Electrical architecture

The TNY-360 electrical architecture defines how energy and information travel through the robot. It connects the battery and protection circuitry to the regulated electronics, motor system, sensors, and user-interface hardware.

Main electrical paths

The architecture can be understood through four related paths:

• Battery and protection, which receives and protects the robot's main supply;
• Voltage conversion, which creates the rails required by low-voltage electronics, as well as the high-current supply for the motors;
• Motor power and feedback, which makes the bridge between the low-voltage control electronics and the high-current motors;
• Logic and sensor buses, which carry commands, measurements, and state information.

flowchart LR
    Battery[3S Li-Po battery]
    Protection[Power protection]
    Conversion[Buck conversion]
    Logic[Logic electronics]
    Motors[Motor system]
    Sensors[Sensors and IMU]
    UI[Screen and audio]

    Battery --> Protection
    Protection --> Conversion
    Conversion --> Motors
    Conversion --> Logic
    Logic <--> Sensors
    Logic <--> UI

Power domains

Different parts of the robot require different voltage levels. The architecture defines several power domains that are isolated from each other and connected through using Star-Grounding and other filtering techniques.

The robot has four main power domains:

These domains are physically separated along the body of the robot, with high-current electronics located near the motors and low-noise electronics located closer to the head.

Communication buses

The TNY-360 uses several communication buses and protocols to talk between the main processor and the various sensors, drivers, and devices. The main buses are:

The runtime pin and bus configuration is described by the firmware's RobotConfig. See Hardware abstraction for how software selects the appropriate configuration.