ROBKO 01 is an anthropoid robot manufactured in Bulgaria by BAS (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) and produced by the Medical Equipment Factories. It is an analog based on the manufactured in the USA Armdroid 1000. The two robot arms are completely the same, except some minor differences in the mechanics and drive circuitry.
The driver circuitry of ROBKO 01 is completely based on TTL logic, same as its predecessor. Like every sub-processor system, it has internal and external addresses. The robot has its own controller peripheral card with EPROM so that the computer can recognize it and the slot number where it is plugged in. The controller card has an output bus that connects to the robot. Only two robots can be connected on one bus respectively address0 and adress1.
ROBKO 01 can drive at once only one of six axes freely. The main problem is that every motor has its own fixed address and this applies to all robots, which means that they are interchangeable. The main problem appears when programs that use more than one axis are being developed. When more complex movements are made or when more than one motor is used it is required to alternate between them, the movement of the axis and its duration is being analyzed and after that it is decided how data should be sent to the motors.
The driver board has eight addresses, six of them are for the motors and the other two for the I/O devices. The outputs are designed to be an open collector type, and they are eight divided in blocks of four.
The inputs are the same as the outputs except that they don’t have a pull up resistor. The working voltage is +5V and is regulated by a MA7805.
The motors of the robot are synchronous steppers with four phases, they operate on +12V DC, 0.4A per winding. They were manufactured in ZAE Plovdiv and IZOT factories, and the motors are clones of the Japanese Copal Elektra. The only difference is in the axis thickness which is 6.0mm on the Bulgarian steppers and 6.2mm on the Japanese motors.
