Roomba 770 robotics backpack

The circuit board "backpack" for my navigation robot, Armin.

This design allows for you use a Roomba 770 (or any Roomba with the same handle) for custom robotics applications, but without sacrificing its regular vacuum-cleaning functionality.

It includes a few pieces that allow you to mount a variety of electronics to the roomba using a clip designed to fit neatly onto the roomba's handle. It is meant to be modular, using a peg-and-hole press fit system.

The idea is to allow you to neatly mount several circuit boards in a vertical orientation, and still have room to clip on a stereo-camera or LIDAR unit to the top of the robot, all while maintaining a modest form-factor.

For my robot, I mounted a Kinect 360 for vision, a power-distribution board, an interfacing board, and a Raspberry Pi 2 mod B. I did some local processing on the Raspberry Pi, but also used a USB wifi dongle for communication back to a base station for additional telemetry.