Project background

The project originally started in 1992 during work on Prof. Hughes' Ph.D dissertation at the University of South Florida. The dissertation involved measuring the performance of sensors on a robot, which naturally dictated the need for a robot for testing and verification of the proposed theories. No mobile robots were available at that time, so as a side project the development of a simple mobile platform was initiated.

In 1993 Prof. Hughes left USF for a faculty position at the University of the Pacific, where he found an unused HeathKit Hero ET-18 mobile robot. This base, while containing very limited computing power (a Motorola 6808 microprocessor and 8Kb of static RAM, and no serial or parallel ports), was suitable for the needs of his dissertation research after modification. The ten-year old robot's electronics were aging rapidly -- toward the end of the research it had a nasty habit of literally falling asleep while running -- and so plans for the mobile base were revived.

Plans for Brak started being drawn about February 1995 and by the summer of that year the first parts for the base were purchased. In the winter of 1995 the plans were finished and in the spring parts were sent out for manufacture. After Commencement exercises of 1996 they were finished and after a feverish month of assembly and testing, Brak made its first move on July 3, 1996.