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Subject: comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) part 2/3 Newsgroups: comp.robotics,news.answers,comp.answers From: nivek+@cs.cmu.edu (Kevin Dowling) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 18:30:21 GMT Archive-name: robotics-faq/part2 Last-modified: Tue Apr 19 12:40:14 1994 This is part 2 of 3 of the comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list. This FAQ addresses commonly asked questions relating to robotics. ____________________________________________________________________________ This FAQ was compiled and written by Kevin Dowling with numerous contributions by readers of comp.robotics. Acknowledgements are listed at the end of the FAQ. 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. This FAQ may be referenced as: Dowling, Kevin (1993) "Robotics: comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions" Usenet news.answers. Available via anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu in pub/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part1, part2 and part3. 70+ pages. Please send changes, additions, suggestions and questions to: Kevin Dowling tel: 412.268.8830 Robotics Institute fax: 412.682.1793 Carnegie Mellon University net: nivek@cmu.edu Pittsburgh, PA 15213 ___________________________________________________________________________ This FAQ's purpose is to provide a resource of information, pointers, and a guide to robotics related questions. If the expires date above is more than two months old you should obtain a new copy. See the section on Where to Find This FAQ. Table of Contents: [use +++ to search quickly] Part 2 +++Graduate programs in robotics +++Other organizations doing robotics +++Mobile robot companies +++Manipulator companies +++Small inexpensive robots +++Architectures for robots ___________________________________________________________________________ +++Graduate Program in Robotics: Any good four-year school undoubtedly offers robotics courses within engineering programs. Departments of mechanical and electrical engineering and computer science are all good candidates for coursework in Robotics. However, a number of schools have established track records and a focus on robotics and those are listed here. The list is not exhaustive and a number of entries are incomplete, but it's a good starting point for those interested in graduate programs. ---Student Who's Who An additional source of information is the graduate student guide compiled by Ron Kube. It is a list of graduate students, their university, and their areas of research. The list is updated monthly and can be found at location: ftp.cs.ualberta.ca directory: /pub/kube filename: whoswho UNITED STATES------- Boston University Dept. of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering: John Baillieul: Control of Mechanical Systems and Mathematical System Theory. Pierre Dupont: Robot Kinematics and Dynamics, Friction Compensation in Robotics. Ann Stokes: Theoretical Dynamics and Control. Matt Berkemeier: Legged Robots, Robot Control. California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Pasadena, CA Joel Burdick - serpentine manipulation, control Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) The Robotics Institute is a 150 person organization that is part of the School of Computer Science. RI offers a PhD in Robotics but students from other programs (engineering and computer science mostly) do research in the Institute as well. Lots of mobile robot work, computer integrated manufacturing, rapid prototyping, sensors, vision, navigation, learning and architectures. Program is taking a set of qualifiers and a program of research leading to a thesis and the degree. For a look current research in autonomous navigation in the NavLab group see: http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.edu/ project/alv/member/www/navlab_home_page.html Facilities include about a dozen mobile systems with more under design and construction. Many manipulator systems and lots of compute cycles/person. Faculty include: Takeo Kanade - Vision and Autonomous Systems Center Pradeep Khosla - Advanced Manipulator Laboartory Matt Mason - Manipulation Laboratory Tom Mitchell - Learning Robots Lab Hans Moravec - Mobile Robots Lab Mel Seigel - Sensors Laboratory (non vision) Steve Shafer - Calibrated Imaging Laboratory Red Whittaker - Field Robotics Center and many others..... Graduate program contact: Graduate Admissions Coordinator The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Colorado School of Mines Mobile Robotics/Machine Perception Laboratory Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences The Colorado School of Mines is a state university, internationally renowned in the energy, materials, and resource fields, attracting outstanding students in a broad range of science and engineering disciplines. The School of Mines is strongly committed to quality teaching and research. CSM provides an attractive campus environment, a collegial atmosphere, relatively small size (3000 students, about 30% in graduate programs), and an ideal location in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains 13 miles from downtown Denver and an hour from most ski areas. The Dept. of Mathematical and Computer Sciences offers BS, MS, and PhD degrees under the department title. With a faculty of 18 tenured and tenure track members, the department annually receives roughly a million dollars in grants; 116 undergraduate students and 70 graduate students are currently enrolled in ou r degree programs. The computer science group within the department has a strong focus in AI (symbolic and neural nets) and database and parallel processing syst ems. The Mobile Robotics/Machine Perception Laboratory is a facility devoted to basic and interdisciplinary research, technology transfer, and hands-on education in artificial intelligence through robotics. Research and technology transfer efforts concentrate on the reduction of human risk in hazardous situations, stewardship of the environment, and/or improvement of the quality of life throug h better manufacturing processes. Research in the MR/MP laboratory is supported by NSF, ARPA, NASA, and local industries. For more information, please send email to Dr. Robin R. Murphy, rmurphy@mines.colorado.edu. Include a brief summary of your educational (with GPA) and work experience, what your research interests are, and GRE scores. Cornell Ithaca, NY Mechanical Engineering Sam Landsberger Jeff Koechling Bruce Donald Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA Georgia Institute of Technology Robotics Activities Application study areas: Servo control and low level coordination Machine intelligence and high level control Design, sensors and actuators Human/machine interface See also: http://www.gatech.edu/aimosaic/robot-lab/MRLHome.html Robot applications are in areas such as manufacturing {K. Lee} poultry processing {W. Daley, G. McMurray, J.C. Thompson} and nuclear waste inspection and cleanup {R. Arkin, W. Book, S. Dickerson, T. Collins, A. Henshaw} are underway. Several robotics researchers are regularly involved in a student aerial robot design competition in which concurrent engineering concepts are being used to tailor the characteristics of the system.{D. Schrage} This competition, held at Georgia Tech and sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems, has been won by Georgia Tech entries for two of the three years it has been held. --Current research topics and researchers: Long arm control {W. Book} Parallel actuation of manipulators {K. Lee} 3DOF direct drive actuator {K. Lee} Special purpose end-effectors {R. Bohlander, H. Lipkin} Parallel processing computer architectures for robot sensing and control. {R. Bohlander, C. Alford, T. Collins, A. Henshaw} Laser generated ultrasound to sense structure of materials {C. Ume} Gallium arsenide based rad-hard electronics. {W. Hunt} Autonmous vehicles positioning {S. Dickerson} Collision avoidance techniques {R. Arkin, W. Book} Flexible arm control {W. Book} Two arm coordinated motion.{Alford, Vachtsevanos} Advanced feedback control, learning control, bounded uncertainty approach, applications to rigid and flexible manipulators, force control . {N Sadegh, Y Chen, W. Book} Architectures, Framework for reactive control and hierarchical planning, vision feedback, fuzzy logic application {Arkin, D. Lawton, G Vachtsevanos} Human Computer Interaction {M Kelly, H. Lipkin} Harvard Roger Brockett Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science both have strong robotics efforts. Asada, Slotine, Brooks, Raibert and others are known and respected for their work in direct-drive arm, control techniques, architectures, running machines etc. New York University (NYU) Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Richard Wallace - vision North Carolina State Univerisity Raleigh, NC Professor Ren Luo 919.515.5199 Purdue Avi Kak: Vision and mobile robots Antti Koivo: Manipulation Mirek Skibiniewski: Construction Robotics Rennsalear Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Center for Intelligent Robotic Systems for Space Exploration (CIRSSE) George Saridis Arthur Sanderson Jon Wenn Appro. 20 PhD and 30 MS students working in the center. Path planning and multi-arm control are current focus. Stanford University Palo Alto, CA Mechanical Engineering: Bernard Roth (kinematics of manipulators) Mark Cutkosky: destrous manipulation and concurrent manufacturing Larry Liefer (rehabilitation, user interfaces) CS Department: Nils Nilsson Mike Genesereth Jean-Claude Latombe (path planning and geometric reasoning) Leo Guibas (geometric reasoning) Tom Binford (vision) Yoav Shoham (agents) Oussama Khatib Aerospace Robotics Laboratory: Bob Cannon (teleoperation, free flyers, space robotics, flexible manipulators) University of California at Berkeley Faculty in Robotics at UC Berkeley Dept. of EE&CS: Prof. J. Canny: motion planning Prof. R. Fearing: tactile sensing, dextrous manipulation Prof. J. Malik: computer vision Prof. S. Sastry: multi-fingered hands, control Dept. of Optometry/EE&CS: Prof. L. Stark: telerobotics Dept. of Mechanical Engineering: Prof. R. Horowitz: control of robotic manipulators Prof. H. Kazerooni: man-robotic systems Prof. M. Tomizuka: control of robotic manipulators Richard Muller - micro mechanisms University of Kansas Space Technology Center (Telerobotics) University of Kentucky Center for Robotics and Manufacturing Systems (founded 1990) University of Massachusetts Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics Computer Science Department Mosaic - http://piglet.cs.umass.edu:4321/lpr.html Faculty: Rod Grupen Robin Popplestone The lab is equipped with two General Electric P-50 robots, two GE A4s, a Zebra Zero, and a Denning mobile platform. In addition, the P-50s are fitted with a 4-fingered Utah/MIT and a 3-fingered Stanford/JPL* dexterous hand, respectively. The lab includes VxWorks distributed VME controllers and an experimental real-time kernel (Spring kernel). Research conducted at the lab includes: o controller composition for coordinating multiple robots o grasp planning o geometric reasoning for robust assembly & fine motion control o learning for admittance control & path optimization o biological models of motor planning o proprioceptive, tactile, & visual model acquisition o trajectory planning, coarse reaching o state-space decomposition The laboratory also engages in collaborative research with the Computer Vision (A. Hanson, E. Riseman, directors) and Adaptive Networks (A. Barto, director) groups within the department. University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI Elec. Eng. and CS, relevant to robotics includes machine vision, systems and control, multiple cooperating agents (arms and mobile), and application of SOAR to robots (arms and mobile). (in conjunction with SOAR groups at CMU and elsewhere) Contacts: Johann Borenstein <johann_borenstein@um.cc.umich.edu> Yorem Koren <yorem_koren@um.cc.umich.edu> University of Pennsylvania. UPenn offers Masters and PhD programs in Robotics and Robotics related fields of study. These programs are offered through the Departments of Computer and Information Science, Systems Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. The bulk of the robotics research is conducted in the inter-disciplinary General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception (GRASP) laboratory. Active areas of research are Telerobotics, Multiple Arm Control, Robotic Vision, Learning Control, Multi-agent Robotics and Mechanical Design. Leading Faculty members are Drs. R. Bajcsy and R.P. Paul. University of Southern California (USC) USC has a new MS Program called: Master of Science in Computer Science with specialization in Robotics & Automation Beginning in Fall, 1993, this new MS program seeks to prepare students for a career in the application of Computer Science to design, manufacturing, and robotics. It also serves as an introduction to this area for students who wish to pursue advanced studies and research leading to a Ph.D. A major goal is to produce a steady stream of graduates who are qualified to tackle challenging problems in the development of software for CAD/CAM (Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing) and robotics. There is a strong focus on designing and building within the program Exposure to the practical aspects (and difficulties) of robotics and automation is strongly encouraged through laboratory work, and an optional thesis, conducted in collaboration with industry and research laboratories. See also Mosaic: http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/robotics/home.html For additional information, a complete set of degree requirements, and application materials, contact our Student Coordinator: Ms. Amy Yung Computer Science Department University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0781 tel: 213.740.4499 net: <amy@pollux.usc.edu> Faculty include: George Bekey : Assembly planning, design for assembly, neural nets for robot control, autonomous robots. Ken Goldberg : Motion planning, grasping, machine learning. Sukhan Lee : Assembly planning, sensor-based manipulation. Gerard Medioni: Computer vision. Ramakant Nevatia: Computer vision. Keith Price: Computer vision. Aristides Requicha: Geometric modeling, geometric uncertainty, planning for manufacture and inspection About twenty other faculty member associated with the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems and many others associated with USC's Information Sciences Institute (ISI). Brochure can be obtained from: Ken Goldberg, Asst Professor IRIS, Dept of Computer Science Powell Hall Room 204 University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0273 Internet: goldberg@usc.edu University of Maryland Space Systems Laboratory. Facilties include a large neutral bouyancy tank, and a number of free-flying teleoperators used underwater in the NBT. Much teleoperations research. Dave Akin - director Dave has flown shuttle experiments and his research is in the areas of teleoperation, control, man-machine interaction and is one of the very few in the robotics community to fly hardware in space. The University of Texas at Arlington F.L. Lewis Automation and Robotics Research Institute University of Texas at Arlington 7300 Jack Newell Blvd S Ft. Worth, TX 76118 tel: 817.794.5972 fax: 817.794.5952 UT Arlington is located in the heart of the Dallas / Ft. Worth metroplex. The EE department current has 33 faculty and the CSE department has 20 faculty. Participating students will also be able to conduct research at the Automation and Robotics Research Institute located in Ft. Worth. University of Wisconsin-Madison Mechanical Engineering & Electrical Engineering: Roland Chin - machine vision, pattern recognition Neil Duffie - teleoperation, autonomous systems, sensors Robert Lorenz - actuators and sensors, robot control algorithms Vladimir Lumelsky - motion planning, real-time sensing and navigation Computer Science: Charles Dyer - machine vision Wisconsin Center for Space Robotics and Automation (WCSAR) - Interdepartmental NASA center: work is done on various applications of robotic systems for space. University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 Steve Jacobsen Center for Engineering Design 3176 MEB Hands, manipulators, biomedical applications, teleoperation. Micro electro-mechanical systems design. Yale University - Vision and Robotics Group There is a broad spectrum of research activities in vision and robotics at Yale. The members of this group include faculty from Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Psychology, Neuroscience, and the Yale Medical School. Active areas of research include machine vision, humanand computer object recognition, geometric reasoning, mobile robotics, sensor-based manipulation, control of highly dynamic nonlinear systems, planning, and learning. There is also a wide spectrum of interdisciplinary work integrating robotics and machine vision. Faculty: James S. Duncan: Geometric/physical models for analysing biomedical images. Gregory D. Hager: Sensor-based/task-directed decision-making and planning. David J. Kriegman: Model-based object recognition, mobile robot navigation. Drew McDermott: Planning and scheduling reactive behavior, knowledge representation, cognitive mapping. Eric Mjolsness: Neural network approaches to vision and visual memory. Pat Sharpe: Computational models of hippocampal spatial learning. Michael J. Tarr: Behavioral and computational approaches to visual cognition. Kenneth Yip: Automated reasoning about complex dynamical systems. CANADA------------ McGill University Department of Biomedical Engineering 3775 University Street Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2B4 Faculty: Ian Hunter and John Hollerbach Interests include: Master-slave manipulators for precise surgery University of Alberta Edmontom, Alberta Canada T6H 2H1 Center for Machine Intelligence and Robotics Robotics Research Laboratory, Department of Computing Science Ron Kube UNITED KINGDOM-------------- Edinburgh University (UK) Department of Artificial Intelligence has robot and vision groups within it. Main interests of the robotics group: behaviour-based control of robots (both mobiles and arms) hybrid control -- symbolic planning and behaviour-based actions learning, both reinforcement and other types implementations of biological systems eg cricket ears; vertebrate learning models active vision real-time control long survival times direct-drive arm control As well as PhDs by research, the Department offers a one-year, taught, modular, Masters course in Information Technology for Knowledge-based Systems where one of the possible specialisations is in robotics and vision. This course is designed for people without specific AI background. One module involves the Masters students building and programming their own robot out of Lego and supplied electronics. Another module gives hands-on experience with a simple robot arm. Contact the Admissions Secretary Judith Gordon <judith@aifh.ed.ac.uk> for information about courses. Principal Researchers: John Hallam <john@aifh.ed.ac.uk> for autonomous mobiles and survival Bob Fisher <rbf@aifh.ed.ac.uk> for most vision Chris Malcolm <cam@aifh.ed.ac.uk> for assembly robotics and hybrid systems Gillian Hayes <gmh@aifh.ed.ac.uk> for active vision and biological control Postal Address: Department of Artificial Intelligence, 5, Forrest Hill, Edinburgh EH1 2QL Scotland University of the West of England at Bristol, U.K. (used to be Bristol Polytechnic) Undergraduate Robotics is taught as part of undergraduate programs in engineering courses and as part of a real time computing course. The engineering department has in its teaching labs Puma, Adept, IBM, Cincinatti-Milacron and Funac robots Research There are two main groups, the Intelligent Autonomous Systems group and Intelligent Flexible Assembly group. Intelligent Autonomous Systems: Yichuang Jin, Will Wray: Neural net control of manipulators, especially stability-based adaptive control. Comparative modelling of neurocontroller design for robotics. Lawrence Bull, Owen Holland, Chris Melhuish: Behaviour-based mobile robots, collective behaviour, reinforcement learning and genetic algorithms. Intelligent Flexible Assembly Technology (InFACT/ALASCA Group): Eureka/FAMOS Projects (EC colaborative project - academic and Industry) The group has a large gantry based robot designed and built by the group -Farid Dialami, Alan Redford: Advanced Large scale flexible assembly (Peugot cars etc), generic tooling. -David Eastlake (hardware), Mike Morgan(software): Transputer based robot control of co-operating manipulators. -Email Contact dj_eastl@csd.uwe.ac.uk Bristol University Mr Khodlebandelhoo Bi arm research Path planning for redundant robots Wall climbing robots Hull University, UK Prof Alan Pugh Garment Manufacturing Arm/controller design University of Oxford Robotics Research Group The Robotics Group currently comprises about seventy academics, postdoctoral research staff, overseas visitors, and graduate students. A broad range of topics in advanced robotics is studied in collaboration with industry and government establishments throughout Europe. Robot Design and Control A number of projects are concerned with the design and control of compliant robot arms. Parallel Architectures Real-time sensor-based control of systems such as robot vehicles is a topic of increasing interest. For low bandwidth sensors such sonar, the emphasis is on Transputer architectures. For high bandwidth sensors such as vision, hybrid SIMD/MIMD architectures are being developed. A rapidly growing effort is concerned with the design, implementation, and application of neural networks. Digital and hybrid digital/analog chips have been designed and are being fabricated. Algorithms and TTL circuits have been constructed for text-to-speech synthesis. Vision and Active Vision The theory and applications of vision accounts for approximately one-third of the laboratory's effort. Current projects include edge detection and texture segmentation and the computation of visual motion by a parallel algorithm that estimates the optic flow field. Sensors and Sensor Integration Includes laser rangefinder development in addition to analog and digital sonar sensors, as well as infrared rangers, have been developed for the AGV project (below). Autonomous Guided Vehicles Work on a research prototype of a fielded industrial AGV cuts across many of the separate themes of the laboratory's work. The goal of the initial project is to equip the AGV with sonar, infrared, laser ranging, trinocular stereo, and model-based vision sensors to enable it to avoid unexpected obstacles and to locate pallets. Reading University, UK Prof Kevin Warwick Using neural nets in robotics and novel control algorithms. Salford University Dr D.P.Barnes Dept. Of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Mobile Robots Research Group. Autonomous mobile robot system with a behaviour-based architecture are designed and built with the intent to study the processes of cooperation with and without communication. Such an approach has led us up a number of paths with present work in behaviour synthesis and ise in: Robotics, Sensors, Communication, Connectionist Systems, Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming. Possible studies in PhD and MSc work and courses at undergraduate level. Dr D.Caldwell Dept Of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Multi-Functional Tactile Sensing and Feedback (Tele-taction) Tele-presence of an operator with a full mobile robot with two manipulator arms, stereo vision and sound. Tactile sensing datagloves are used to control the manipulators and video camera is used to move head (!). Expertise: Manipulators, Sensors, Tele-presence. Possible studies at PhD and MSc and courses at undergraduate level. Advanced Robotics Research Centre Ultrasonic wrist sensor for collision avoidance Controller design Stereo Vision Dr Francis Nagy Speech Control of a Puma-560 Control of an 'Inverted Pendulum' Miniature tactile sensors University of Surrey Mechatronic Systems and Robotics Research Group contacts: Prof G A Parker (g.parker@surrey.ac.uk) John Pretlove (j.pretlove@surrey.ac.uk) Primary Areas of Research activity: 3D co-ordinate tracking system for robot metrology Neural networks and expert systems for vision and inspection Active stereo vision for real-time robot arm guidance Design of controllable stereo vision systems. Open architecture Puma controller Mobile robots We also offer MSc courses and undergraduate courses in automation, control, mechanical engineering and CIM. FRANCE------------- University of Paris INRIA (Nice) just started a Phd program in Robotics. SWEDEN------------- Lulea University of Technology Department of Robotics and Automation S-971 87 LULEE Mosaic: http://www.sm.luth.se/csee/er/sm-roa/ SWITZERLAND-------- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology The Institute of Robotics Postgrad diploma in Mechatronics The Institute of Robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) constitutes about 40 members of staff (including Ph.D. students). The main research theme is Intelligent Interactive Mechines. That is to say developing intelligent robots that in cooperation with man solves difficult tasks. The institute takes its students from the departments of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. Robotics lectures and project work is offered to undergraduate students. In addition there is the "Nachdiplom" in mechatronics (somewhere near a M.Sc.) where robotics is a central theme. For further details on the "Nachdiplom" see below. Finally there are about 30 Ph.D. students curently registered working on a variety of themes and projects. Institute facilities include: several different robot arms including the in house developed modular robot arm (MODRO), mobile vehicles including the in house developed modular mobile robot, walking machines, supercomputing facilities, dedicated vision and signal processing hardware, etc. The head of the group is Professor G. Schweitzer. Address: Institute of Robotics ETH-Center, LEO, 8092 Zurich Switzerland tel: (01) 256 35 84 (secretary) fax: (01) 252 02 76. The "Nachdiplom" in mechatronics runs over two semesters plus three months project/thesis work. The lectures covers: robotics, mobile robotics, micro robots, computer based kinematics and dynamics of multibody systems, control theory, magnetic bearings, real time software techniques, information processing with neural networks, computer vision, and artificial intelligence. The fees are 2400,- Swiss Franks, founding is available. Contact: H.-K. Scherrer Mechatronics postgraduate course ETH-Centre, LEO B3 8092 Zurich Switzerland net: <scherrer@ifr.ethz.ch> _____________________________________________________________________________ +++Other organizations doing robotics: What companies and government laboratories are doing robotics work? This list is a small fraction of companies and other organizations that are actively working in robotics. By searching through proceedings of conferences, by noting member companies of many of the organizations listed in previous FAQ sections a significant number of companies can be generated. Industrial robotics is used widely throughout a number of companies. Most large aerospace companies have groups working in or looking into robotics. Martin Marietta (Denver), Rockwell International (Downey, CA), Boeing (Seattle) to name a few. Mitre Corporation of McLean VA and Houston TX, is also doing quite a bit in robotics. Advanced Robotics Research Centre Salford, UK. The Advanced Robotics Research Ltd (incorporating the National Advanced Robotics Research Centre, UK) is a joint UK Government and UK Industries funded research organisation involved in the research of enabling technologies for the advanced robotics systems. Mechanical Engineering Lab (MEL) Tsukuba City Kazuo Tanie: Robotics and cybernetics NASA Centers ------------ There are a number of NASA Centers that are researching and using robotics for lab prototypes, flight, ground servicing and many other applications. NASA Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) Pasadena, CA Hazardous-environment robots, teloperation, control, space and planetary missions. Currently responsible for MESUR Pathfinder rover. Contacts: Tony Bejczy, Chuck Weisbin, Brian Wilcox, Larry Mathies, Henry Stone, Rajiv Desai. NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) Moffett Field, CA Contact: Butler Hine III <hine@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov> Terry Fong <doctor@tardis.arc.nasa.gov> Telepresence and virtual user interfaces, vision (optical and parallel processing), free-flyers, task planning, agents. Ames has recently fielded a underwater vehicle in the Antarctic. The Teleoperated Remotely Operated Vehicle (TROV) purpose is to assess the capabilities of telepresence and virtual environments for performing remote scientific field work. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Greenbelt, MD 20771 Contact: Stephen Leake <nbssal@robots.gfsc.nasa.gov> Since the cancellation of the Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FTS), the Robotics Lab has been concentrating on work in the area of automated space craft servicing. The goal is to replace or supplement Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) with teleoperated or semiautonomous robotic systems for external vehicle maintenance. Current project includes a robot to assist in second Hubble servicing mission. NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Houston, TX Contact: Charles Price More of an operations house but lots of shuttle RMS work. A number of robot projects including testing of space station manipulator systems happens at JSC. NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Robotics Group Contact: Bill Jones Like JSC, KSC is an operations house with responsibility to keep shuttles flying and integrate payloads. There is a small but growing robotics group that is emplacing ground support robotics applications. Recent work includes filter inspector for launch pad payload areas, shuttle radiator inspector and a mobile system for thermal protection system tasks. NASA Langley Research Center, (LaRC) Hampton, VA Contact: Jack Pennington - vision, inspection, 3-D sensors National Laboratories --------------------- The US National Laboratories are large complexes with a number of robotics efforts. One current focus is the enormous and costly cleanup of the weapons complexes throughout the country. Remediation, removal and cleanup of hazardous materials will require hundreds of billions of $$$ and many years. Robotics will be a key in much of this. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM Sandia is a DOE National Laboratory with a substantial program in robotics at its Intelligent Systems and Robotics Center. The Center has interests in manufacturing, hazardous material handling, site remediation, and research to support these applications. Consequently areas of focus include assembly planning, robotic interfaces, control theory, motion planning, sensor fusion, sensor development, mobile vehicles, telemanagement, mobile vehicles, and so on. At the time of writing (2/15/93) the center has nearles in computer science, mechanical engineering, mathematics, electrical engineering, as well as a few in other fields. The mix is about 30% PhD, 40%MS, and 30% BS. Recent hires have come from Cornell, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, Illinois, Penn, ... The center operates over 20 fully equipted labs including robots from Puma, Adept, GCA, Cincinnati Millacron, and Schilling. The virtual reality lab includes stereoscopic viewers from Fake Space, audio, speech recognition and synthesis, and big boxes from SGI to drive the graphics. In addition to the normal complement of departmental computing we have use of other compute resources at Sandia including a 1000 node N-cube, a 1000+node Intel Paragon, several crays, a CM-200 (16K procs). Contacts: Randy Brost, Pat Xavier, Sharon Stansfield, Pang Chen, David Strip, Jim Novak, Ray Harrigan, Pat Eicker, Bob Anderson. Oak Ridge National Lab ORNL/CESAR PO Box 2008, MS-6364 Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6364 tel: 615.574.6126 Contact: Alex L. Bangs <BangsAL@ornl.gov> Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research (CESAR) Research in mobile and manipulator robotics, including redundant and multiple manipulators, cooperating mobile robots, parallel vision systems, sensor fusion, real-time quantitative reasoning and behavior based control, and machine learning. Current applications include robots for nuclear power stations, environmental restoration and waste management, material handling, and space exploration. Researchers: Alex Bangs, Marty Beckerman, Judd Jones, Reinhold Mann, Ed Oblow, Francois Pin, Michael Unseren Redzone Robotics 2425 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4639 tel: 412.765.3064 fax: 412.364.3069 A spin-off of CMU, Redzone has focused on hazwaste and nuke manipulator applications but is also developing mobile applications. Primarily protoypes and not multiple unit manufacturing. Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, TX Robotics and Automation Department Some large systems for servicing aircraft (painting, spraying, deriveting etc) ______________________________________________________________________________ +++Mobile robot companies: There are a small number of companies targeting the research community for the mobile robot market. TRC, RWI, and Cybermotion have all sold and are selling mobile devices for research and real applications. There are a number of Automatic Guided Vehicle companies as well and their primary applications are factory operations. Companies manufacturing Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGV) are listed at the end of this section. Bell and Howell Mailmobile Company 81 Hartwell Avenue Lexington, MA 02173-3127 tel: 617.674.1110 Mailmobiles were developed by Lear-Siegler in the mid-70's for the industrial cleaning market. They left this market and Bell & Howell, the audio-visual company, was refocusing on office automation products and picked up this product from Lear-Siegler. There are three models of Mailmobile, the Packmobile, the Sprint and the Trailmobile. About 3000 systems sold and about 2000 probably in operation. They use a chemical trail that floureseces under UV light. Payloads up to a couple of hundred kg. Some systems have been operating for over 15 years. Branch & Associates Pty Ltd 1153 Tasman Highway Cambridge, Tasmania 7170 Australia (operating in Europe, Asia and America) tel: +61-02-485-807 fax: +61-02-485-809 contact: Alex Vail, Division Manager Since 1979, specialist in autonomous navigation and guidance; products and technology for applications, research, and teaching. Conquerer series of fully autonomous AGV's, mapping system, non-accumulated error, accuracy 1cm, 1 degree, no environmental modifications, $12K - $25K. Fander: research and educational mobile robot. $5.5K includes everything: built-in software demonstrates in real situations numerous exmaples of roboti mobility technologies for teaching, research and teaching manual, stand-alone and remote PC modes, real time graphics. Cybermotion 5457 Jae Valley Road Roanoke, VA 24014 tel: 703.982.2641 John Holland's company. Mobile K2 bases making use of ingenious torque-tube synchronous drive system. Security markets and research platforms, manipulators for base as well. Map building software too. Cyberworks 31 Ontario Street Orillia, Ontario L3V 6H1 Canada tel: 705.325.6110 fax: 705.325.8566 Primary product are 'building blocks' for mobile robot development including controllers, sensors, softare and chassis'. Denning Mobile Robotics Inc. [DENNING IS OUT OF BUSINESS] 21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887 tel: 508.658.7800 Mobile robots - synchronous drive bases for research platforms. Building automated camera platforms for newsrooms, working on floor cleaning machines with an industrial partner. Denning also has a number of products including a position scanner, and IR beacons. A Denning floor scrubber is working in a post office in Pittsburgh, Denver and Washington, and at a UPS site. IS Robotics 4353 Park Terrace Drive Suite 6, 22McGrath Hwy Westlake Village, CA 91361 USA Somerville, MA 02143 tel: 818.597.1900 tel: 617.629.0055 net: <robots@isx.com> fax: 617.629.0126 T-1: tracked robot approx 50cm x 36cm. $5k R-2: Wheeled machine. Gripper with 7.5cm opening, 18cm lift, 1kg lift force. $7K Ghengis II: Six-legged machine with whisker bump sensors and force detection on legs. About $2k. Use the ubiquitous MC68HC11E2 microcontrollers. Robots include IR and bump sensing for obstacle detection. Pyro sensors and color camera with pan-tilt are optional. Kentree Kilbritten, Co. Cork, Ireland tel: +353 23 49791, 49808 fax: +353 23 49801 Teleoperated bomb disposal vehicles in a range of sizes. mecos Robotics AG Technopark Pfingstweidstrasse CH-8005 Zurich Switzerland tel: + 41 1 445 11 35 fax: + 41 1 445 11 34 email: mecos@ifr.ethz.ch Contact: S. J. Vestli Company formed as a spin off of the Institute of Robotics, ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). "mecos Robotics" specialises in modular and adaptive robot manipulators and robot vehicles (mobile robots). All "mecos Robotics" systems uses the same type of controller, a VME based computer. This system comes with high level development tools, and for research institutions the systems have the advantage of being open. The overall goals of all "mecos Robotics" systems are flexility and modularity. The mobile robot program from "mecos Robotics" follows this principle. The physical size and the mechanical configuration can be altered. The standard configuration has three wheels with air tyres and independant suspension. One wheel is used for steering and propulsion (imagine a kids tricycle). The overall size is 0.7 m (W) * 1.0 m (L) * 0.5 m (H). The price depends on configuration and starts around the 70.000,- Swiss Franks mark. Nomadic Technologies 1060-B Terra Bella Avenue Mountain View, CA 94043 tel: 415.988.7200 ext. 203 fax: 415.988.7201 net: nomad@robots.com Nomad 200 is an integrated mobile robot system with four sensing modules including tactile, infrared, ultrasonic, and 2D laser. Integrated software development package for the host computer includes a graphic interface, robot simulator and a library of motion planning, motion control and sensory data interpretation functions. Geared toward teaching and research in Robotics and AI. The Nomad utilizes a synchronous steering system (ala Cybermotion and RWI). Speeds up to .5 meters/second and onboard battery power. Nomad 200 Mobile Base $10,000 Nomad 200 Control System $ 6,000 Sensus 100 Tactile Sensing System $ 1,500 Sensus 200 Fixed Sonar System $ 2,500 Sensus 500 Structured Light Vision System $ 7,000 RF Modem Kit $ 2,000 Digital Compass $ 450 Real World Interface (RWI) P.O. Box 270 Dublin, NH 03444 tel: 603.563.8871 fax: 603.563.8872 Small synchronous drive bases, primarily for research purposes. Approx $6K Remotec 114 Union Valley Road Oak Ridge, TN 37830 tel: 615.483.0228 fax: 615.483.1426 The ANDROS line of teleoperated mobile robots. These were designed to be useful in the nuclear industry and in other hazardous applications, and are very rugged. You can hose them down. Available in a range of sizes, with a variety of optional attachments, such as video cameras, arms, etc. TAG Technology 5 Bowlands Mill, Alnwick, Northumberland, NE661LN, UK tel: +44 655 604895 fax: +44 665 510624 Frank - a tracked vehicle. Cost $UK 2000 - 5785 depending on functionality. TRC 15 Great Pasture Road Danbury, CT 06810 tel: 203.798.8988 Labmate research platform - $7500, plus additional optional sensors etc. Other products for hospital markets and floor cleaning machines. (Helpmate and RoboKent respectively) Visual Inspection Technologies 27-2 Ironia Road Flanders, NJ 07836-9124 tel: 201.927.0033 fax: 201.927.3207 VIT specializes in remote visual and ultrasonic testing but sells or rents a small tracked rover for inspection work. Products include ROVVER, SPOT, and PIPECAT vertical pipe crawler. VIT also makes miniature remote pan and tilt devices. Yamazaki Construction Company, Tokyo Japan. Intelligent Robot Lab Kaika Building 2-7-1 Sotokanda Chiyoda-ku 101 Tokyo Japan tel: 81-3-5256-0715 LR1 robot - small research robot, basically a VME cage on wheels with some ultrasonic sensors and a nice constant force suspension. Has shown up at IEEE R&A conferences $30K. RoboSoft SA , , 6, allee Paul Cezanne 93360 Neuilly Plaisance FRANCE tel: +33 1 4944 3035 fax: +33 1 4944 3297 AGV Companies ------------- AGV Products 9307-E Monroe Road Charlotte, NC 28270-1485 tel: 704.845.1110 fax: 704.845.1111 Controls and components for AGV's. Supplier of Schabmuller motor-in-wheel drives. Apogee Robotics 2643 Midpoint Drive Fort Collins, CO 80525 tel: 303.221.1122 fax: 303.221.1774 Standard and custom-designed AGV's BT Systems 7000 Nineteen Mile Road Sterling Heights, MI 48314 tel: 313.254.5200 fax: 313.254.5570 Automated Handling Systems (Formerly Volvo Automated Systems) Caterpillar Industrial 5960 Heisley Road Mentor, OH 44060 tel: 216.357.2935 fax: 216.357.4410 Manufacturer and distributor of fork lift trucks and guided vehicles. Cat's SGV's use rotating laser scanner and barcodes as opposed to traditional wire-guided systems. Control Engineering Company Jervis Webb Company 34375 W. Twelve Mile Road Farmington Hills, MI 48331-5624 tel: 313.553.1220 fax: 313.553.1253 Eaton-Kenway 515 East 100 South PO Box 45425 Salt Lake City, UT 84145-0425 tel: 801.530.4000 fax: 801.530.4243 AGV's and integrated systems Elwell-Parker 4205 St. Clair Avenue Cleveland, OH tel: 216.881.6200 fax: 216.391.7708 Designs/manufactures rider style, electric, fork and platform mobile material handling equipment. Line includes AGV's, high tonnage capacity. Mobile cranes, explosion proof forklifts. Eskay Corporation 563 West 500 South Bountiful, UT 84010 tel: 801.295.5315 fax: 801.299.9990 Automated material handling systems including AGVS. Fata Automation 37050 Industrial Road Livonia, MI 48150 tel: 313.462.0678 fax: 313.462.0997 Sales and service of AGVs. FMC Corporation 400 Highpont Drive Chalfont, PA 18914 tel: 215.822.4300 fax: 215.822.4342 AGVs, Automated Handling Systems, Consulting, Trolley and Power and Free Converyors, Tow lines, Integrated Systems and Controls, Roll Handling Equipment. IDAB Incorporated 1 Enterprise Parkway, Suite 300 PO Box 8157 Hampton, VA 23666 tel: 804.825.2260 fax: 804.825.9307 Automatic handling systems and AGV's Litton Industrial Automation 2300 Litton Lane Hebron, KY 41048 tel: 606.334.2033 fax: 606.334.2847 Full service material handling company. Mannesmann Demag Corporation 29201 Aurora Road Cleveland, OH 44139-1895 tel: 216.248.2400 fax: 216.248.3086 Overhead cranes, wire rope and chain hoists, AGV systems, automatic storage and retrieval systems, monorail, aircraft maintenance equipment. Mentor AGVS Products 8500 Station Street PO Box 898 Mentor, OH 44060 tel: 216.255.4051 fax: 216.255.3430 AGV systems and automated transfer cars. Munck Automation Technology 315 E Street Hampton, VA 23661 tel: 804.838.6010 fax: 804.826.5651 Manufacturer and integrator of automated material handling systems. AGVS of many configurations (unitload, forklift, towing) The Raymond Corporation South Canal Street PO Box 130 Greene, NY 13778 tel: 607.656.2311 fax: 607.656.9005 Material handling equipment. Roberts Sinto Corporation 3001 West Main Street PO Box 40760 Lansing, MI 48901-7960 tel: 517.371.2460 fax: 517.372.4930 MGV's (Mechanically guided vehicles) Professional Materials Handling Co, Inc. 4203 Landmark Drive Orlando, FL 32817 tel: 305.677.0040 Steinbock fork trucks. Wire guided, use regenerative braking. _____________________________________________________________________________ +++Manipulator companies: Adept Technology 150 Rose Orchard Way San Jose, CA 95134 tel: 408.432.0888 fax: 408.432.8707 High speed direct-drive and harmonic-drive SCARA style arms. 0.001" (.025mm) repeatabiliy. Payloads from 4-25kg Can be used in clean room and food applications as well. Adept sells vision systems and controllers also. Antenen Research PO Box 95 Hamilton, OH 45012 tel: 800.323.9555 tel: 513.887.4700 fax: 513.887.4703 New and used robots for manufacturing, research and training. Used at savings of 40% - 70%. Also lots of parts and accessories. Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), Vesteraas, Sweden ABB Robotics 2487 South Commerce Drive New Berlin, WI 53151 tel: 414.785.3400 fax: 414.789.9235 Now own Cinncinatti Milacron robotics group, Graco and Trallfa. Many types of larger industrial robots. Comau - Italy Via Rivalta 30 10095 Grugliasco Torino, Italy tel: 011 33341 fax: 011 7809156 A variety of industrial manipulators ranging in payloads from 6kg to 125kg. All electric AC drives. One of the novel designs is a 6DOF, 12kg payload robot The SMART-3 6.12 R. It uses a carbon fibre forearm, absolute resolver feedback and 0.15mm repeatability. CRS Plus, PO Box 163, Station A 830 Harrington Court Burlington, Ontario Canada L7R 3Y2 tel: 416.639.0086 fax: 416.639.4248 Sells several manipulators. 5-DOF around $25K, 6DOF around $33K. Sell end-effectors as well (electric, vacuum and penumatic) Wrist can be bought separately. Controllers use RAPL, a VAL-like language. Fairly open architecture. 3Kg payloads +/- 0.05mm repeatability. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. 24402 Sinacola Court Farmington Mills, MI 48331 tel: 313.474.6100 fax: 313.474.6101 Kawasaki was the first Japanese mfg to lead in the production of industrial robots. They licensed the former Unimation line of robots and now make about a dozen types of electric arms for welding, painting and assembly. Kraft Telerobotics 11667 W. 90th Street Overland Park, KS 66214 tel: 913.894.9022 fax: 913.894.1363 Nice telerobotic arms for underwater work. mecos Robotics AG Technopark Pfingstweidstrasse CH-8005 Zurich Switzerland tel: + 41 1 445 11 35 fax: + 41 1 445 11 34 net: <mecos@ifr.ethz.ch> Contact: E. Nielsen Spin-off of the Institute of Robotics, ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). modular and adaptive robot manipulators and robot vehicles (mobile robots). All "mecos Robotics" systems use a VME based computer as controller. The system comes with high level development tools, and are open systems. The manipulator's mechanical configuration can be changed at will (number and type of joints, length of links, etc.) Manipulators use linear aluminum extrusions with integral motions for joints. The controller accounts for configuration changes. With this principle of modularity and flexibilty hybrid force / position controllers have been realised on "mecos Robotics" arms. Price depending on configuration (50.000,- Swiss Franks and upwards). Motoman [Hobart/Yaskawa] 3160 MacArthur Boulevard Northbrook, IL 60062-1917 tel: 708.291.2340 fax: 708.498.2430 Large industrial manipulators for welding, painting, palletizing, dispensing, etc. Can be floor, ceiling or wall mount units. Payloads for the 8 robots in the K-series range from 3kg to 100kg and vertical jointed-arm type manipulators. (i.e. 4 bar linkage to reduce arm intertias). 3 S-series robots are SCARA-type manipulators with payloads of 50-60kg and varying workspace sizes Yaskawa also has bought the rights to RobotWorld, Vic Schienman's unique gantry design robot system. This system allow a number of mobile modules in the same workspace to zip around at speeds up 80"/sec (3G accel). RAIL and C can be used in a multilevel programming environment. 0.002" Accuracy, 0.0005" repeatability. Neat stuff. Salisbury Robotics, Inc. 20 Pemberton St. Cambridge, MA 02140 tel: 617.661.8847 net: <jks@ai.mit.edu> Sells the three-fingered Salisbury hand and force sensing fingertips. Contact: Ken Salisbury, Sarcos Research Corporation 390 Wakara Way, Suite 44, Salt Lake City, Utah 84108 tel: 801.581.0155 Spinoff of University of Utah's Center for Engineering Design (CED). Teleoperated systems, manipulators. Audio-animatronic work as well. Beautiful force reflecting work and systems. High performance and small hydraulic valves and actuators. Schilling 1632 Da Vinci Court Davis, CA 95616 tel: 916.753.6718 fax: 916.753.8092 Electro-mechanical engineering and manufacturing company specializing in telerobotics. Various remote manipulator and telerobotic manipulator systems. Sony Corporation of America Factory Automation Division 542 Route 303 Orangeburg, NY 10962 tel: 914.365.6000 fax: 914.365.6087 Several SCARA type manipulators including a double armed manipulator. This model is used for the assembly of 8mm camcorders! Robotics Research Corp. P.O. Box 206 Amelia, OH 45102 tel: 513.831.9570 fax: 513.381.5802 RRC offers a variety of dexterous manipulators which can be operated individually or in dual-arm mode. Their second generation, denoted the "i-Series", is lighter and provides great dexterity. They are currently building "spaceflight-qualified" manipulators for NASA (GSFC) using this new generation of their product. They have also been doing some work developing sensor-based automatic obstacle detection and avoidance technology which uses a patented algorithm with arm-mounted sensors. They have also built two massively-redundant 17-DOF Anthropomorphic systems for Grumman and JPL to serve as testbeds for researching "man-equivalent" robots for space applications. UMI Microbot [no longer in business in the US] In the UK: Oxford Intelligent Machines, UK tel: 0865 204881 Originally known as the Microbot teachmover. A small cable driven manipulator for desktop robotics. Excellent teaching tool. Original design by John Hill (now at SRI) Microbot was bought out by the British company UMI two years ago. In May, 1991 they moved from Silicon Valley to Detroit, MI. As of Early 1994, only the UK company was still in business. USA Robot PO Box 4018 Portland, ME 04101 tel: 207.761.9039 Maxym production robots for business. Simple accurate 3D linear motions coupled with power tooling such as routers, air drills and sanders. Workspaces up to 60cmx147cmx15cm. IBMPC software for designing parts and production path but takes DXF files as input. Not a machine like the giant production turning and routing machines used by large furniture makers but is a nice small machine for small production shops. Prices range from $14.5K to $19.9K. Western Space and Marine 111 Santa Barbara St. Santa Barbara, CA 93101 tel: 805.963.3831 fax: 805.963.3832 Telerobotic manipulators for space and undersea applications. Zebra Robotics Jeff Kerr Menlo Park tel: 415.328.8884 Small manipulators with integral force control. Zymark Corp Hopkinton, MA Robots for laboratory automation. Zymate Other companies: (no addresses, yet) International Submarine Engineering (ISE) Robotic Systems International (RSI) Furukawa Sumitomo Chubu Beckman Biomark HP ORCA _____________________________________________________________________________ +++Small Inexpensive Robots One of the most common discussions on the net are related to finding, building and working on small and low cost robots. There are a few small robots on the market and a number of construction kits that robots can be built from such as Lego, FischerTechnik and Capsula. None of these require large investments. These systems are at most a few hundred $US and can run on a desktop. Aleph Technology Parc Heliopolis 16 rue du Tour de l'eau BP 295-38407 Saint Martin d'Heres cedex, France tel: +33 76422999 fax: +33 76444620 Small, turtle robot for education. 17000FF Angelus Research 6344 Sugar Pine Circle Angelus Oaks, CA tel: 909.794.8325. A small differentially-steered mechanism (no casters!) utilizing a 68HC11 controller w/ 32K RAM and RS-232 interface. Four visible collision sensors (range 3-12 inches depending on ambient light) and two whiskers. On-board battery (Pb- acid and built in charger) monitors current as well for stall current. Software included with easy-to-use command set. A lot of features for a very affordable device. $395, controller board available separately and basic kit available for $325 Capsula Play-Jour International Room 914, New World Office Building (East Wing), 24 Salisbury Rd Tsimshatsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong Capsula is a robot construction set. Looks like a series of bubbles connected together. Some intriguing modules including IR control, voice commands, motorized clutches etc. Edmund Scientific sells this as do many toy stores. FischerTechnik [Germany] Fischerwerke Arthur Fischer GmbH & Co. KG Weinhalde 14-18 D-72178 Waldachtal tel: germany + 07443 120 fax: germany + 07443 12222 [USA] Model Technology 2420 Van Layden Way Modesto, CA 95356 tel: 209.575.3445 fax: 209.527.6016 [UK] Economatics Ltd Epic house, Darnell Road Attercliffe, Sheffield United Kingdom tel: +44 742 56 11 22 fax: +44 742 43 93 04 telex: 5 47 095 ECOMAT G Like Lego, Fischertechnik is a european-developed construction kit but much more comprehensive in scope. Electro-mechanical parts galore including a wide variety of switches, relays, slip rings, contacts, etc. Many types of building block units as well and computer interfaces available. More expensive than Lego. Model Technology, listed above, is one distributor. See also the Robot Explorer in the publications section. Here is a listing of some of the kits that they build: Interface for Macintosh: "Service II" from Boenig and Kallenbach, sold by Pandasoft Uhlandstrasse 195 D-1000 Berlin 12 Fax: germany (030) 315913-55 for DM 498.- for Mac Plus or better. 8 digital in and outputs, 2 analoguous inputs. With Hypercard Stack Computing Experimental and driver software for all Pascal versions, 4th Dimension and Ragtime (comparable to MSWorks). Works also with the FischerTechnik Robot and Plotter assembly kit, 80 pages manual in german?, 3 Diskettes. There are also computing kits containing interfaces for C64, PC and Apple II. -Profi Computing by Fischer Technik: "High-end" kit, 3 motors, 6 switches, 4 lights, 2 fotocells, 20 plugs patch bay, construction base-support plate, 12 models explained as there are a robot with a controlled hand, a plotter, a slot-machine, a credit-card reader and a CD-player (certainly without audio out), 888 parts in total: DM 376, needs the Service II interface. -Training robot by Fischer Technik: 3 rotative axis which may be controlled simultaneously. Working radius between 12 and 37 cm, fetching height: 6 to 25 cm, driven by 3 Fischer Technik S-motors, positioning with infrared photocell, with cabling and manual, needs the Service II interface, for DM 547.- -Plotter/Scanner by Fischertechnik: scanning head not included, "heavy duty" construction, precision < 0.5 mm on a A4 surface, driven by 2 bipolar stepper motors, needs the Service II interface. For DM 487.- -Computing by Fischertechnik: 10 models possible, all explained: antenna rotor, Plotter, Graphic Tablet, 2-axis robot etc., needs Service II and power supply for DM 298.- Khepera Support Team LAMI - DI - EPFL INF Ecublens 1015 Lusanne Switzerland tel: ++41 21 693.52.65 fax: ++42 21 693.52.63 net: <khepera@di.epfl.ch> contact: Franscesco Mondada obile robot. Motorola 68331 Processor with 256K RAM and 256 or 512K ROM. Serial port. Six 10bit analog inputs. DC motor powered with incremental encoders. Eight IR proximity and light sensors. NiCd batteries. Additional capabilities can be added by using stackable K-extension bus. Software environments: Calm assembler (PC or MAC), Gnu C compiler (on all machines supported by GNU) and LabView (PC, Mac or Sun). Size: 55mm diameter, 30mm high Weight: 70grams Cost: 3000 Swiss Francs [About $2K US] Vision and Gripper modules under development. Reference: Mondada et al. Mobile Robot Miniaturisation: A Tool for Investigation in Control Algorithms. Third International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, Kyoto, Japan, Oct 28-30, 1993 LEGO Lego Dacta 555 Taylor Road PO Box 1600 Enfield, CT 06083-1600 tel: 800.527.8339 fax: 203.763.2466 LEGO Dacta is the educational branch of the LEGO company. Dacta sells the LEGO Technic product line. These are the geared and motorized versions for the LEGO system. Use anonymous ftp to obtain a list of a variety of lego information and application programs from: location: earthsea.stanford.edu directory: /pub/lego filenames: <see below> Directory Structure: ~ftp/pub/lego/ CAD/ contains several languages for specifying models faq/ contains latest faq sheet for alt.toys.lego games/ Rules for games using lego people and pieces images/ Pictures and drawings of sets and instructions sets/ Database listings of lego sets and catalog numbers upload/ Place your files here! Lego kits recommended for robotics work include: 1038 Technical Universal Buggy - dual drive vehicle. $60 1032 Technic II w/ motorized transmission - $76 9605 Technic Resource Set - general parts kits - $200 Lego-to-Mac software: Paradigm Software 617.576.7675 Bots 415.949.2126 MIT has papers on LEGO projects available via FTP from: site: kame.media.mit.edu. dir: pub/el-memos file: memo8.* "LEGO/LOGO: Learning Through and About Design" Meccano/Erector [many addresses around the world] 363, avenue de Saint-Exupery 62104 CALAIS CEDEX - FRANCE Tel. 21.96.63.90 Fax. 21.96.34.35 There are several mechanical construction systems available. The best source of info I've seen is a list put together by Colin Hinz: location: psych.toronto.edu directory: /ftp/pub/ filenames: meccano The German model train company, Maerklin makes a Meccano compatible construction set. They also have a 1007 Robotic Arm kit and programmable controller as well. ~$300 You may be able to order it through a local train and hooby shop. Mondotronics 524 San Anselmo Ave., #107 San Anselmo, CA 94960 tel: 415.455.9330 800.374.5764 fax: 415.455.9333 net: <mondo@holonet.net> 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 the book. OWI (Movit robots) tel: 310.638.4732 fax: 310.638.8347 Available from: Kelvin Electronics 800.645.9212 Pitsco 800.835.0686 Edmund Scientific (See Robot Parts section for address) These are small toy-like robots that reflexively respond to obstacles, sounds or light depending on the model. They're cute and show what can be done with a relatively small amount of hardware. Edmund also has a Robotic Technology Curriculum with lessons and tests featuring the Movit robots. Curriculum is $65 from Edmund Scientific. QuikShut (?) Circuit Specialists Inc PO Box 3047 Scottsdale, AZ 85271-3047 tel: 800.528.1417 tel: 602.464.2485 Sold by Circuit Specialists for $259. Appears to be a nice low cost 5 axis arm for education. IBM (or compatible) interface, kit including all components and board, power supply kit, software package, logic probe and experiments and instructions. If anyone has information as to who actually makes this please send me email. Stiquito A small nitinol-based mobile robot is available from Indiana University in a technical report and as a kit. Send your request for the report with payment to: Computer Science Department 215 Lindley Hall Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405 To receive the technical report only: Send $5.00 PRE-PAID and add ATTN: TR363A To receive the technical report and a complete kit: Send $15.00 PRE-PAID and add ATTN: TR 363A Squito Kit Tomy Armatron Sold by Radio Shack in the US, the Armatron was a popular small plastic manipulator and later a mobile version was sold. A number of articles appeared in the hobbyist press regarding linking the Armatrons to computers. The mobile version is still being sold in Japan and is called the "GO ROBO ARM" You might be able to pick one up at a flea market or garage sale. Buy it - they are neat clever devices and fun. _____________________________________________________________________________ +++Architectures for Robots A robot 'architecture' primarily refers to the software and hardware framework for controlling the robot. A VME board running C code to turn motors doesn't really constitute an architecture by itself. The development of code modules and the communication between them begins to define the architecture. Robotic systems are complex and tend to be difficult to develop. They integrate multiple sensors with effectors, have many degrees of freedom and must reconcile hard real-time systems with systems which cannot meet real-time deadlines [Jones93]. System developers have typically relied upon robotic architectures to guide the construction of robotic devices and for providing computational services (e.g., communications, processing, etc.) to subsystems and components. These architectures, however, have tended thus far to be task and domain specific and have lacked suitability to a broad range of applications. For example, an architecture well suited for direct teleoperation tends not to be amenable for supervisory control or for autonomous use. One recent trend in robotic architectures has been a focus on behavior-based or reactive systems. Behavior based refers to the fact that these systems exhibit various behaviors, some of which are emergent [Man92]. These systems are characterized by tight coupling between sensors and actuators, minimal computation, and a task-achieving "behavior" problem decomposition. The other leading architectural trend is typified by a mixture of asynchronous and synchronous control and data flow. Asychronous processes are characterized as loosely coupled and event-driven without strict execution deadlines. Synchronous processes, in contrast, are tightly coupled, utilize a common clock and demand hard real-time execution. Subsumption/reactive references ------------------------------- Arkin, R.C., "Integrating Behavioral, Perceptual, and World Knowledge in Reactive Navigation", Robotics & Autonomous Systems, 1990 Brooks, R.A., "A Robust Layered Control System for a Mobile Robot", IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, March 1986. Brooks, R.A., "A Robot that Walks; Emergent Behaviors from a Carefully Evolved Network", Neural Comutation 1(2) (Summer 1989) Connell, J.H., "A Colony Architecture for an Artificial Creature", MIT Ph. D. Thesis in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1989. Erann Gat, et al, "Behavior Control for Robotic Exploration of Planetary Surfaces" To be published in IEEE R&A. FTPable. site: robotics.jpl.nasa.gov location: pub/gat filename: bc4pe.rtf Insect-based control schemes ---------------------------- Randall D. Beer, Roy E. Ritzmann, and Thomas McKenna, editors, Biological Neural Networks in Invertebrate Neuroethology and Robotics, Academic Press, 1993. Hillel J. Chiel, et al, "Robustness of a Distributed Neural Network Controller for Locomotion in a Hexapod Robot," IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 8(3):293-303, June, 1992. Joseph Ayers and Jill Crisman, "Biologically-Based Control of Omnidirectional Leg Coordination," Proceedings of the 1992 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 574-581. Asynchronous/synchronous (i.e., "traditional", "top-down", etc.) --------------------------------------------------- Amidi, O., "Integrated Mobile Robot Control", CMU-RI-TR-90-17, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 1990. Albus, J.S., McCain, H.G., and Lumia, R., "NASA/NBS Stanford Reference Model for Telerobot Control System Architecture (NASREM)" NIST Technical Note 1235, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, July 1987. Butler, P.L., and Jones, J.P., "A Modular Control Architecture for Real-Time Synchronous and Asynchronous Systems", Proceedings of SPIE Applications of Artificial Intelligence 1993, Orlando, FL, 1993. Fong, T.W., "A Computational Architecture for Semi-autonomous Robotic Vehicles", AIAA Computing in Aerospace conference, AIAA 93-4508, 1993. Lin, L., Simmons, R., and Fedor, C., "Experience with a Task Control Architecture for Mobile Robots", CMU-RI-TR 89-29, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, December 1989. Schneider, S.A., Ullman, M.A., and Chen, V.W., "ControlShell: A Real-time Software Framework", Real-Time Innovations, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA 1992. ______________________________________________________________________________ -- aka: Kevin Dowling Carnegie Mellon University tel: (412) 268-8830 The Robotics Institute adr: nivek@ri.cmu.edu Pittsburgh, PA 15213 -- aka: Kevin Dowling Carnegie Mellon University tel: (412) 268-8830 The Robotics Institute adr: nivek@ri.cmu.edu Pittsburgh, PA 15213 
