ChibiOS/RT is compact and efficient RTOS that can be used in most of microcontrollers like AVR, ARM, MSP430. And now it seems that it can be done with soft-processor called Nios II. As yo umay know Nios II is a standard software processors widely used inside FPGA chips. Michael from yagarto.de wrote a two part tutorial on how to set up a Nios II processor on Altera DE1 board with Cyclone II (EP2C20F484C7 FPGA). First part of tutorial mainly covers how to program Nios II processor in to FPGA, while second focuses on configuring and building ChibiOS for soft-processor.

ChibiOS port for Nios II is already written – it just needs to be attached to set of RTOS. If you have Altera DE1 board laying around – definitely give a try.

PocketBot 2 is an evolutionary project of previous Pocketbot. Having same size as its ancestor it packs even more cool features. First of all it is powered by Atxmega128A3 microcontroller running at 32Mhz. Bot has a bunch of sensors available on board like 3-axis accelerometer, temperature sensor, current sensor, battery monitor, RGB sensor, proximity, rotary encoder to detect wheel rotation speed. Also it is packet with bluetooth module that allows communicating with PC or smart phone.

If there are more than one PocketBot 2 around, they can communicate via infrared channel. Whole this joy is powered with LiPo battery that fits nicely on bots back. I’d say that’s quite some power for a line follower.