PhilRobotics made an open source and user-friendly IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Anito. The IDE is a human interface where we can make or write our program. Once done, it has a compiler that will convert our code into something that PIC microcontroller can understand – .HEX file. The compiled code can be uploaded to the microcontroller through its bootloading capability.

The IDE is made in python programming language by Engr. Julius Constante, one of the members of PhilRobotics.

The team also communicated with Microchip – the manufacturer of PIC microcontroller to use the XC8 compiler and distribute it together with the IDE for free.

It is fast, reliable and very easy to use. Some of its highlights are its auto-complete capability. It makes our programming life easier and faster since we need not type the whole command. Just type the beginning of the command and then select the command you need from the drop down list. It also minimizes a lot of programming errors.

Another is its code folding features and line numbering. When debugging or checking errors on a certain block of code, looking at a whole program is bewildering. with code folding, we can be able to hide some blocks of codes and just show a block of code that is under investigation. It also has an option to upload a HEX file to the target board. If you need complex application and programming that you are comfortable to make in other PIC programming environment and compiler such as the MPLAB IDE, you can just compile your code and upload the HEX file to the board without needing external programmer such as PICKIT2 or PICKIT3. Adding a library is also very easy with its Import Library option.

From time to time, the firmware would need to be updated for fixing possible errors, and/or improving the project. With other microcontroller platform, this would need to download the latest IDE and delete the old one. Anito IDE has an option to download the latest firmware available on the web.

Stay tuned for more Anito tutorials.

FEU meets PhilRobokit ANITOPosted on March 15, 2013 by admin 2

Last Saturday March 9, 2013, Far Eastern University in Manila invited PhilRobotics to conduct a Robotics seminar. The team introduces the beta version of Anito which is based on PIC16F877A microcontroller made by Microchip.

The audience were mainly composed of Engineering and IT students and some professionals. Anito gained a warm welcome that was evident with the number of applause from the audience who were impressed of its capability. Majority of the attendees showed interest in using Anito for their projects realizing how easy to use it.

The team looks forward for more seminars and workshops using PhilRobokit Anito.

Why PhilRobokit Anito uses PIC16F877A?Posted on December 14, 2012 by admin

Many people wonder why PhilRobokit Anito choses PIC16F877A where in fact its capacity is way below ATmega328 – the chip that runs Arduino boards. I made here a brief comparison of their specs for us to see the difference.

As we can see, ATmega328 is a lot more powerful than PIC16F877A in terms of program memory, RAM and speed but there are reasons why PhilRobotics team have decided to use PIC16F877A for the first version of Anito.

1. The first reason will give us a byte of history about the PhilRobotics – the team who designed the Anito. PhilRobotics is an organization that is composed of professionals from different fields that share the same interest in robotics. When the team was deciding of a project for the Filipino electronics and robotics community, a robot controller was chosen which later named Anito. It took months to decide of what MCU to use. ATmega,

PIC, ARM are among the choices and finally PIC won the battle for a reason. Majority of the Filipino robotics and electronics hobbyist and enthusiast use PIC16F877A in most of their projects. That includes most of the members of PhilRobotics team. Since Anito is the first collaborative project of the team, a chip that almost everybody knows how to use was chosen. That way, it gave the team the confidence that despite the busy schedule of the members the project will become successful. That’s quite a litany. Let’s move forward.

2. Another reason is because the team wanted Anito to be appealing primarily to the Filipino robotics and electronics community since most of them know PIC16F877A.

3. Having small program memory and RAM size, makes the board a useful tool in learning code optimization – a knowledge that will be very useful in complex projects. For small project applications, PIC16F877A should be sufficient enough.

4. Lastly, the architecture of PIC16F877A is general, making it possible to shift to another PIC microcontroller that has higher capability without changing the hardware design. That gives us a hint that another version or versions would be available soon that has higher capabilities.

What is Anito?Posted on December 13, 2012 by admin

PhilRobokit Anito or simply Anito is an opensource universal controller based on PIC MCU. It was designed by PhilRobotics and exclusively manufactured and distributed by e-gizmo.

It was an Arduino inspired collaborative project of PhilRobotics team initially designed as controller for robots. However, its applications are not limited to robotics alone. It can be used to control almost anything that has electronics such as turning ON or OFF lights, air-condition units

or car’s engine in response to a sensor, remote control or a text message or reading and displaying humidity and temperature data using external input and output devices to name a few.

The board can be programmed in two ways. First id through USB and second is via ICSP (In-Circuit Serial Programming). The team made a user friendly IDE(Integrated Development Environment) with IntelliSense capability and easy to use libraries with sample codes.

The IDE was made using python programming language. It is using Hi-TECH C compiler.

What’s on Board

The board contains:

40 pin PIC MCU 2 switchs

4 LEDs

Servo Motor Port

Buzzer

Power Supply Jack

USB Port

ICSP Header

UART Header

13 Digital I/O Pins

8 Analog Input Pins

Power Pins

Anito V1, the beta version of Anito uses PIC16F877A with 14 kB flash memory, 386 Bytes RAM, 256 Byte EEPROM, 20 MHz (5 MIPS) CPU frequency, and 1 8 channel Analog to Digital converter. More details here.

On on-board switches, LEDs, Buzzer and Servo motor port made it easy for the user to do experiments and learn its capabilities without the need of bread board or development board.

The power supply jack has a 5V voltage regulator makes it able to operate with usual adaptors that has 9V output.

USB port with PL2303 Prolific driver makes it possible to communicate with computer via USB.

Having the UART Header exposed provides an easy access to the communications ports of the board.

Thirteen configurable digital input/output pins can provide 0 or 5V signal with 25mA current typical.

Seven analog input pins can be used to read analog signals from 0 to 255 with 10 bit resolution.

Power pins provides an external power source.

Board size and pins dimension made it usable with Arduino shields.