Abstract: A mobile robot having a removable wheel-drive assembly, comprising a mobile base having a chassis and a first wheel well member with a flange. There is a removable wheel drive assembly with a mounting bracket. There is a motor drive unit disposed on the mounting bracket and a wheel/tire connected to the motor drive unit via an axle. There is a second wheel well member on the mounting bracket and positioned between the motor drive unit and the wheel. The second wheel well member includes a central section having an aperture through which the axle passes and a top surface. The top surface of the central section of the second wheel well member engages with the flange of the first wheel well member of the mobile base.

Abstract: A communication control unit useful for operably coupling a plurality of peripheral devices to a data processing system including a central processing unit (CPU) and a main system memory. The communication control unit is comprised of three major sections: (1) A direct memory access module (DMA) for communicating with the memory of the CPU; (2) A serial interface adaptor module (SIA) for converting parallel data to serial data for transmission to a peripheral device and serial data to parallel data on receiving from a peripheral device; and (3) A programmable controller module (PCM) connected between the DMA and SIA for providing the overall control of message reception and transmission. The PCM comprises a small special-purpose programmable parallel computer. A program (firmware) stored in a read-only memory of the PCM enables the PCM to handle the different communication disciplines observed by various peripheral devices operable with the communication control unit.