ALiCE II: PIC Microcontroller for a Line-Crawling Robot Designed for Manitoba Hydro

The is the first of a series of research reports that were begun in 2005, and are now being completed in preparation for the completion of the first phase of the ALi CE II project. This report focuses on introduction of a Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC) micr ocontroller in the design of the line-crawling robot affectionately named ALiCE II. PIC was originally an a cronym for Programmable Intelligent Computer introduced by General Instruments in connection with its PIC1650. ALiCE II is an acronym for Autonomous Line-Crawling Equipment II, a second generatio n version of a new family of autonomous line-crawling robotic devices using swarm intelligence sy stem engineering design principles introduced during the past 3 years. ALiCE II represents the combined eff orts of Maciej Borkowski, Dan Lockery, Christopher Henry (alpha order) with some help from Peter Sc hilling during the summer of 2005. The main architect of ALiCE II has been Dan Lockery. ALiCE I was a s ingle line-crawling robot designed by Vitaliy Degetyarov in 1999 as part of his M.Sc. project, wh ich was also funded by Manitoba Hydro. This research work has been funded by Manitoba Hydro.