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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: Thu Feb 24 20:33:06 1994


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
    +++Actuators
    +++Imaging for Robotics
    +++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, tactile
    ===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.

Cohu
5755 Kearny Villa Road
San Diego, CA 92123
tel: [phone] X225
fax: [phone]
    Cohu makes a number of solid state cameras including board
level and remote head devices. The 1100 series is designed for OEM
use. It outputs standard RS-170 with 768x494 CCD resolution.
10cmx4.5cmx1.6cm w/o lens. Other units include the 550 series
Intensified Monochrome CCD Camera for low-light applications. The 4110
has digital output (eliminates pixel jitter), The 6X00 series are
small monochrome remote head cameras and the 8000 series cameras are
color remote head devices. A variety of ouputs are available
includeing NTSC, RGB, PAL/Y-C. A high resolution unit, the 8410
series, provides 1134x486 pixels (850 horz TV lines)

  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 America
Information and Imaging Technologies Group
1010 Johnson Drive
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-6900
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
    Toshiba IK-M40A high resolution microminiature color camera.
Camera head is 39mm long, 17mm diameter and weighs 16g. 1/2" CCD w/
410,000 pixels, high sensitivity (5 lux at F1.6) and electronic
shutter. RGB output standard. uses cables up to 30m. Several lenses
available. About $2K.

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.

Texas Instruments
TI makes a $35 CCD Imager, the TC-211, with 192x165 resolution.
Following article is on a design for a camera using this chip over a
parallel port from a PC. Telescope Making, Issue 46, Winter 91/92
Newark Electronics sells the TC211-M for around US$50.00 See TI's
Array Image Sensor Products data manual for more details.

Wintriss Engineering Corp
6342 Ferris Square
San Diego, CA 92121
tel: [phone]
tel: [phone]
    Wintriss makes a 2048 pixel line scan camera that can be used
for object imaging, velocity measurement and positioning with multiple
cameras. Can be used to determine spped and trajectory of objects in
flight. This has been used in archery applications. RS485 interface
with 8Mb/sec serial data rate. Can be linked directly with Wintriss
DSP boards for post-processing and communications. Price $1250.

DAK Industries
8200 Remnet Ave
Canoga Park, CA 91304
tel: [phone] (ordering)
tel: [phone] (technical)
fax: [phone]
    DAK sells all kinds of gadgets for the home and business. One
device is a security camera that is smaller than a credit card (length
and width) and 38mm deep. B/W 251,904 pixels, 60 degree lens and
built-in microphone. Has built-in IR transmitters for seeing in total
darkness.  $199 for camera, 20m cable, AC adapter and stands. Other
packages include monitors and two-camera switcher for $299 total.
Extra cable is $29.90

====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.

There are several gyros mainly for radio controlled helicopters. These
are rate gyros, used to sense the rate of turn about a particular axis
(usually vertical, for tail rotor control), and are designed to
connect between an R/C receiver and a servo.

These gyros work by modifying the PWM signal that the rx produces,
before it gets to the servo. The sensing is usually done by a linear
hall effect device, which senses the position of a magnet on the
bottom of the flywheel assembly. The gyros have both sensitivity and
gain controls, and some can be switched on and off remotely. They have
been used for sensing rotation about an axis for a VR headset, with
some success. The big advantage is they are relatively cheap, the big disadvantage is high drift rate.

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.

Gyration Inc.
Saratoga CA
tel: [phone]
    Sells small vertical and directional gyros for ~$500. These
are standard gimballed gyros, but the drift specs probaly aren't as
good as aircraft-quality gyros.

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

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.

Murata Erie North America
2200 Lake Park Drive
Smyrna, GA 30080
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
    Gyrostar piezoelectric vibrating gyroscope. Uses equilateral
triangular prism with PE elements attached to faces of prism. High
precision compared to other vibration gyroscopes. Measures augular
velocity with good linearity. Max augular vel +/- 90 deg/sec, No
hysteresis, 58x25x25mm, 45g, output is DC voltage porportional to
angular rate. 22.2mV/deg/sec scale factor.
Gerhard Weiss has provided some results of experiments with the unit:
    location:    ag_vp_file_server.informatik.uni-kl.de [131.246.192.2]
    directory:    /Public/Gerd/Public/
    filename:    Gyrostar.ps

Sundance Model Products
2427 W. Adrian St.
Newbury Park, CA 91320
tel: [phone]
    Lists a solid state gyro for model helicopters.  The SSG/1 is
38mm x 38mm x 13mm and weighs 43g.  Completely solid state with no
motor or moving parts. Claims to draw 10% of the power of a gyro with
moving parts. No drift specs.

====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 48335-2643
tel: [phone]
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.
    LASAR product - provides range and reflectance. Programmable
field of view (15 to 60 deg) Vertical viewing angle from 3 to 72
degrees. Depth of field from 2 to 40 meters. Up to 1024 x 2048 pixels
per image (programmable) and 360,000 pixels/second data acquisition.
VME and PC-compatible interfac cards available. Windows software
provides starting point for custom applications.

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.
1Khz update rate

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. Up to 1000Hz sampling rate, reportedly easy to interface.

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.

The following are tactile sensors - need addresses:

Ercon
MA
    Conductive rubber and conductive inks. You build a semi-rigid
circuit board with inter-digitated fingers to apply to one side of the
rubber.  The rubber has a rough surface that under increasing load
allows more rubber to contact. They can make rubber with all sorts of
conductive properties.

Interlink
Polymer based array sensor used in many robotic fingers.

Bonneville Scientific
    Array sensor system that uses a little ultrasonic
emmiter/dector stuck to compliant material. They measure TOF of the
pulse as it bounces off of other side of the material. Bonneville
claims it can be made thin enough for a skin and they have pictures of
it being used on a robot finger picking up a washer which can be
recognized on their output graphics.

Emed Systems
    Capacitive-based sensor. A complete electronics system must be purchased with sensor.

 ===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]
fax: [phone]
tel: [phone] ordering
tel: [phone] technical assistance
 Polaroid Ultrasonic Components Group offers two ultrasonic ranging kits:
 Specs:
    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
 OEM kit:
    2 transducers, 2 ranging modules. $99.
 NEW Piezotransducer kit
    2.5cm-1500cm +/- 1%, RS-232 port and analog output, extra real
    estate, $299

This section describes a simple addition to the drive circuitry, the
Polaroid ranging system can detect objects as close as 10cm.

The board has two extra signals: BLNK and BINH.  Asserting BLNK
(driving it HIGH) resets the ECHO RS-latch, and asserting BINH
shortens the internal blanking interval (which is 2.38 ms by default).
Thus, the solution would seem to lie in asserting BINH after a
reasonable amount of time (< 2.38 ms after asserting INIT) to detect
objects closer than 1.3 feet.  This doesn't work very well because
BINH is very susceptable to noise, and attaching a driver to it wreaks
havoc possibly because of the anomalous current sink during the
transmit phase. This can be fixed by asserting BLNK during the
blanking period (ie the new blanking period) while negating BINH and
asserting BIHN after the blanking period while negating BLNK.  This
can be done easily with a one-shot or some other timing device (eg
computer timer, etc).

A computer timer can be used. The timer goes HIGH tblank ms after INIT
is asserted, where tblank=0.15*dist and dist is the threshold distance
in inches).  The timer output goes to BINH and the inverted timer
output goes to BLNK. The timer output should be inverted with an
LS/TTL inverter to delay the negation of BLNK, otherwise the RS latch
may do weird things.
[From Richard LeGrand]

 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
 How do I measure the postion of my arm/mobile robot/thing?

In many applications there is a need to accurately measure the
position of an end-effector (hand or gripper) or find coordinate
locations on objects, or track motion, or give a time and position
history of a moving object. Virtual reality applications have really
needed this kind of device to provide realtime adjustments to views
that are projected to VR users. See sci.virtual-worlds for discussions
on this topic. Robotics people have needed this to provide accurate
assessments of manipulator motions and mobile robot positions.

 Required measurement ranges can be as small as a tabletop and can
 extend for kilometers.

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

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

 Commercial Devices:
 -------------------

 Polhemus, Acension and Shooting Star provide 6DOF devices that are
 geared to local tracking of a small wired RF or EM style beacon.
 Distances are limited to a couple of meters and accuracies to sub-cm range:

 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.)

---Hand motions

Mattel marketed the PowerGlove for use in gaming (Nintendo). It
tracked finger motions through small bend sensors. The Mattel
PowerGlove was developed by:
Abrams-Gentile Entertainment, Inc.,
244 West 54th Street,
9th Floor, New York, NY 10019
tel: [phone].
The sensors themselves are simple resistors varying from about 200K to
500K ohms depending on the amount of flex.

 --The following can be used to track in rooms or warehouse sized
 environments. Accuracies in the cm or better range.

 Denning Mobile Robots
 [DENNING IS NOT Quite DEAD - BUT CANNOT BE EASILY CONTACTED]
 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.

 Guidance Control Systems
 44 Hidcote Road, Leicester
 011 44 455 822 441 ext 3808
 fax [phone]
 Contact: Malcolm Roberts
     GCS's core group developed the rotating scanner and passive
 target system. Featured in several papers out of Oxford. Caterpillar
 has North American rights for materials handling applications. Uses
 passive targets with barcodes. Targets have unique ID's and surveyed
 positions. Rotating laser gives angles between targets. Target
 positions combined with angles gives vehicle position and heading. 2Hz
 scan rate but clever use of dead reckoned information and kalman
 filtering can give very impressive results.

 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.

 Selspot Systems Ltd
 1233 Chicago Road
 Troy, MI 48083
 tel: [phone]
 fax: [phone]
 In Sweden:
 tel: [phone]
 fax: [phone]
     Two camera system registers 3D position of IR LED's at very
 high rates. Selspots Robot Check System can provide non-contact 3D
 measurement and analysis of robot motion at 500 Hz rate. System has
 been used for over 20 years. Used in motion studies for people,
 animals and robots.

 Qualisys AB
 Ogardesvagen 4
 S-433 30 Partille
 Sweden
     MacReflex system uses CCD-based cameras for non-contacting
 measurement of robots. Two camera system is typical. Uses small
 passive targets and IR LED's colocated with the cameras lens. Video
 processor calculates centroid of markers and displays in
 real-time. Information is used to provide data and analysis of
 position, velocity, acceleration, angles, angle velocity and
 acceleration and position vs. time. Specs: Noise level 1:200000,
 Resolution 1:70000, Relative accuracy: 1:30000, and absolute accuracy
 1:10000. Accuracy is defined as standard deviation of difference
 between measured and true positions/longest diagonal in measurement
 volume.
     Both Selspot and Qualisys are represented in the US by:
 Innovision Systems
 30521 Schoenherr, Ste 104
 Warren, MI 48093
 tel: [phone]
 fax: [phone]

 Coordinate Measuring Machines are now widely used for process control,
 statistical monitoring, entering 3D from a physical part into a CAD
 system and many other uses. CMM's tend to be large and expensive.

 Supraporte Inc
 5145-I Avenida Encinas, Carlsbad, CA 92008
 Portable 6-axis measuring system. Model 2000
 now available with battery power pack.
 Very accurate. Very expensive.

 Faro
 125 Technology Park
 Lake Mary, FL 32746-6204
 tel: [phone]
 tel: [phone]
 fax: [phone]
    Metrecom: 6DOF articulated pointer, like a portable CMM.
Endpoint accuracies are around .005" -> .025", depending on model.
Counterbalnaced design. Three models from 1.8m to 2.4m reach and
accuracies ranging from +/- .635mm to .127mm and prices from $14.4K to
$51.4K respectively.

 ===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 potentiometers
for feedback.  A number of undersea companies make pan-tilt devices as
well that are rugged and nicely packaged, but these tend to be heavier
and more expensive than their terrestrial counterparts.

 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)

 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

 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.

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

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

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

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

 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.

 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
    There are very few devices to directly give absolute position
for linear motions. Often rack and pinion drives are combined with
geared rotary encoders to give absolute position. Here are some
manufacturers of Magneorestrictive sensors for measuring absolute
linear position. Accuracy is usually around 0.05% of full scale.

 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 (Temposonics)
 Sensors Division
 Box 13218
 Research Triangle Park, NC 27708
 tel: [phone]
 fax: [phone]

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

+++Actuators [New section - much to add]
____________________________________________________________________________
    How do I get a motor under computer control? What kind of
motor should I use? What are the differences between actuator types?
What other types of actuation are there?

Types of motors:
Synchronous
Stepper
AC servo
Brushless DC servo
Brushed DC servo
Radio Control (RC) Servos - how do they work?

Commerical controller for RC servos:
-----------------------------------
Pontech
401 E 17th St Suite B
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
tel: [phone]

Pontech has a SV100 Servo Motor Controller which is based on the PIC
16C84 microcontroller.  It accepts RS232 serial data signal from a
host computer and poutput PWM to control up to four RC servo motors.
Multiple boards can be parallel together to allow more servos. They
also sell FUTABA FP-S148 servos. boards: $49.95, servos: $16.95, +
$5.00 shipping and handling

Muscle-like Actuators
----------------------

See Shape Memory section in Sensors area above.

Bridgestone Corporation
3-2-25 Nishikubo,
Musashino City, Tokyo 180.
tel: [phone]
    Rubber-based device that bends under applied pneumatic
pressure. For a rotation unit typical rotation angles are 360,120,90
degrees for linear unit the contraction rate cannot exceed 20%.

+++Imaging for Robotics
____________________________________________________________________________
[This is a new and incomplete section - need mmore information here]
There are a wide variety of frame grabbers, computer vision systems
and image processing tools available. For VME, Multibus, PC Bus, even
SBUS and STD, there are a number of options for getting images into
your computer.

Data Cube

Data Translation


 Mandex Technology, Inc.
 1191 Chicago Road
 Troy, MI 48083
 tel: [phone]
 fax: [phone]
 contact: M. Gupte
    SMART EYE I: DSP-based real-time image processing system
designed specifically for mobile and fixed base robotics
systems. Stand-alone image processing system on a single board.  Low
power consumption, small form factor, and low weight.  The single
board system includes: four monochrome camera inputs, video digitizer
(gain and offset software adjustable), input look-up table, two frame
grabbers, additional two video buffers, color mappable image display
buffer, color mappable graphics overlay buffer, RGB display driver,
serial communications port, and application program RAM and
EPROM. Program code can be burned into EPROM. Wide variety of language
and development platform support. Additional hardware expansion to
provide addtional I/O capabilities.

 ____________________________________________________________________________
 +++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 range.

 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]
 fax: [phone]
   System 310 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.  Model IC-15-48 - rugged
RS232 4800 baud modem. Can network a number of these portables. $1630.

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. See Archives.
 ____________________________________________________________________________
 +++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 pricey
  but nice selection. Edmund also has a Robotic Technology Curriculum
  with lessons and tests featuring the Movit robots. Curriculum is $65.

 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.

 JDR Microdevices
 tel: [phone]
 fax: [phone]
    Surplus and lots of electronic components including cameras and
  some sensors. Some recent components have included:
  TV transmitter (part # RK-TV6, $19.95 US) transmits composite video +
  audio to any television set withing 600' on one of channels 2 - 6.
  Runs on 12VDC.
  Microwave doppler radar sensor. Claims to detect a person or animal up
  to 12' away (part number RK-MD3, $19.95 w/o case.  Claims to come with
  complete circuit theory and instructions.

 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:

 Heath/Heathkit/Zenith [OUT OF BUSINESS]
 Benton Harbor, MI
 order: 800.253.0570
 tech:  616.982.3980

 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 - but caveat emptor.

There is also a mailing group for hero owners managed by Dave Goodwin:
    <[e-mail]>
Send the following command in the message body:
    Subscribe Hero-owners

You may also want to include a HELP command line to get the commands
and their syntax.  Note that the subject on the message is irrelevant.
Of course, to post a message to the group, just send it to hero-owners
at the same host.

The Mailserv software can handle files as well, but none are currently
available.  Hopefully, list subscribers will start to provide any
nifty code they write for the archive.

Finally, the list of subscribers is available from the Mailserv.  See
the help file for how to get it.  Questions or problems should be
addressed to [e-mail], not at the waldo address.

 _____________________________________________________________________________
 +++Puma manipulators:

 Pumas are probably the most common robot in university laboratories
 and one of the most common assembly robots. Designed by Vic Schienman
 and financed by GM at MIT in the mid-70's, 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]>]

Puma Gear Ratios
----------------
        Joint #                    Gear Ratio
        --------                -----------
            1                0.01597
            2                0.00931
            3                0.01884
            4                0.01428
            5                0.01391
            6                0.01303

------------------------------------
 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, who wrote the book, Introduction to Robotics 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:    *

Flakey:
    A mobile robot simulator and controller. Contact: Kurt
Konolige of SRI <[e-mail]> A Preliminary version of a
mobile robot simulator and controller.  All written in C, but you need
Motif to run the graphics.

This is essentially the same software run on Flakey, (robot at SRI
used for research in AI), behaviors using fuzzy control (there's lots
more on Flakey in terms of sensor interpretation and higher-level
control, but I haven't ported that from LISP to C yet).  There are
three example behaviors implemented, showing dumb obstacle avoidance
and goal achievement. There's not much documentation yet, but I will
get some out over the next few months.

The intent is to make the simulator/controller suitable for a course
in mobile robotics, and to have eventually a cheap physical platform
that will imitate the simulator (or vice versa).

Available by anonymous ftp from:
    location:    ftp.ai.sri.com
    directory:    /pub/konolige
    filename:    erratic-ver1.tar.Z
Uncompress, untar and check the README file for installation.

A collection of five tech reports on Flakey's fuzzy controller is also
available at:
    location:    ocean.ai.sri.com
    directory:    /pub/saffiott
    filename:    flakey_papers_93.tar.Z

------------------------
 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

This is an updated survey compiled by Willie Lim
<[e-mail]> This file can be ftp'd from
    location:    ftp.ai.mit.edu
    directory:    /pub
    filename:    mobot-survey.text


**********************************************************************
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;; RESPONSES TO INFORMAL SURVEY ON DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS       ;;;
;;;                      FOR MOBILE ROBOTS               ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;; Updated: Mon Dec  6 07:30:28 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]               ;;;
;;;                                   ;;;
;;; A complete version of this survey including detailed           ;;;
;;; descriptions of the various projects is available via          ;;;
;;; anonymous ftp from the host ftp.ai.mit.edu as the file         ;;;
;;; /pub/mobot-survey.text.                                        ;;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;



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        VxWorks(soon)
         K2A)        68030 VME board(soon)
        LLV (Grumman    SGI, 68030 VME board,    C, CLOS, LISP, SAL
        Long Life Veh.,    mini-boards.
        the US Postal
        Truck)


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

Michigan Tech.    Tracy        6502, Apple IIe, SUN,    C, Assembly
U.                68HC11
                Unnamed(Andros)
        Minirobots    6811

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)
        c) Bill (RWI)    PC, transputers        C
        d) Ben Hope(RWI) transputers        C
        e) (LEGO based)    68000            C, CPL

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

U of Michigan   BORIS (TRC)    486, Decstations, SGI,  Borland C++, FORTH, DOS
                RS/6000
        CARMEL (K2A)    286, 486, (ditto)    Borland C++, FORTH, DOS
        MAVERIC        486, Sparc 10,        Lisp, GCC, Borland C++, X, DOS
                Datacube, (ditto)


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    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

 Which microcontroller should I use and what are the differences
 between them? What about motor controllers?

 There are a wide variety of microcontrollers that can be used in
 robotics projects. Some of the most popular are 6811's (Miniboard and
 many, many single board computer), 80186, and PIC's. This topic can
 can hot debates of the merit of one chip over the other. The best way
 for you to decide is to understand your problem requirements and see
 which devices fit your needs. At that point, you can look at issues of
 support platforms, cost etc to make the best decision.

[from a post by Chuck McManis]
Basically there are three kinds of "boards" out there that are of interest
to design engineers (and the definitions are necessarily broad.)
        1) The evaluation board. This is a board designed by the manufacturer
           of a part to demonstrate its features. Using such a board a DE can
           decide whether the part will meet their needs for the design they
           are creating. Generally somewhat expensive (because they are
           produced in relatively small numbers) except when the part is
           being 'pushed' by the manufacturer and there is some sort of
           promotional deal going on. Often the evaluation board will have
           some sort of breadboard area on the board for custom circuitry.

        2) The Single Board Computer or SBC. These are generally produced
           by a third party using some manufacturers chip. The are generally
           pretty flexible but may not 'expose' all features. SBCs come in
           all sizes and price ranges, some are availabe in kit form. Many
           have development tools available for them.

        3) The Embedded processor. These are generally boards dedicated to
           some particular function (like driving a stepper motor, running
           a modem etc) and are usually available pretty cheaply on the
           surplus market. Unlike SBCs there are rarely any design tools
           available to use with them but they can be quite inexpensive.

 68HC11:
 -------
     A 68HC11 is an 8-bit data, 16-bit address microcontroller from
 Motorola, with an instruction set similar to the older 68xx (6801,
 6805, 6809) parts.  It has several on-chip resources including digital
 I/O, timers, PWM, A/D RAM, various types of ROM, and synchronous and
 asynchronous communications channels (RS-232 and SPI). It can easily
 be integrated into single-chip applications. Less than 20ma current
 draw. Good freeware assembly-language tools are available, as well as
 several good commercial C compilers. It is widely used because it is
 very inexpensive and the availability of developments tools makes it
 very attractive.

 Moto nows offers an evaluation kit that includes DOS and Mac
 compatible software, low-power design tutorial and extensive technical
 literature. M68EBLPIIKIT has batteries included and has 68HC11E9
 microcontroller, LCD display, Moto LCD driver, RS232 line
 driver/receiver chips, wire-wrap area for custom work, simple
 development platform and development code. Includes asembler, several
 examples, and extra crystals. $199.11 through 4/22/94.

Motorola 683xx
--------------
    The 683xx family from Moto are highly integrated CPU's.
Several have onboard RAM (eg, up to 2K), none have on-board ROM, but
they do have timers, software programmable chip selects, etc, making
it possible to build very small systems.

68302: designed for communications, especially ISDN. On-board
    nice serial controller.  68000 CPU, some memory.
68330: Has CPU32, which is in between a 68000 and a 68020.  Not much else.
68331: Add standard async serial controller.
68332: Add separate Time Processing Unit and some RAM.  The TPU can do
    things like off-line PWM processing. Nice general package.
68340:    Delete TPU, add DMA controller.

Intel 80C186:
-------------
     An 80C186 is a evolution from the 8086. It is an embedded
processor sold by Intel, and has the same instruction set as the 8086,
with the additional "real-mode" instructions of the 286. It has the
same 16-bit data and 20-bit address bus structure of the 8086.  The
80C188 is an 8-bit data bus version, just like the 8088 (of PC & PC/XT
fame).  For embedded systems, it is much easier to use than the 8086.
    It has an on-chip timer system, interrupt controller, DMA
controller, and clock generator.  For DRAM operation, it also has an
integrated DRAM refresh generator.  However, it has no on-chip I/O,
nor does it have any memory on-chip.  There is, however, extra
circuitry for selecting external memory with a minimum of extra logic.
Can be programmed using most DOS compilers and assemblers, but
requires a linker that knows about locating code in absolute memory.

The '186 is not as accessible; it is harder to set up, the tools cost
more, and robotics & control resources have to be added externally.
The timers can be configured for PWM or pulse timing, It does,
however, run at higher speeds, have more accessible memory, and can be
hooked up to a floating-point co-processor (C187).  It looks a lot
like a DOS machine. This may be important when software is run on
multiple platforms and also helps with the learning curve.

Intel 8051
----------
The 8051 and varients are now sourced by more than a half-dozen
companies including Intel, AMD, Dallas, Signetics, Siemans and others.
Russ Hersch <[e-mail]> is compiling a faq specific to the
8051.  Contact him for details.

Intel 8096
----------
It is 16 bit, many registers, internal RAM, the usual compliment of
on-board peripherals (serial, A/D, pwm, timer/counters, etc)

Microchip PIC16/17
------------------
Microchip Technology
Corporate Office
2355 West Chandler Blvd
Chandler, AZ 85224-6199
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

UK: Arizona Microchip Technology
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Japan: Microchip Technology
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

CMOS field-programmable microcontrollers - PIC16/17. high performance
low cost and small package size. Large numbers are used in consumer
electronics and automotive applications, computer peripherals,
security and telecommunication applications. Over 40 million units
shipped.

PIC16CXX and PIC17Cxx are 8-bit microcontrollers that use a high-speed
RISC architecture.The PIC17CXX is probably the faster 8-bit
controller.  16-bit instruction word and vectored interrupt
capabilities.You can add external program memory, up to 64K words. The
PIC17C42 has a number of counter/timer resources and I/O handling
capabilities.

Features include: timers, embedded A/D, extended instruction/data
memory, inter-processor communication and ROM, EPROM and EEPROM
memories.  assemblers, linkers, loaders, libraries and source-level
debuggers are available. Digi-Key carries PIC's (See Parts Suppliers)

Vendor of PIC boards:
[from a review by Chuck McManis <[e-mail]>]
Micro Engineering Labs
P.O. Box 7532,
Colorado Springs, CO 80933
tel: [phone]
contact: Jeff Schmoyer
    MEL has designed a couple of PC boards for prototyping PIC
systems PICProto 18 - $9.95 US including shipping in the US.  This
board is 1.5" by 3", double sided, solder masked, and has plated
through holes. the top 7/8" x 1.5" of the board (oriented with the
narrow side "up") consists of an 18 pin socket print, holes to
conviently mount either a crystal or RC oscillator and a set of holes
to mount a 5v regulator, either the TO-220 type or the low power TO-92
type as used on the Miniboard.  All of the PIC I/O pins, RB0 - 7, RA0
- 3, RTC, Vdd and Gnd are brought out to a dual row of pads. they are
followed by 15 rows of pads, with the outer pad on one side being the
Vdd bus and the outer pad on the other side being the Vcc bus. After
this there are two rows of pads, offset, that can accomodate a DB9,
DB15, or DB25 connector. This board will accept either the 16C5x
series (in the 18 pin package) or a 16C71 PIC.

The PICProto Dual - $14.95 US
    Is similar except it has pads for 1 18 pin PIC and 1 24 pin
(or another 18 pin) PIC. It is 3" x 3" and shares all of the same
properties of the PICproto 18 with respect to setting up crystal or RC
timing for the PICs.  It has pads for 1 DB connector that is 25 pins
or less.  It adds about 50% more prototyping pads so you can put two
or three more chips on it. The nice thing about this one is that one
PIC can do asynchronous things like be a serial interface while the
other provides I/O pins and monitoring functions.

Parallax BASIC Stamp
--------------------
    The Stamp is a 1x2" (2.5x5cm) computer that runs BASIC
programs written on a PC. 8 I/O lines which can be used for serial
communications, potentiometer inputs, pulse measurement, switches,
speaker drivers etc. Usually you'll have to add no more than a
resistor or capacitor at most. A BASIC editor on the PC converts
instructions into token that are downloaded to the Stamp via a
3-conductor cable and stored in EEPROM. Whenever the Stamp is powered
up, the on-board interpreter runs the program. Battery clips are built
in for a 9V battery (Stamp has 5V supply built in.) and the Stamp has
a small prototyping area as well. From Digikey the Development Kit
(including a Stamp) is $139, and a Stamp is $39.

National Semiconductor LM628/629
--------------------------------
Small motor control chip. Does PWM for motion control at a very low
cost. A couple of H-bridges on the outputs. Good reference for using
the 628/9 for motion control is in: Closing the Loop on DC Motor
Control by Tom Dahlin and Don Krantz The Computer Applications
Journal, Issue #28 Aug/Sept, 1992

 Hewlett-Packard HCTL 1000, 2000
 -------------------------------
HP's motor and encoder interface chips.
 _____________________________________________________________________________
 +++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 so send me your sites!

 Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implementation.
 J. L. Jones and A. Flynn,
   This book grew out of the Mobot Lab at MIT and covers many aspects
   of mobile robots including design and the mechanics and electronics of
   construction as well as robot programming. Good for the beginner and
   experienced robot builder.
     Klaus Peters
     President and Publisher
     AK PETERS, LTD.
     289 Linden Street
     Wellesley, MA 02181
     tel: [phone]
     fax: [phone]
     net: <[e-mail]>

Robot Motion: Planning and Control
Brady, Hollerbach, Johnson, Lozano-Perez, and Mason.
Cambridge, MA, MIT Press 1982)
    Collection of excellent papers on the topic of robot motion.

Autonomous Robot Vehicles
I.J. Cox and G.T. Wilfong (eds)
New York, Springer-Verlag, 1990
Collection of seminal papers on autonmous robot vehicles.

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
 tel: [phone]
Shorter tape of highlights from many Japanese labs:
 National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
 5285 Port Royal Road
 Springfield, VA USA 22161
 tel: [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, good reference.

 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.

CDROM
-----

Isaac Asimov's The Ultimate Robot.
    It is an excellent intro and retrospective on robotics.
Includes movie clips from several cinema robots, robotic terminology
defined and illustrated (linkages, kinmatics, arm types etc),
vignettes of many historically important robots including Moshers work
from the 60's, many teleoperated devices, several mobile machines
including the ASV and many others.  There is also a fun part where you
get to select parts, build a robot and animate it. (Design by Ralph
MacQuarrie who was production designer on Star Wars)
    There are video interviews with Asimov and all of his robot
stories and essays as well Published by Microsoft.  $35 at CMU's
Computer Store, price may vary elsewhere.


ARTICLES [List Provided by Dave Hrynkiw]
--------
    Best source for most general articles and journal articles is
your library.

Discover Magazine, March 1991, Pg 43
An excellent 6 page article of the goings-on in the MIT Artificial-
Intelligence lab.

"Mathematical Recreations - Insectoids Invade a Field of Robots"
Scientific American Magazine, July 1991
Another excellent 4 page article about MIT's work in the field of mobile
robotics.

"Gearing Down"
Science News, Vol. 139 No. 2, January 12 1991, Pg 26-27
I haven't seen a copy of this article yet.  If you find it, PLEASE
fax/send me a copy.  Referenced from Scientific American Magazine,
July 1991 ("Mathematical Recreations" column)

"Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control"
Research News, May 1990, Pg 959-961
One of the better MIT Lab articles.  Worth hunting down.

"Working the bugs out of a new breed of 'insect' robots"
Smithsonian Magazine, June 1991, pgs 63-73.
Another excellent & more technical article on MIT's robot research.

"The Iconoclast - Life in the Anthropomorphic Lane"
Macworld magazine, May 1991, Pg 43-47
Another basic, but decent review of MIT's AI Robot labs.

"People - A Mind of Their Own"
Connoisseur Magazine, May 1991, Pg 42-46
A more personal look at Rodney Brook.

"Robot Insects"
Popular Science, March 1991, Pg 52-55,86
Popular Science does it's regular quality article.  Some detail, but not
to technical. Good, basic read.

"New Approaches to Robotics"
Science Magazine, Vol.253, September 1991, Pg 1227-1232
Very complete & technical document by Rodney Brooks.  Has a very
complete reference & notes section.

"Artificial Intelligence - Building a Better Mouse"
Omni Magazine, ??, Pg 22,126
Interesting Article about Dave Otten, the micro-mouse champ.  Short,
but interesting read.

"Tech Update - Transformer Robots Crawl Up Stairs"
Popular Mechanics, March 1993, Pg 17
Not much to say, but look at the pictures - what innovation!

"Mighty Mouse"
MIT Reporter, July 1991, Pg 12
A short piece about Dave Otten's micromice.

"The OMNI Photovore - How to build a robot that thinks like a roach"
Omni Magazine, October 1988, Pg 201-210,212
MIT developed this basic robot for the magazine.  A really interesting
read, with good technical.  Haven't built mine yet, but I have all the
parts... (Excellent article)

"Annual Report of Microbot Technology, Inc."
Omni Magazine, ??? Pg 68,70,76
Omni's interesting futuristic look of the possibilities with micro robots.

"Tech Update - Mechanical Caterpillar"
Popular Mechanics, June 1992, Pg 24
Another neat idea to look at.

"Tech Update - Silicon Ants Could Prove Tireless Workers"
Popular Mechanics, May 1992, Pg 21
Interesting little bit on the future of solar powered microbots.  Neat
graphic.

"Trends - Let's Get Small"
Technology Review, Aug/Sept 1992, pg 18-19
Article on JPL/IS Robotics small robots.  Decent article

"Go Robots, Go!"
Popular Science, December 1992, Pg 97-102,138,140
Interesting overview of the AAAI Mobile Robotics Competition held in
San Jose.

"New Trends - Legs win over wheels for moon work"
Machine Design Magazine, February 11 1988
A dated article on Georgia Tech's "Skitter".  Short, but has
photograph.

"Light Elements - RoboHockey"
Discover magazine, May 1990, pg 82
Interesting bit about MIT's Mech Eng 2.70 competition.

"Society - Technology - For the Love of Robotics"
Newsweek magazine, March 9 1992, Pg 68-69
Public-robot fodder.  Nothing new here but some interesting pictures.
Covers the Austin area Robot Group

"Robots Go Buggy"
Science News Magazine, Vol 140, November 30 1991, Pg 361-3
Very good article about the comparison between "simple" robotics and
biologics (bugs)

"Build This Robot Bug"
Radio-Electronics Magazine, June 1992, Pg 33-38
_Very_ basic robot.  Not a bad place to start tho...

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]

Cambridge University
    Tech report on 3D object model acquisition and recognition:
    location:    svr-ftp.eng.cam.ac.uk
    directory:    reports
    filename:    vinther_tr136.ps.Z

MIT AI Laboratory
net: [e-mail]
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
    MIT bibliography, general info about the lab and most recent
research publications.
    location:    publications.ai.mit.edu
    directory:    bibliography, ai-publications/general-pubs
            [choices of ascii or ps fles]

NASA Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL)
    site:        robotics.jpl.nasa.gov
    location:    pub/gat
    filenames:    bc4pe.rtf, aaai92.rtf, nats.rtf
    Notice that all files are in Microsoft Word RTF format.
    Contact <[e-mail]> if you don't have access
    to a Mac.

LIFIA/INRIA
    site:        imag.fr (129.88.32.1)
    location:    /pub/LIFIA
    filenames:    [several compressed PS files]

University of Massachusetts:
    site:         rabbit.cs.umass.edu
    directory:    pub/papers
    filenames:     [The files are compressed postscript, topics include
            path planning, neuroscience, and control.]

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

    SPIE 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, Ben Brown, Terry Fong, Jeff Fox, Bill Lye and many others who dropped
off suggestions, comments and changes. Thank you.


Patrick Arnold, Chuck McManis, David Novick, Stephen Klueter Chris
Malcolm, Frank Hausman, Sam Miller, Jean-Pierre Merlet, Karl
Altenburg, Dave Hrynkiw, Ken Baker
--

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