Usenet 1993 July/InfoMagic USENET CD-ROM July 1993.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 Feb 14 23:26:33 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
    +++Suppliers and sources for Parts
    +++Hero Robots
    +++Puma Manipulators
    +++Simulators
    +++Real-Time Operating Systems
    +++Robot Controller Survey
    +++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                phone:    [phone]
Robotics Institute            fax:    [phone]
Carnegie Mellon University        email:    [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
    ===laser rangefinders
    ===force/torque sensors
    ===sonar sensors
    ===position determination devices
    ===pan/tilt mechanisms
    ===shape memory devices

===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 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 isse 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.

<no 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
[phone]
Nice small well-designed units that provide heading data. About $1K w/
RS232 adapter.

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

Humphrey
<no 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.

====Laser rangefinders
    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:

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 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.

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
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
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

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 $6K. 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
Manufactures semiconductor laser diode packages and cylindrical
lenses. Packages and small and rugged.

Recent power tools such as miter saws and radial arm saws are using
laser line projection - these may be available cheaply as spare parts.

===Force and Torque Sensors:

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

JR3
22 Harter Avenue
Woodland, CA 95695
[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.

Assurance Technologies (ATI)
(formerly Lord Industrial Automation)
503D Highway 70 East
Garner, North Carolina 27529
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Largest supplier of muli-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.

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!

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

===Sonar sensors
    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
[phone] ordering
[phone] technical assistance
Polariod 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.

Polhemus Inc
[phone]
[phone] (fax)
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
[phone]
[phone]
The Bird. A 6d0f measuring device much like the Pohlhemus device.

Denning Mobile Robots
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.

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

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
[phone]
Computer controlled pan-tilt unit Model PTU-33-17.5
Weighs 1kg and can support ~1.5kg camera payload.
Very nice specs: 200 deg/sec slew, 3-4arc-min accuracy,
RS-232 interface, About $1200.

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
[phone]
Underwater P/T systems, expensive $6K but very nicely packaged

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

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

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

Zebra Kinesis
(spin-off of Zebra Robotics)
Jeff Kerr
[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]
     [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 are one series of applications for this
material.
____________________________________________________________________________
+++Wireless Communication
    Tethers are sometimes impractical and at best an annoyance.
Digital communication via RF and IR links is becoming cheaper and a
variety of companies are providing 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. With high speed serial you may even be able to
SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocal) instead of LANs.

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)

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 the Ambler work and probably will
continue to use it. 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.

"Altair"
Motorola Radio-Telephone Systems Group, Arlington Heights, ILL
[phone]

Motorola
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
for the non-portable 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.

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.

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.

A handful of other companies have units in the 250Kbps range that are
designed to plug into the parallel port of a PC or laptop and emulate
a Dlink-like ethernet adapter.  You still need to use an MS-DOS box to
interface it to an existing network.

____________________________________________________________________________
+++Robot parts: Suppliers of useful mechanical and electrical components.

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

American Science and Surplus
[phone]

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

C&H Sales
Pasadena, CA
[phone]
[phone]
Surplus parts. Motors etc.

McMaster-Carr Supply Company
PO box 440
New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0440
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
An amazing catalog of 100's of thousands of parts. Lots of mechanical
things not much for electronics, computingbut almost everything else.

Mendelson Electronics Co., Inc
[phone]

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

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

Herbach and Rademan
401 E. Erie Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19134
[phone]
Lots of surplus stuff including AC and DC motors.

Nordex
50 Newton Road
Danbury, CT 06810-6216
Gears, cams, universals etc.

Seitz
Box 1398
Torrington, CT 06790
[phone]
drive components, gears etc.

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

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

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

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.

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]
 Trident makes boards for replacing the VAL computer inside a PUMA
with the computer of your choice. There is an interface for VMEbus,
Multibus, and PC-AT bus. (An IndustryPack interface is in
development.)  This board set allows memory-mapped access to the
motors and sensors of the standard PUMA 560, 260 and 760 series. It's
an interface board with 6 encoder counters, 8 D/A's, 8 A/D's and some
digital I/O.

Useful 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.

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
  Email: <[e-mail]>
Comments to Sean Engelson: <[e-mail]>
ARS MAGNA is available by anonymous ftp:
    location: ftp.cs.yale.edu
    directory: pub/nisp
    filenames: *****

CADSI
PO Box 203
Oakdale, IA 52319
[phone]
[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
[phone]
Product:    IGRIP
Platforms:    SPARCs, (SGI's?)
Cost:    US$50-$60,000.
Allows offline programming, dynamics capability etc.

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

Silma/Cimstation
1601 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road
Cupertino, California  95014
[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.

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: [phone]
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]

Auto Simulations, Inc.
655 Medical Drive
Bountiful, UT  84010
ph# 801 298 1398
telex 801 298 8186
contact:  Teresa Francis, ext 330
Products: AutoMod II
Platforms: ?
Cost: ?
_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Real-Time Operating Systems

This is an abridged list of Dave Stewart's FAQ on RTOS'. See
comp.real-time and news.answers for that 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]

    * 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
        [phone]
        fax [phone]

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

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
[phone]            Fax: [phone]

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Survey of Robot Development Environments


Willie Lim has compiled an list of many robotics groups and their
respective hardware and software development environments. This list
is the synopsis of the information that Willie received. See Willie's
post for more details.

Please send updates, additions, corrections, etc. to:
<[e-mail]>

Updated: Wed Jan 6 17:07:09 1993 <[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,
of Mines                  IBM RS/6000s        potential fields
                                         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++

MIT        20 robots    Mac II & IIsi, HC6811    Behavior Language
        Polly        VME, 6811, Mac        Senselisp(Scheme)

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

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
                        Mac

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

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

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

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++What is the miniboard?

The miniboard 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.

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 Miniboard 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]
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.

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Books:

The readership of this group ranges from the naive user to experienced
robot designers and users. Accordingly, this list covers the gamut as
well.

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

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

The 6.270 Robot Builder's Guide
Fred Martin
  Server: kame.media.mit.edu (18.85.0.45)
  File  : ~ftp/pub/6270/docs/README
  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]

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.

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.

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++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.
--

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