plugs in to the 40 pin header. The functions of this board include:
- IMU Pin Headers: Pin headers are included to allow for each of the 3 IMU's to be connected to the Raspberry Pi enabling data to be collected.
- FSR Pin Headers: Additional Pin headers allowing the FSR's to be connected to the voltage divider circuit and MCP3008 ADC.
- MCP3008 ADC: The 8 Channel ADC is housed on the Raspberry Pi HAT and allows the analogue signal from the FSR's collected and converted into a digital signal which is read in to the Raspberry Pi.
- Power Indicator: A power LED is included on the board to indicate when the Raspberry Pi HAT and sensors are powered.
All the board schematics can be found here.
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