Usenet 1994 January/usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicjanuary1994.iso/answers/robotics-faq/part2

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Subject: comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) part 2/2
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Archive-name: robotics-faq/part2
Last-modified: Sun Dec  5 23:37:38 1993


This is part 2 of 2 of the comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list.
This FAQ addresses commonly asked questions relating to robotics.

Part 2 [use the +++ to assist in searching]
    +++Sensors
    +++Wireless Communication
    +++Robot Parts: Suppliers and Sources
    +++Hero Robots
    +++Puma Manipulators
    +++Simulators
    +++Real-Time Operating Systems
    +++Robot Controller Survey
    +++Microcontrollers
    +++Books

    +++Acknowledgements
____________________________________________________________________________
This post, as a collection of information, is Copyright 1993 Kevin
Dowling. Distribution through any means other than regular Usenet
channels must be by permission. The removal of this notice is
forbidden.

Changes, additions, comments, suggestions and questions to:
Kevin Dowling                tel:    [phone]
Robotics Institute            fax:    [phone]
Carnegie Mellon University        net:    [e-mail]
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

___________________________________________________________________________
+++Sensors:

    This list covers only the most frequently requested types of
robot sensors. These include point-range sensors, cameras, and
acoustic devices. See Sensors magazine <in periodical section of this
FAQ> directory for a large and comprehensive list. This list covers
the following: [use === to search]

    ===cameras
    ===inertial measurement devices
    ===rangefinding devices
    ===force/torque sensors, accelerometers
    ===sonar sensors
    ===position determination devices
    ===pan/tilt mechanisms
    ===shape memory devices
    ===measuring linear motion

===Cameras

    There are a large number of cameras on the market and even
many consumer products such as the smaller camcorders are inexpensive
and suitable for some imaging applications. I'll try to list some
different and unusual ones here.
    Note that although some of these cameras are very small many
of them are appended to a large box of electronics via a cable that
supplies power and transmits video. For mobile applications DC power
inputs may be an issue as well.

Sony Component Products
  15 Essex Road,
  Paramus, NJ 07652
  tel: [phone]
  fax: [phone]
  Sony XC/999/999P is a nice small color CCD camera the size of a
  microphone. CCD resolution is 768Hx493V. The 999 is NTSC and the
  999P is the PAL format.  XC-75 has small camera head and separate
  electronics.

Toshiba IK-M40A -- head is 1.5" long, 5/8" diameter

Panasonic GP-KS152 -- head is 1 3/8" long, 15/32" diameter

CCTV Corporation
315 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
CCTV makes a number of small CCD surveillance cameras. Some as
small as a pack of cigarettes that sell for less than $300.

[Need address]
  CIDTech has some really nice ones with CID instead of CCD,
  especially good for machine vision, no blooming, fast image
  grabbing.

====Inertial measurement devices
    This includes such devices as accelerometers such as
accelerometers, gyros, and inertial devices used for measuring
orientation or acceleration of moving vehicles. Accelerometers are
devices for measuring the rate of change in velocity and can provide
estimations of distance or be used to detect high forces.

KVH Industries
110 Enterprise Center
Middletown, RI 02840
tel: [phone]
  Nice small well-designed units that provide heading data. About $1K
  w/ RS232 adapter.

Lucas NovaSensor
1055 Mission Court
Fremont, CA 94539
tel: [phone]
  Lucas makes a 1"x1"x0.5" accelerometer for about $200. Good noise
  immunity but fragile.

Humphrey
[Need Address]
 Wide variety of gyro and accelerometer devices.

BEI - Systron Donner
2700 Systron Drive,
Concord, CA 94518-1399
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  GyroChip - a very small solid state angular rate sensor. Based a
  quartz tuning fork device - all support electronics are
  included. Max range available: +/-10 deg/sec to +/-1000 deg/sec.
  Input +/- 5VDC Output scale +/- 2.5VDC. Systron Donner also makes a
  variety of linear accelerometers and inertial measurement products.

      Solid state six axis inertial sensor. It provides analog
  signals for 3 axis acceleration and 3 axis rate. The package is
  3"x3"x3.56, weighs ~600grams and takes +-15V unreg in (7W). Bias
  drift is on the order of 0.005 deg/sec short term (0.1deg/sec long
  term).
     Cost is $12,000 for one or $10,000 for 2-9 (a good single axis
  rate gyro usually costs $6K+).  Various acceleration and rate range
  combinations are available (up to +- 20g).  Delivery is about 6wks.

====Laser rangefinders
-Principles
There are four basic techniques for distance measurement using electro
magetic radiation.

These are
1 Pulse Timing
2 Phase Comparison
3 Doppler Methods
4 Interferometry

All are used in practice for distance measurement depending on the
particular application.

Pulse timing, as the name suggests, involves measuring the round time
for a signal to be transmitted to a reflective surface and return.

This is the principle used in Radar, DME for aircraft, LORAN,
Satellite Altimetry, Airborne RADAR Altimetry, Lunar Laser Ranging
etc. Some of the newer EDM instruments used by surveyor are also using
pulse timing and accuracies of +/- 5mm are possible. Most of the
military range finders also use pulse timing.  The GPS system uses
pulse timing for coarse distance measurement.  Very Long Base
Interferometry (VLBI) is also a pulse timing technique where signals
from pulsars are timed from two or more radio telescopes and the
difference in times of arrival are converted to intercontinental
distances with a precision of a few centimetres.

Phase difference involves the use of a carrier wave which may be
modulated at different wavelengths. By measuring the diference in
phase between the transmitted signal and the received signal after it
has been reflected from the other end of the line, the distance can be
determined as an integer number (unknown) of wavelengths plus a
fraction of a wavelength which is known from the phase comparison. By
using a range of modulation frequencies the ambiguity can be
resolved. There are many applications of this technique. A wide range
of carrier frequencies are used ranging from visible through infra red
to microwave and right down to VLF. Typical instruments used by
surveyors have accuracies of +/-(1to2 mm +1to3 parts per million) and
use infra red as the carrier. Precise positioning using GPS can be
achieved by phase comparison of the carrier wave signals of the
various satellites. Accuracies in position of better than 1 part per
million can be achieved.

Doppler techniques were used in the earlier satellite positioning
systems. The received frequency of a low orbit satellite is compared
with the actual transmitted signal as a function of time. The rate of
change of frequency gives the slant range between the satellite and
the observer while the instant when the two freqencies are the same
gives the point of closest approach. By knowing the orbital parameters
of the satellite which are transmitted, the observers position can be
determined.

Interferometric methods are the same as those used in the original
Michelson Interferometer. It is used for metrology, high precision
distance measurement over short distances (up to 60 metres) and in the
definition of the metre.

    There are a variety of laser rangefinding devices that have
been built and used over the past 8 years or so for robotics. The 3D
devices are still large, power hungry and heavy but give very nice
images suitable for fast map building and navigation work. Expect to
pay over $80K for these time-of-flight devices. Most AM Lidars measure
phase shift between outgoing and reflected beams.  A mirror system
rasters the beam forming a video-camera-like image. Some devices
supply the reflectance image as well as range which is nice for
corresponding the two. Comprehensive references include:

Electronic Distance Measurement by JM Rueger, Springer-Verlag

P. Besl, ``Active, Optical Range Imaging Sensors'', Machine Vision and
Applications, v. 1, p. 127-152, 1988.

A longer version of Besl's paper appears in ``Advances in Machine
Vision: Architectures and Applications'', J. Sanz (ed.),
Springer-Verlag, 1988.

Other good surveys are Ray Jarvis' article in IEEE TPAMI v5n2 and
Nitzan's article in IEEE PAMI v10n2.

A good report on the characterization of a particular scanner is:
Experimental Characterization of the Perceptron Laser Rangefinder, In
So Kweon, Regis Hoffman, and Eric Krotkov. Carnegie Mellon University
Technical Report, CMU-RI-TR-91-1. 1991.

A number of laboratory works have also demonstrated FM or chirp
systems which can be highly accurate (e.g. high resolution elevation
maps of coins) but these are very specialized and I don`t know of
commercial devices currently.

-COMMERCIAL DEVICES
ERIM (Environmental Research Institute of Michigan)
    ERIM has built a number of custom AM laser rangefinders
including those used in the ALV (Autonomous Land Vehicle) program. CMU
and Martin Marietta have both used this systems in extensive work.
Basic system was a 128x64 2fps 20m (ambiguity interval) system.

Odetics
1515 South Manchester Ave
Anaheim, CA 92802-2907
tel: [phone]
Odetics has made a number of smaller laser scanners. That is, smaller
than their larger ERIM and Perceptron brethren. I have not heard any
independent reviews of the product however.

Perceptron
23855 Research Drive
Farmington Hills, MI 48024
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
A spin-off of ERIM, Perceptron has also built a number of
AM laser rangefinders.  CMU and Caterpillar have used these for map
building and obstacle avoidance work in rough terrain navigation.
128x128 programmable up to 2048x2048 through tilt, 2fps, programmable
tilt on nodding mirror. About $90K. Prices have come down
substantially recently.

Schwarz Electro-Optics
3404 N. Orange Blossom Trail
Orlando, FL 32804
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Schwarz makes some very nice point range laser ranging devices. These
devices are slightly bigger than a soda can. About $6-12K. CMU
experience for use in simulated unmanned air vehicle platform worked
well. Their MARS (marine angle range system) is a rotating laser
device that reflects off targets in the environment. Max range up to
1000meters using corner prisms. Accuracy +/- 1m. Erebus (Dante)
Scanner used Schwarz device as base.

Origin Instruments
854 Greenview Drive
Grand Praire, TX 750750-2438
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
The Dynasight sensor is a 3-D optical radar that provides real-time
3-D measurements of passive targets with sub-millimeter resolution.
Automatic search and track is provided, eye-safe operation and no
adjustments or alignment required. Original application was head
tracking of computer users but end- effector tracking is also viable.
Operatin range depends on target size 0.1-1.5m for 7mm target, 0.3-4m
for 25mm target and 1 to 6m for 75mm targets. RS-232 interface.
Accuracies 1mm cross range and 4mm down range, resolutions 0.1mm cross
range and 0.4mm down range.

A number of labs have built light stripe devices using projected light
LCD shutters and laser line projectors determine distance through
geometry (as opposed to directly measuring distance through
time-of-flight means) One common need is that of generating the laser
line.

LaserMax
Rochester, NY
tel: [phone]
Manufactures semiconductor laser diode packages and cylindrical
lenses. Packages and small and rugged.

Hammamatsu Corp.
New Jersey
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Hamamatsu S4282 Light Modulation Photo IC The size of a normal
transistor (approx 1/4" square).  It has 4 leads, Vcc, Gnd, Vout,
LED. All you do is attach an IR LED to the LED lead to give you an
instant IR proximity detector (the photo diode detector is built into
the part).  Two can be aimed at each other and they won't interfere
since they'll be out of phase. They have another model with a lens
over the photo diode that is claimed could be used up to 30 feet!
Hammamatsu also sells a number of photo sensors like color sensors,
position sensitive detectors, pyroelectric sensors.
    S4282-11    short range     $7.75 single unit
    S4282-72    long range    $19.00 single unit
[from articles by Prabal K Dutta <[e-mail]>
and Shane Bouslough <[e-mail]>]

ESP Technologies
21 LeParc Drive
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
$15K LED based IR ranging system. 15cm diameter rotating scanning
device with collimated LED light beam that uses phase differences to
calculate distance. Range 0.6 to 6m. 2.5cm resolution, 15cm accuracy.

IBEO Lasertechnik
Ingenieurburo fur
Elektronik + Optik
Fahrenkron 125
D 2000 Hamburg 71
tel: [phone] - 01
fax: [phone] - 101
2D and 3D laser scanners. 8frame/sec, 220 degree view, 4600
points/sec. Accuracy +/- 20mm (1 sigma) from 0.5 - 500? 24W power.
System specs can be configured for variety of applications.

===Force and Torque Sensors:

Force measurement provides indications of magnitude and direction of
forces for use in manipulation or locomotion. A variety of control
schemes have been implemented in force controlled systems to allow
smooth and accurate control in situations that would otherwise be
precluded without such devices. A number of load cells and
acceleration measuring devices are described here:

Analog Devices
tel: [phone]
  Analog Devices have the ADXL50 accelerometer which comes in a 10-pin
TO-5 can. It is primarily used with air-bags and has a 1994 projected
price of $5 in quantities. In the Electronic Design August 8, 1991
issue it quoted the current price as $21.75 for 1000 off quantities.

Assurance Technologies (ATI)
(formerly Lord Industrial Automation)
503D Highway 70 East
Garner, North Carolina 27529
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  Largest supplier of multi-axis force sensors. Use silicon rather than
foil strain gages for lower strain levels and increased life. F/T
sensor ratings from +/- 15lbs to +/- 150lbs (+/- 15 in-lbs to +/- 600
in-lbs) weights are 0.4 and 2.2 lbs for the 4 available sensors.
Serial or parallel digital interface or analog interface.  ATI also
makes robotic tool-changers and an RCC device for assembly operations.
An ATI sensor is also incorporated in the Hughes SMARTee end-effector.

California Cybernetics
10322 Sherman Grove
Sunland, CA 91040
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  Six DOF F-T devices.

Cybernet
1919 Green Road
Suite B-101
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
net: <[e-mail]>
PER-force - A 6dof compact force-reflecting controller. Can be used
for teleoperationor interactive graphics applications.

Hughes STX
4400 Forbes Blvd
Lanham, MD 20706
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
A 6-dof end-effector with automatic load sensing and compensation.
Control modes include position control (cartesian with user spec-ed
poses and frames), impedence and force control modes. Programmable
behaviors (sliding, hinge, move-to-touch, guarded move, follow etc),
open architecture (VxWorks, VME, user-linakable libraries) and a lot
more. Interfaces available included RS-232, ethernet, RS-422 and SCSI.
Pretty amazing end-effector!

Interlink Electronics
1110 Mark Ave.
Carpinteria, CA 93013
    Force Sensing resistors. Article in March 1993 issue of
Electronics Now/Radio Electronics.

JR3
22 Harter Avenue
Woodland, CA 95695
tel: [phone]
  6-DOF force-torque sensors. Strain gage technology. Newer packages
have all electronics built into the sensor. Make some high-force
devices as well. CMU's Ambler used JR3's on all the feet with good
success.  Complete force torque data at 8Khz, signal digitization
within sensor body, low noise susceptibility, synch serial at 2MHz,
inexpensive cabling.

===Sonar sensors
-PRINCIPLES
    The time it takes for an acoustic pulse to propagate through
air or water, reflect from the environment and return to a detector is
porportional to the distance.
    Acoustic time-of-flight devices have been around for awhile
now. The ubiquitous Polaroid device is cheap and easily integrated and
has has found wide use in robotic devices. Other companies have
developed nice complete turnkey sonar devices though and Polaroid is
no longer the only choice.

Polaroid
119 Windsor St,
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: [phone] ordering
tel: [phone] technical assistance
Polaroid Ultrasonic Components Group offers two ultrasonic ranging kits:
Specs are:
    Distance range: 0.26 to 10.7 meters
    Resolution: Nominal +- 3mm to 3m, +-1% over entire range
    Sonar acceptance angle: approx. 20 degrees
    Power Requirement: 6VDC, 2.5 Amps (1 mS pulse), 150mA quiescent
    Weight: Transducer, 8.2gm
            Ranging module, 18.4 gm
    Designer's Kit:
    1 transducer, 1 ranging module, electronics display
    accurate to 1/10th meter. Cost is $169
    NEW Piezotransducer kit
    1"-50' +/- 1%
    RS-232 port and analog output
    breadboard real estate
    $299
    OEM kit: 2 transducers, 2 ranging modules. Cost is $99.

Siemans - nice complete sensor package, 5 degree cone angle

Massa - components

Texas Instruments
    Type SN28827 Sonar Ranging Module
    See TI Applications Notes D2780
    Under $50, needs only 5VDC
Not sure if these units are still manufactured but they are often in
surplus catalogs.

===Position determination
Noncontact, cabled measurement of 6DOF's. Virtual reality
applications. System ranges can be as small as a tabletop and can
extend for kilometers. All measurements are given in metric unless
spec sheets appear in English units only.  All pricing is in $US.

Useful papers to solve for transforms from positioning devices for
multiple reference frames:

Roger Tsai and Reimar Lenz,
    June 1989 IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation
C. C. Wang,
    April 1992 IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation)

Polhemus Inc
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Burlington, VT
3Space, Isotrak, FasTrak:
Electromagnetic devices for sensing xyz and rotations remotely.
Limited to 1m or so radius. Sensitive to metallic objects in vicinity.
Approx $3k

Ascension Technology
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
The Bird. A 6d0f measuring device much like the Pohlhemus device.

Shooting Star Technology
1921 Holdom Avenue
Burnaby, B.C.
Canada V5B 3W4
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
    ADL-1 6DOF tracker. Gives position/orientation measurements up
to 240 times/second, with low latency (0.35 to 1.88 milliseconds.)

Denning Mobile Robots [DENNING APPEARS TO BE OUT OF BUSINESS]
21 Concord Street
Wilmington, MA 01887
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
LaserNav 2: rotating laser (Class 1 eyesafe) scans barcode targets in
area and returns target angle. This is combined with target location
to provide vehicle position and heading. RS-232 interface.

Logitech 3D Mouse        [Need Address]
Northern Digital Optotrak    [Need Address]

Caterpillar also has a rotating laser device for it's SGV products
for factory Automation. They license the Cedeglec (nee GEC) developed
technologies.

MacLeod Technologies
315 Littleton Rd.
Chelmsford, MA 01824
tel: [phone]
    Update speed: 20 hz
    position accuracy:  +/-0.05inches (1.27 mm)
    direction accuracy: +/- 0.05 degrees

    3 D reference points cover 1 acre
    1D, 2D or 3D feedback
    Cost: About $5K for positioning system
    They claim to be able to get this kind of accuracy even while
    the robot is moving at several meters/sec.

Video systems
Selspot - used for biomechanical applications.

===Pan/Tilt devices
A common robotic need. Most pan-tilts sold today by companies such as
Pelco and Vicon are for CCTV applications for continuous scanning or
remote operation. At most these will have pots for feedback.

Directed Perception
1451 Capuchino Avenue,
Burlingame, CA 94010
tel: [phone]
Small computer controlled pan-tilt unit Model PTU-46-17.5
Weighs 1kg and can support ~1.5kg camera payload.
Very nice specs: 330 deg/sec slew, 3.06 arcmin accuracy,
on-the-fly position and speed changes. 11-40VDC unregulated power input,
RS-232 interface. Can use RS-485 using RJ-11 to provide control of
multiple PT units.
Cost: $1935 Includes PT unit, controller, cable and power supply.
    $1800 w/o power supply.

CCTV Corporation
315 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Standard CCTV pan-tilt devices like those from Vicon and
others. Inexpensive but no computer control. $557 - $1400

CameraMan
CameraMan is a pan/tilt device built to support any camcorder
and has a wireless interface to an external remote control. 360 deg
pan and 50 deg of tilt.  The unit is made by ParkerVision and sold
through Columbia AudioVideo (and probably other suppliers)

TeleRobotics International, Inc.
7325 Oak Ridge Hwy Suite 104
Knoxville, TN 37931
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  An all-electronic pan/tilt/zoom resampler. That is, they put a box
behind a camera with a fish-eye lens. The box has digital inputs for
pan, tilt, zoom, rotation. The box resamples the video signal and
produces an output as though the image were acquired by a camera with
those parameters. Used as an alternative to pan/tilt devices.

A number of undersea companies make pan-tilt devices as well:

Remote Ocean Systems
5111-L Santa Fe Street
San Diego, CA 92109
tel: [phone]
  Underwater P/T systems, expensive $6K but very nicely packaged

RSI Research
Sidney, BC
tel: [phone]
  Underwater pan-tilts

Photosea
6377 Nancy Ridge Drive
San Diego, CA 92121
tel: [phone]
  Underwater pan-tilts including Cobra, very small design.

Telemetrics
Hawthorne, NJ
tel: [phone]
  Computer controlled P/T devices - fairly large though.

Zebra Kinesis
(spin-off of Zebra Robotics)
Jeff Kerr
tel: [phone]
  Small Pan/tilt head.

===Shape memory materials:

Nickel-titanium alloys were first discovered by the Naval Ordinance
Laboratory decades ago and the material was termed NiTinOL. These
materials have the intriguing property that they provide actuation
through cycling of current through the materials. It undergoes a
'phase change' exhibited as force and motion in the wire.

Mondotronics
524 San Anselmo Ave.,
#107
San Anselmo, CA 94960
tel: [phone]
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
net: <[e-mail]>
A number of muscle wire (nitinol) projects including a small walking
machine.  Book and sample kit with 1m each of 50,100 and 150 um wire -
enough to build all 14 projects in book.

Memry Technologies
57 Commerce Drive
Brookfield, CT 06804
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Memry sell a Mitsubishi developed polyurethane based Shape Memory
Polymer. The material undergoes property changes in hardness,
flexibility, elastic modulus and vapor permeability under temperature
change. Medical applications is one focus for this material.

=== Linear position measurement
Manufacturers of Magneorestrictive sensors
for measuring linear position

Gemco Magnetek
1080 N. Crooks Road
Clawson, MI 48017-1097
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Balluff
PO Box 937
8125 Holton Drive
Florence, KY 41042
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

MTS Systems Corporation
Sensors Division
Box 13218
Research Triangle Park, NC 27708
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Norstat
PO Box 377
Hibernia, NJ 07842
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

____________________________________________________________________________
+++Wireless Communication
    Tethers are sometimes impractical and at best an annoyance.
Digital communication via RF and IR links is becoming cheaper and a
number of companies are providing off-the-shelf solutions. For basic
serial line communication a wide variety of radio modems are available
that use fixed frequencies or spread spectrum techniques. In many
cases they are also transparent. That is, you plug them directly into
serial ports on the robot and off-board computing directly.  Higher
bandwidths such as Ethernet or high speed synchronous serial require
different hardware. However, with high speed serial communication you
may even be able to SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocal) instead of
using a LAN-based device.

Video:
    For regular frame rate video over relatively short distances
it's hard to beat the price and availability of several consumer
products in the $100 range. Check local stores or place like the
Sharper Image (Rabbit is one of the companies making these units)
Microwave systems require line-of-site communication, licensing, and
are expensive.

Ethernet:
    There are some related articles in the Feb/93 Byte Magazine.

Proxim Inc.
295 North Barnardo Ave.
Mountain View, CA  94043
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
A product announcement for wireless LAN board on p.68 in May/92 Byte Magazine
    Price: $495
    Range: 800 ft.
    Data Rate: 242 Kbps
    Channels: 3

Telesystems SLW
85 Scarsdale Road, Suite 201
Don Mills, Ontario, Canada
ARLAN radio LAN
    We've used ARLAN with CMU's Ambler work. It's an ethernet
  bridge and it smart about routing traffic across the repeater. The
  620 is about $5K. Can be used without a license in the US. (spread
  spectrum) 6 miles.

Motorola Radio-Telephone Systems Group, Arlington Heights, ILL
tel: [phone]
  AltairNet: 18GHz-based system design for wireless, indoors
  networking.  The boxes are fairly large, about the size of a
  shoebox, and are relocatable but not portable. Problem is that is
  really isn't for mobile applications.  Area is really like swiss
  cheese. Not a problem for fine adjustment in stationary applications
  but a big problem for mobile devices.

NCR sells the WaveLAN, which has about a 1Mbit/sec data rate.  Not
exactly "ethernet", but interfaceable to most networks using MS-DOS
boxes as routers.

Tetherlink in California is experimenting with a 2Mbit/sec cellular
system that is designed for roving portables. [Need address]

O'Neil and GRE America provide bidirectional 19.2Kps RS-232 links that
you can run a terminal emulator or SLIP over, range about 100 ft.
[need addresses]

Hamtronics, Inc.
65-D Moul Rd.
Hilton, NY  14468-9535
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  1200 and 9600 baud units/modules for a few hundred dollars.

Cylink
310 N. Mary Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  AirLink - series of highspeed synch or async modems to 256kb/s.
Interfaces include V.11, RS-232, EIA-530. Spread spectrum device
operating in 902-928Mhz range.

Monicor Electronics
Fort Lauderdale, FL
tel: [phone]
  Two-card OEM set for use in palmtops and handheld computing. System
310 board set transmits at 1mW to 2W for a range of 3 to 3km range.
Priced at $660 in quantity.

A number of articles have also been posted about the modification of
inexpensive walkie-talkies for wireless communication. Typical
bandwidths are limited to about 1200 baud. This may be sufficient for
simple command-level control of a mobile mechanism.
____________________________________________________________________________
+++Robot Parts: Suppliers and Sources
  Many inquiries on comp.robotics are of the form: Where can I find X?
where X might be motors, gears, fasteners, connectors etc. The
following companies carry a wide selection of electronics and
mechanical parts. With the possible exception of computing these
companies should have all you need to build robot mechanisms.

Also see the file regularly posted to sci.electronics and a number of
the radio newsgroups:
    site:         rtfm.mit.edu
    directory:    pub/usenet/sci.electronics/
    filename:    My_List_of_Mail_Order_Electronics_Companies

All Electronics Corp.
P.O. Box 567
Van Nuys, CA 91408
tel: [phone]
  Electronics parts.

Allied Devices
2365 Milburn Avenue,
PO Box 502
Bladwin, NY 11510
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  Standard precision mechanical components

American Science and Surplus
tel: [phone]

C&H Sales
2176 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
tel: [phone]
tel: [phone]
  Surplus parts. Motors etc.

Digi-Key Corp.
701 Brooks Avenue South
P.O. Box 677
Thief River Falls, MN 56701-0677
tel: [phone]
  Distributor of electronics components and semiconductors.

Edmund Scientific
101 E. Gloucester Pike
Barrington, NJ 08007-1380
tel: [phone] order
tel: [phone] customer service
  Lots of optics, science and educational items. A little high priced,
but nice selection.

Graymark
Box 5020
Santa Ana, CA 92704
tel: [phone]
  Robot and electonics kits, tools and instruments.

Herbach and Rademan Co.
18 Canal St.
P.O. Box 122
Bristol, PA 19007-0122
tel: [phone] (orders)
tel: [phone] (office)
fax: [phone] (fax)
  Electro-mechanical "surplus" parts, equipment and insturments.

Marlin P. Jones
tel: [phone]

McMaster-Carr Supply Company
PO box 440
New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0440
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  An amazing catalog of hundreds of thousands of parts. Lots of
mechanical things but not much for electronics or computing.

MECI
tel: [phone]

Mendelson Electronics Co., Inc
tel: [phone]

Newark Electronics
500 N. Pulaski St.
Chicago, IL 60624-1019
tel: [phone] (check locally)
  Major distributor of electronics components and equipment (1200+
pages) with branches throughout the US.

Nordex
50 Newton Road
Danbury, CT 06810-6216
tel: [phone]
  Gears, cams, universals etc.

PIC Design
PO Box 1004
Benson Road
Middlebury, CT 06762-1004
tel: [phone] (except CT)
tel: [phone]
  Bearings, clutches, brakes, couplings, tools, belts, pulleys, gears
etc.

Radio Shack
  Electronic parts and kits. Local retail stores in just about every
city)

SECS, Inc.
520 Homestead Avenue
Mt. Vernon, NY 10550
tel: [phone]
 Gears and gear assemblies, belt drives, couplings, bearings, small
parts.

Seitz
Box 1398
Torrington, CT 06790
tel: [phone]
  Drive components, gears etc.

Servo Systems
115 Main Road
PO Box 97
Montville, NJ 07045-9299
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  Surplus pieces and prices, motors, actuators, geardrives,
controllers, robots, encoders, transducers, amplifiers.

Small Parts Inc.
6891 NE Third Ave
PO Box 381966
Miami, FL 33238-1966
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  Lots of neat small supplies including: materials, metal stock,
fasteners, tools etc.

Stock Drive Products
2101 Jericho Turnpike
Bobx 5416
New Hyde Park, NY 11042-5416
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  Great set of handbooks of thousands of components.

Winfred M. Berg
499 Ocean Ave.,
East Rockaway, LI, NY 11518
tel: [phone]
  Precision Mechanical Components

Any technical library should have catalogs from the larger
distributors. These include McMaster-Carr, Grainger, Allied, Newark,
etc.

____________________________________________________________________________
+++Hero robots:

Heros are no longer being made but Heath (Zenith) still offers some
replacement parts.  They had about 8 years of sales: 4,000 Hero Jr's,
3,000 Hero 2000's, 14,000 assembled Hero 1's. Ones with less
capability didn't do as well but higher priced ones did ok in the
market. Service and maintainability are a problem due to the sheer
number of bolts, pulleys, boards, sensors, cables etc. Used ones can
be picked up cheap - caveat emptor.

Heathkit [has gone out of business]
Benton Harbor, MI
order line [phone]
tech line [phone]
_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Puma manipulators:

Pumas are probably the most common robot in university laboratories
and one of the most common assembly robots. Designed by Vic Schienman
many years ago, the Puma (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly)
was produced for many years by Unimation (later purchased by
Westinghouse and sold at a loss later to Staubli, a Swiss company)
Found in many university labs as well.

Staubli Automation
211 Overlook Drive
Sewickly, PA 15143
tel: [phone]

Staubli Unimation Ltd
Unit G, Stafford Park 18
Telford, Shropshire, TF3 3Ax
UK


PUMA singularities:
The PUMA has three singularities: the ``alignment'' singularity (wrist
is as close to the axis of joint 1 as it can get), the ``elbow''
singularity (elbow is fully extended or folded up; the latter is not
possible because of joint limits), and the wrist singularity (the axes
of joints 4 and 6 are aligned).

The angles corresponding to these depend on the Denavit-Hartenburg
(DH) parameter assignment.  For the PUMA, the definitions given in [1]
are perhaps the most commonly used Using these, and letting A2, A3,
D3, and D4 denote the translational DH offsets, the singularities
occur when the following are true:

Alignment:    D4*sin(ang2+ang3) + A2*cos(ang2) - A3*cos(ang2+ang3) == 0

Elbow:        sin(ang3 - atan2(A3,D4)) == 0

Wrist:        sin(ang5) == 0

Typical offset values for the PUMA 560 are

A2 =  431.80
D3 =  149.09
A3 =  20.32
D4 =  433.070

[information provided by John Lloyd <[e-mail]>]

Trident Robotics and Research, Inc.
2516 Matterhorn Drive
Wexford, PA 15090-7962
[phone]
email: <[e-mail]>
A board for replacing the PUMA LSI/11 controller with the CPU of your
choice: The board is basically an I/O board with D/A's, A/D's, encoder
counters and some digital I/O lines and is available to connect to
several bus architectures including VMEbus, IBM-PC bus, Multibus and
IndustryPack bus. (with others under consideration) It comes as a
two-board set: A PUMA board and a bus interface board. This allows
several buses to be supported and keeps the analog electronics away
from the noise of the bus. (It also makes switching buses cheap, if
the need ever arises.) Since it is primarily an I/O board set, it can
be used in applications other than controlling a PUMA.

The user's manuals are available by anonymous ftp:

    ftp ftp.cs.cmu.edu
    login as "anonymous"
    cd /usr/anon/user/deadslug
    get trc4um.ps

This is a PostScript file that can be printed or viewed (to conserve paper)
and describes the remote board that mounts inside the Unimate controller,
replacing the VAL computer.
The file trd0001.ps shows the board arrangement diagrammatically.

Useful Puma references:

[1] Richard Paul, Brian Shimano, and Gordon Mayer, ``Kinematic Control
    Equations for Simple Manipulators''. IEEE Transactions on Systems,
    Man, and Cybernetics, Vol SMC-11, No. 6, June 1981.

[2] B Armstrong, O Khatib, and J. Burdick
    The Explicit Dynamic Model and Inertial Parameters of the PUMA 560 Arm
    Proceedings IEEE Int. Conference on Robotics and Automation, April 1986
    San Francisco, CA pp510-518
_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Simulators:

Simulation allows researchers, designers and users to construct robots
and task environments for a fraction of the cost and time of real
systems. They differ significantly from traditional CAD tools in that
they allow study of geometries, kinematics, dynamics and motion
planning. This list is NOT a comparative analysis of the different
systems but rather a list of systems that are available.

Commercial Simulators
---------------------

Auto Simulations, Inc.
655 Medical Drive
Bountiful, UT  84010
tel: [phone]
contact:  Teresa Francis, ext 330
Products: AutoMod II
Platforms: ?
Cost: ?

CADSI
PO Box 203
Oakdale, IA 52319
tel: [phone]
tel: [phone]
  DADS - kinematics and dynamics package. Have ProEngineer to CADSI
interface.  Supports rigid and flexible body analysis. Animation and
interfaces to FEA/FEM and CAD programs.

Deneb Robotics, Inc.
3285 Lapeer Road West
PO Box 214687
tel: [phone]
Product:    IGRIP
Platforms:    SPARCs, SGI
Cost:    US$50-$60,000.
  Allows offline programming, dynamics capability etc.

Mechanical Dynamics Inc.
2301 Commonwealth Blvd
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
tel: [phone]
 ADAMS dynamics package

Silma/Cimstation
1601 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road
Cupertino, California  95014
tel: [phone]
Product:    CimStation
Platforms:    SGI-4D, SUN SparcStation, Apollo, Intergraph,
        Computervision, HP, IBM Risc6000 and DEC.
Cost:        Base system around $55K (commercial license)
        They also have a University Partnership
        Program to enable universities to purchase CimStation
        for around $20K US and $25K International.
Features:
Silma offers application solutions for Spot Welding, Arc Welding,
Painting, Stamping and Assembly, as well as Robot Calibration Tools.
Also, SILMA has direct CAD interfaces to Computervision CADDS,
Parametric Technology Corporation Pro/ENGINEER, IBM CATIA ans MCS
ANVIL5000. We also support VDAFS and SET in addition to IGES. Finally,
in addition to CimStation Robotics, we also offer SILMA(R) CimStation
Inspection - used to create, simulate and edit DMIS programs for
coordinate measuring machines- (CMMs) and SILMA(R) CimStation NC
Verification- used to simulate and verify NC part programs.
    Provides: Basic CAD Tools: 2D and 3D solid & wireframe, IGES
interface, Robot Modelling: generate the required governing equations
(iterative or closed form) automatically for "many" classes of robots
Path Generation Kinematic Simulation with Collision Detection Dynamic
Simulation (CimStation only at this point) I/O Operations

John Craig of "Introduction to Robotics" fame is head of Silma's R&D.
Silma has a programming environment called SIL complete with its own
PASCAL-like iterative language with graphics and robotics extensions.
CimStation is built out of this language.  This allows you to add your
own functionality. E.g. your own path planner. You can also write
C-code, compile it, and add it to the system.

Comutek
1223 Peoples Avenue
Troy, NY  12180
tel: [phone]
fax: 518.276.XXXX
contact:  Vinay Joshi
  Products: Work-Out
  Cost: Around $25000.

Tecnomatix Technologies/Robcad
39750 Grand River Avenue
Suite A-3
Novi, MI 48375
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Platforms: HP, Silicon Graphics, IBM and Sun
Tecnomatix makes several packages for simulation including ones for
Spot welding, Arc welding, Painting, Teleoperation (Martel), CMM and
Drilling. They also have an open systems environment, ROSE, that
allows user customization and interface design. ROBCAD itself allows
robot modeling (library of 100 robots is supplied), collision free
path generation, importation of IGES, VDAFS and SET files and direct
interface with Catia and ComputerVision.

[GMF - the entry that used to be here, no longer supports OLPW-200,
instead they are a Robcad reseller]

Simulators on the net
---------------------
Ars Magna
  The ARS MAGNA robot simulator provides an abstract world in which a
  planner controls a mobile robot. The simulator also includes a simple
  graphical user-interface which uses the CLX interface to the X window
  system. Version 1.0 of the ARS MAGNA simulator is documented in Yale
  Technical Report YALEU/DCS/RR #928, "ARS MAGNA: The Abstract Robot
  Simulator".  This report is available in the distribution as a
  Postscript(tm) file, as well as from:
    Paula Murano
    Yale University
    Department of Computer Science
    P.O. Box 2158 Yale Station
    New Haven, CT  06520-2158
    net: <[e-mail]>
  Comments to Sean Engelson: <[e-mail]>
  ARS MAGNA is available by anonymous ftp:
    location:    ftp.cs.yale.edu
    directory:    pub/nisp
    filenames:    *

Simderella
  Simderella is a robot simulator consisting of three programs:
    connel: the controller
    simmel: the simulator
    bemmel: the X-windows oriented graphics back-end
  Simmel is the part which actually simulates the robot. It performs a
  few matrix multiplications, based on the Denavit Hartenberg method,
  calculates velocities with the Newton-Euler scheme, and communicates
  with the other two programs. Bemmel only displays the robot. It is
  a fast general-purpose display method which places separate objects
  in space depending on the homogeneous matrices it receives from
  simmel. Connel is the controller, which must be designed by the user
  (in the distributed version, connel is a simple inverse kinematics
  routine. I didn't include my neural networks.)

  The three programs use Unix sockets for communication.  This means
  that
    1. you need sockets
    2. all the programs can run on different machines
  Since data communication is high-level (meaning, in this case, that
  I do not send doubles, integers, and so on, but encode them first),
  running the programs on different architectures is no problem.  In
  fact, it was thus designed that connel can, at the same time,
  control a real robot _and_ the simulated one.

  Simderella likes to sleep; that is, when nothing happens, no
  processor time will be used.

  The software is available as a compressed tar file from:
    site:        galba.mbfys.kun.nl [IP 131.174.82.73]
    directory:     pub/neuro-software/pd.
    filename:    simderella.1.0.tar.Z

  Extract the simulator from the tar file by typing at the Unix
  command line:
    zcat simderella.tar.Z | tar xf -
  or use your favourite extracting commands. In the simderella/
  directory, type
        make
  The sub-directories are recursively visited and executables are
  compiled and linked.

  The software has been compiled using gcc on SunOS running under
  X11R4/5 on Sun3, Sun4, Sun Sparc 1, 2, and 10, and Silicon Graphics
  architectures (using cc, of course, which is what the gnu compiler
  is called there).

  If you're impatient, execute the thing as follows:
    cd bemmel; Zoscar & cd ..
    cd simmel; source env; simmel1 ns & cd ..
    cd connel; connel s
  all on one machine.  Then type commands like
    f 50 50 50
    k 50 50 50

  or move the mouse pointer in the bemmel window and press an `l' or
  `r' or `u' or `d' or ....

  [CMU has been using this recently to facilitate software development
  of the Shuttle servicing robot before the hardware and mechanics are
  available to test the various parts of the controller - it has also
  been linked to TCA calls and worked very well]

Public Domain SGI based simulator:
    This is a Silicon Graphics based delux robot simulator with
  lots of nice graphics Stuff. It was written by Andrew Conway and
  Craig Dillon as undergraduates for an electrical engineering project
  at the University of Melbourne. Not much in installation
  instructions. There is a latex manual with usage instructions and
  the mathematics.  Warning: It is 4.3Mbytes compressed, and the
  US-Australia link is quite slow.
    Disclaimer: I [Andrew] haven't used this software for
  years. If it malfunctions, don't sue me or Craig, we don't guarantee
  it.
    site:        krang.vis.citri.edu.au
    directory:    pub/robot

MODULSH:
    The complete programe is divided into three menus: Main,
  Drawing and Robot Menus. features such as selecting elements or the
  complete screen, rotating, translating, zooming, enlarging or
  reducing the scale and passing to the two dimensional drawing window
  from the three dimensional one are available.
    The Drawing Menu also offers many other possibilities like
  drawing three dimensional circles, ellipses, arcs, elliptical arcs,
  cylinders, cones, prisms, ellipsoids, toroids, etc.  In addition to
  these, it is also possible to obtain hidden line drawing and to
  change the point numbers of the circular drawing elements.  Whereas
  in Robots Menu, operations like selecting modules from the
  sub-menus, containing graphics, which concern body, wrist, hand
  systems and work spaces of robots, finding direct and inverse
  kinematics solution of these systems, point by point simulation of
  the robot motions, changing Denavit-Hartenberg parameters and joint
  freedom extremums from the menus can be performed.
    site:          WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil and OAK.Oakland.Edu
    directory:    pd1:<msdos.education>
    filenames:    MODULSH1.ZIP    Design and animation of robots, 1 of 2
            MODULSH2.ZIP    Design and animation of robots, 2 of 2
    Author:
    Dr. Hikmet Kocabas
    Istanbul Technical University
    [e-mail]
    [e-mail]

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS)

This is an abridged list of the RTOS'. See
comp.real-time and news.answers for the complete FAQ.

    location:  rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.209]
    directory: /pub/usenet/news.answers/realtime-computing
    filenames: faq

Below is a list of both commercial and research Real-Time Operating
Systems (RTOS) which are being used around the world for implementing
robotic systems.  Only the names and addresses of the distributors are
included.  Since the available features of each are constantly
changing, and the advantages and disadvantages of each are greatly a
matter of opinion and target application, no such descriptions are
given.

Commercial RTOS:

    * iRMX III
        Runs on Intel 80X86-based computers
    U.S.A.:
        Intel Corporation
        3065 Bowers Avenue
        Santa Clara, California 95051
        tel [phone]
    * LynxOS
        Runs on wide variety of platforms, including Motorola,
        Intel, Sun, and Hewlett Packard.

        Lynx Real-Time Systems, Inc
        16780 Lark
        Los Gatos, CA 95030
        tel [phone]
        fax [phone]

    * OS-9
        Runs on Motorola MC680X0-based single board computers.

        Microware System Corporation
        1900 N.W. 114th St.
        Des Moines, Iowa 50322
        tel [phone]
    * pSOS+
        Runs on a variety of Motorola 680X0 and 88100, and
        Intel 80386 computers.  Requires a host workstation or
        personal computer if pASSPORT+ real-time programming
        environment is to be used.

        Software Components Group, Inc.
        1731 Technology Drive
        San Jose, CA  95110
        tel [phone]
        fax [phone]

     * E-VENIX & VENIX
        VenturCom Inc
        215 First St.
        Cambridge, MA. 02142
        P: [phone]
        I: [e-mail]
    Product runs on ix86 platforms and PC/104 systems.
    Product is real UNIX, SVR3.2 & SVR4.2.
    Workstation version requires ~4MB, 120MB, 80{3|4}86 processor.
    Embedded version requirements vary depending on features used.
    Embedded product allows for completely ROMed UNIX systems,
    from read-only root to stand alone applications.

    * VRTX
        Runs on a wide variety of processors, including Motorola 680X0,
        Intel 80X86 and 80960, National Semiconductor series 3200.

        Ready Systems
        470 Potrero Avenue
        P.O.Box 60217
        Sunnyvale, CA 94086
        [phone]
        fax [phone]

    * VxWorks
        Runs on a wide variety of MC680X0 and SPARC-based single
        board computers. Requires a workstation for program
        developments. Widely used in Unix environments for realtime work.

        Wind River Systems Inc.
        1000 Atlantic Avenue
        Alameda, CA 94501
        tel: [phone] or 800.545.WIND (9463)
        fax: [phone]
        <[e-mail]>


    QNX
    Distributed, POSIX, real-time microkernel for Intel x86 processors.
    Supports fault tolerance and also hosts MS-Windows in Standard mode

  QNX Software Systems                          QNX Software Systems
  175 Terrence Matthews Cr.                     Westendstr.19 6000 Frankfurt
  Kanata, Ontario K2M 1W8                       am main 1
  Canada                                        Germany
  voice:  [phone] x111 (voice)           voice: 49 69 97546156 x299
  fax:    [phone]      (fax)             fax:   [phone]

Two QNX papers are available via anonymous FTP:
    An Architectural Overview of QNX
    A Microkernel POSIX OS for Realtime Embedded Systems

    location: ftp.cse.ucsc.edu [128.114.134.19]
    directory:/pub/
    filenames: qnx-paper.ps.Z, qnx_embed.ps.Z

Research RTOS that are distributed:

    * Chimera II
        Runs on MC680X0-based single board computers.
        Requires a Sun workstation for program development
    U.S.A.:
        Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
        Carnegie Mellon University
        5000 Forbes Avenue
        Pittsburgh, PA 15213
        ATTN: David B. Stewart
        tel [phone]
        fax [phone]
        email: [e-mail]

    * Harmony
        Runs on MC680X0-based single board computers
    Canada:
        Division of Electrical Engineering
        National Research Council of Canada
        Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
        K1A 0R6
        ref: NRCC Tech Report No. 30081

    * REXIS
    REXIS (Real-time EXecutive for Intelligent Systems) is a small
    multi-tasking preemptive real-time executive for implementing control
    programs for intelligent systems such as robotics and distributed
    networks. It provides functions for
    managing tasks, memory allocation, message ports, timers, and
    event processing.
        It is distributed as shareware at a low cost to
    hobbyists / students.  The current requirements for compiling
    and running REXIS is an ANSI C HC11 cross compiler and a HC11
    target with at least 24K of RAM. Other targets are under
    consideration.  For more information, please contact
    Richard Man
    P.O. Box 6
    North Chelmsford, MA 01863
    (phone+FAX) [phone]
    [e-mail], or
    [e-mail]

Robot Control C Library (RCCL)
    A robot programming environment embedded in C/UNIX. A graphics
    simulator is provided which supports the PUMA, Stanford, and
    `Elbow' manipulators. The system can be compiled on SGIs (so
    the Indigo should be fine), and the graphics runs under either
    X or GL.  You can get the system from RCIM for a small fee to
    cover copying and shipping. If you are interested send mail
    to:
    John Lloyd         Research Center for Intelligent Machines
    [e-mail]        McGill University, Montreal
    tel: [phone]                   fax: [phone]

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Survey of Robot Development Environments

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;; RESPONSES TO INFORMAL SURVEY ON DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS       ;;;
;;;                      FOR MOBILE ROBOTS               ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;; Updated: Thu Oct 28 07:25:55 1993 <[e-mail]>   ;;;
;;; Created: Sat May 23 09:37:24 1992 <[e-mail]>   ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;; Maintained by: [e-mail] (for now)           ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;; Please send updates, additions, corrections, etc. to:       ;;;
;;;         [e-mail]               ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;



Organization       Robot        Development        Languages &
                   Type        HW Environment        SW Enviroment
=============   ====        ==============        =============
Alcatel Alsthom Indoor robot    SPARC II, VME proc    VxWorks, MOTIF
Recherche (AAR) Outdoor    robot


Brown U.        Mobile robots    SPARC I & II,        OS/9, GNU Emacs, Xlib,
                        VME 68030        MOTIF, Forth, C, C++

CMU             a) SM^2(walker)    VME 68020 & 68030,    Chimera II RTOS, C,
                                Sun            Sun tools
                b) AMBLER    VME 68020 & 68030,    MOTIF, VxWorks,
                           SPARC II, Iris        X windows, C
                c) Mobile Mani-    Z8088s, Sun IPC & ELC,    X Window, Lisp, C, Hero
                   pulator    NeXT            Basic

                d) Mobile robot    SPARC, Iris, Mac,    X windows, Openwindows,
                        VME, Maspar, Titan    VxWorks, Chimera RTOS,
                                    TCA, GIL, LISP
                e) Navlab    Sun-4            X windows, C


Colorado Sch.   Denning MRV-3    Sparc IIs, IPXs,    C, X11, Khoros, potential fields
of Mines                IBM RS/6000s               X11 visualization tool (homemade)


Colorado St.    6-legged robot    68HC11EVM, AT        C

Cornell U.    2 mobile robots    Gespak 68000, Intel    Scheme, Lucid Lisp
        (robot with    80c196, Sun(?)
        tank-tread
        base coming)

Cray Research(?)Mobile robot    MC68HC16EBV, 386    Assembler

Georgia Tech    Denning    DRV-1    SUN IPC, Decstation,    X windows, C,
                & MRV-II    Microvax II        Lisp

Grumman CRC     SmartyCat    Mac II's/IIci's,    C, CLOS, LISP, SAL
                (Cybermotion    uExplorer, SGI(soon)    VxWorks(soon)
         K2A)        68030 VME board(soon)

IBM TJ Watson    TJ, TJ2        Symbolics, RS/6000,    LISP, CLOS, CLIM,
(1989?-1992)                   286, 386, Suns        C, X-windows, MOTIF,
                                    GNU Emacs

ISX Corp        Subsumption    Mac II cx's/ci's    C(?)

JPL             7 robots    Suns to 6811        RCCL, ALFA

McGill U    Mobile robot    Sparcs, mc68hc11, PC    GNU, X, Small-C
                            C, C++
        QUADRIS        SUNs, Macs, C-40, 68K    C, X-windows, IRIS GL

MIT        20 robots    Mac II & IIsi, HC6811    Behavior Language
        GOPHER (ISR R2)    68332, Mac, Sun        GCC, Behavior Language,
                            Lisp, X-windows
        Polly        VME, 6811, Mac        Senselisp(Scheme)
        SOZZY(homemade)    6811, Mac        Lisp, Behavior Language

MITRE           Denning MRV-1    MacQuadra, uExplorer    Lisp, REX/GAPPS, C, C++

Northeastern U.    Lobster Robot    HC11, Mac        C, Pascal, Assembly
        Phaeton        Sun 4/330, Mac        C, epsilon (Cognex),
        (Denning MRV3)                X-windows

NRC of Canada    EAVE        Mac II's, 68020's    C, HARMONY OS, MacAPP
        (Cybermotion)

NC State        Mobile robot    VME 68020 & 68040,    OS/9, P/NET

Osaka U.    Homemade    VME 68030, SUN IPX,    C, X-windows
                Sparc 2

Purdue U.    PETER        Sun4, 68030        C, VxWorks
        (Cybermotion)

SRI        FLAKEY        Sparc10/30, Z80        Lucid Lisp, C, X-windows

Stanford        Landmark based    Mac IIci        C, LISP
                Navigation
        (Nomadic)

Swiss FIT       Mobile robot    Mac            MacMETH, Modula-2

U of Central    a) 6-leg walker    Commodore 64        SuperC,    C
                b) 6-leg walker Amiga 500        C

U of Edinburgh    a) ALDER    8052, SUN, PC        Basic
        (Fischertecknik)
        b) CAIRNGORM    68000, SUN        C
        (Fischertecknik)

U of Mass.,    Denning        DECstation 5000,    C, LISP
Amherst                Sparcstation

U of New    Underwater    Sparcstation,        VxWorks, C(?)
Hampshire    robots        CMOS VME boards


U Wash.        Denning        HP 9000 series 300's,    Gensym G2, OS/9
                68000            LLAMA (Forth), Lisp, C

Worcester Poly-    James        NEC 76310, 68HC11,    Assembly, Small-C (DOS)
technic Inst.    (RWI B12)    Gateway 2000 PC

Wright Lab,    Hero 2000    Intel 286        MS C (DOS), Assembly
Wright-Pat. Air
Force Base

VTT (Technical    Akseli        HP-1100, 386        MS-DOS, LynxOS (soon)
Research Center                        C
of Finland)

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++What is the miniboard?

The Mini Board is an outgrowth of the MIT 6.270 robot course and
design project. It is a small and inexpensive design for a controller
board based on the ubiquitous (yet hard to find) 68HC11
micro-controller.

A fifty-page manual describing how to build and operate the Mini Board
is on-line on the FTP server cherupakha.media.mit.edu in directory
pub/miniboard/docs.  Also on-line is software for programming the Mini
Board from MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Unix machines.

Hard copies of the Mini Board manual may be ordered by sending a check
payable for U.S. $5 to "MIT Epistemology and Learning" at Epistemology
and Learning Publications, MIT Media Laboratory, 20 Ames Street
E15-301, Cambridge MA 02139.

There is now a mailing list for discussing the board.  The purpose of
the mailing list is to discuss robot controller boards, and robot
control in general.  In particular, the list will be used to support
the Mini Board 2.0 and 6.270 board design by Fred Martin and Randy
Sargent of MIT.  However, any and all traffic related to robot
controllers is welcome.

Administrative address:    [e-mail]
    (send a message containing the word "help" for directions)
Mailing list address:    [e-mail]
Maintainer:        <[e-mail]>
Please DO NOT send administrative things to the main mailing list
address, as then everyone will get annoyed.
_____________________________________________________________________________

+++Microcontrollers

Many questions relate to the choice of microcontroller in robot
systems.

Microchip PIC16/17

NS628/629

HP HCTL 1000, 2000

68HC11

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Books:

The readership of this group ranges from the beginner to experienced
robot designers and users. Accordingly, this list covers the gamut as
well. I would like to include net resources as well such as papers or
tech reports.

Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implementation.
J. L. Jones and A. Flynn,
  This book is based on a course taught at MIT and deals with all
  aspects from design and the mechanics and electronics of
  construction to robot programming.
    Klaus Peters
    President and Publisher
    AK PETERS, LTD.
    289 Linden Street
    Wellesley, MA 02181
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    net: <[e-mail]>

The Robot Builder's Bonanza: 99 Inexpensive Robotics Projects
Gordon McComb
TAB Books

Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics and the Coming Robotopia
Frederik L. Schodt
Kodansha International
New York, NY 1988
  Lots of interesting views of robots in Japan and Japan's fascination
  with robots.

The Robot Book
Richard Pawson
Windward, 1985, 192 pages.
  Utilizes Lego kits.

Interfacing Test Circuits With Single-Board Computers
Robert H. Luetzow
TAB Books

Build Your Own Universal Computer Interface
Bruce Chubb
TAB Books

Robots
Peter Marsh
Crescent (Crown) Publishers, NY 1985
Marsh edited the volume and the book is made up of several
contributions from robotics researchers.  A very well illustrated book
that covers the general topic of robots.  Excellent source materials
and graphics.

Microprocessor Based Robotics
Mark J. Robillard
Howard Sams & Co. 1983

Advanced Robot Systems
Mark J. Robillard
Howard Sams & Co. 1984

JTEC report on Japanese Space Robotics
Available from NTIS (see below)
  A summary of the Japanese Technology Evaluation Center (JTEC)
  panel's report on the state of the art of Japanese robot technology.
  Lots of pictures of wierd and wonderful robots -- elephant trunk,
  caterpillar, space tentacle, wall builder, Komatsu's walking
  undersea rubble-leveler, humanoid two-armed assembly robot, 4-legged
  stair climber.  Also tells where to write for videotapes of these
  machines in action.  Here's the info (two years old, remember) ...
  Tape with narration by William "Red" Whittaker:
    cost: $37.50
    University Video Communications
    Box 20006
    Stanford, CA USA 94309
    [phone]
  Shorter tape of highlights from many Japanese labs:
    National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
    5285 Port Royal Road
    Springfield, VA USA 22161
    [phone]
  Article: "Japan robotics aim for unmanned space exploration"
  William L. Whittaker, Takeo Kanade. IEEE Spectrum, December 1990

Robotics
edited by Marvin Minsky
Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1985
ISBN: 0385194145, LCCN: 84024390

Control System Design Guide
George Ellis
ISBN 0-12-237470-3
  Covers hardware,software and theory of ordinary PID control.

Minimalist Mobile Robotics
Jonathan H Connel
   ISBN 0-12-185230-X
  Brooks subsumption architecture robots. Shows complex behaviors are
  possible with little of the massive architectures done in other
  programs.

Robotic Technology: Principles and Practice.
Werner G. Holzbock
Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, 1986, ISBN 0-442-23154-7

Microcontroller Technology: The 68HC11
Peter Spasov
Regents/Prentice Hall, 1993, ISBN 0-13-583568-2
  Aimed at the 68HC11 family, but a good reference anyway.

Machines That Walk
Shin-Min Song and Kenneth J Waldron
   ISBN 0-262-19274-8
  Like it says: legged locomotion. Focus is on the OSU Adaptive
  Suspension Vehicle.

Directed Sonar Sensing for Mobile Robot Navigation_
by John J. Leonard & Hugh F. Durant-Whyte
Kluwer Academic Press
Boston (1992) ISBN 0-7923-9242-6
  An expansion on John's thesis work, which he did at Oxford.

Online reports
--------------
There are emerging sources on the net for tech reports and papers. If
you know of additional ones please send me email. Thanks.

The 6.270 Robot Builder's Guide
Fred Martin
    site:        cherupakha.media.mit.edu (18.85.0.47)
    directory:    pub/6270/docs/
    filenames:    *.PS.Z
  This directory contains "The 6.270 Robot Builder's Guide", the
  course notes to the 1992 MIT LEGO Robot Design Competition.
  Hardcopy also available for $15 from:
    E&L Memo Requests
    MIT Media Laboratory
    20 Ames Street Room E15-309
    Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
    Check made out to 'MIT Epistemology and Learning'
  Contact: Fred Martin at [e-mail]

University of Kaiserslautern FTP-Server is :
    site:        ftp.uni-kl.de
    directory:    reports_uni-kl/computer_science/mobile_robots/...
    subdirectory    1993/papers
    filename:    Zimmer.learning_surfaces.ps.Z
    subdirectory:    1992/papers
    filename:    Zimmer.rt_communication.ps.Z
    subdirectory:    1991/papers
    filename:    Edlinger.Pos_Estimation.ps.Z
            Edlinger.Eff_Navigation.ps.Z
            Knieriemen.euromicro_91.ps.Z
            Zimmer.albatross.ps.Z

SPIE abstracts:
    location:    mom.spie.org
    directory:    /abstracts/1800/1831.txt
    filenames:    1831.txt [From Mobile Robots VII 1992

    bookorders can be made through [e-mail]
_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Acknowledgements:
    Thanks to those who responded with updates, new material,
corrections, suggestions etc. Some of the names are indirect; that is,
they replied to queries on the newsgroup:

Hans Moravec, Maki Habib, Ken Goldberg, David Stanton, John Nagle,
Sean Graves, Sjur Vestli, Mark Yim, Rich Wallace, Dan Hudson, Sanjiv
Singh, Matt Stein, Dave Stewart, Ed Cheung, Ron Fearing, Klaus
Biggers, Lisa Rendleman, Nobuhiko Mukai, Paul Sharkey, Fred Martin,
Willie Lim, Allen Brown, Erann Gat, Judd Jones, Tony Sprent, Richard
Seldon, Brian Richardson, Ross McAree, Nathan Stratten, Chuck
McManuis, Terry Fong, and many others who dropped off suggestions,
comments and changes. Thank you.

--

aka: Kevin Dowling            Carnegie Mellon University
tel: [phone]            The Robotics Institute
adr: [e-mail]            Pittsburgh, PA 15213
--

aka: Kevin Dowling            Carnegie Mellon University
tel: [phone]            The Robotics Institute
adr: [e-mail]            Pittsburgh, PA 15213