Cooperative Soccer Playing Robots Compete

During the competition Stuttgart's robots had to make their way against 13 other teams from eight countries, among them the current world champion Cambada (Portugal). Besides the teams from Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, and Austria, teams from China, Japan, and Iran competed against each other.
The 1.RFC Stuttgart includes staff of two Institutes, namely the department of Image Understanding (Head: Prof. Levi) of the Institute of Parallel and Distributed Systems and the Institute of Technical Optics (Head: Prof. Osten), achieved also the 2nd place at the so-called "technical challenge" and a further 1st place at the "scientific challenge".
After the final match of the competition, the middle-size league robots of the 1. RFC Stuttgart - the new world champion - had to play against the human officials of the RoboCup federation. It turned out, that hereby the robots were the inferior team. Clearly the RoboCup community has still to bridge a vast distance to reach their final goal to let a humanoid robot team play against the human world champion by the year 2050.
The success tells its own tale but one might wonder which scientific interest is behind the RoboCup competitions. Preconditions for the successful participation at these competitions are extensive efforts in current research topics of computer science such as real-time image processing and architectures, cooperative robotics and distributed planning. Possible application scenarios of these research activities reach from autonomous vehicles, cooperative manufacturing robotics, service robotics to the point of planetary or deep-sea exploration by autonomous robotic systems. In this context autonomous means that no or only a limited human intervention is necessary. (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090706141004.htm)

MobileRobots Outdoor Guidance System Advances Autonomous Robotics

Most outdoor robots are hand-driven – even in Space – but outdoor autonomy out-of-the-box is the latest barrier-breaking option from MobileRobots Inc. Using a map made by Seekur and the MOGS software, the robot can handle surveillance and delivery chores on its own. MOGS finds Seekur a path around the grounds, and guides it to avoid obstacles along the way. Operators can watch onscreen as the robot plans a path and dynamically avoids obstacles as it travels to each goal.

MOGS is for use by both robot research and commercial developers. The MOGS display GUI lets users demo and test their robot programs quickly. It also provides foundation driving skills for the robot, so robot software developers can focus on the research or application at hand. MOGS is compatible with Seekur, P3-AT, PowerBot and PatrolBot robots.

Universal Robots : the history and workings of robotics

If you think robots are mainly the stuff of space movies, think again. Right now, all over the world, robots are on the move. They’re painting cars at Ford plants, assembling Milano cookies for Pepperidge Farms, walking into live volcanoes, driving trains in Paris, and defusing bombs in Northern Ireland. As they grow tougher, nimbler, and smarter, today’s robots are doing more and more things we can’t –or don’t want to–do.

Robots have been with us for less than 50 years, but the idea of inanimate creations to do our bidding is much, much older. The ancient Greek poet Homer described maidens of gold, metallic helpers for the Hephaistos, the Greek god of the forge. The golems of medieval Jewish legend were robot-like servants made of clay, brought to life by a spoken charm. Leonardo da Vinci drew plans for a mechanical man in 1495.

But real robots wouldn’t become possible until the 1950’s and 60’s, with the invention of transistors and integrated circuits. Compact, reliable electronics and a growing computer industry added brains to the brawn of already existing machines. In 1959, researchers demonstrated the possibility of robotic manufacturing when they unveiled a computer-controlled milling machine. Its first product: ashtrays.

Public fascination with robotics peaked in the early 1980’s, spurred in part by movies like Star Wars, which featured robots C3-PO and R2-D2 as helpful sidekicks to the their human masters. But interest sagged in a few short years as people discovered that getting robots to do things that we think of as easy–like moving across a cluttered room–is surprisingly difficult.

Today, robots are enjoying a resurgence. As computer processors are getting faster and cheaper, robots can afford to get smarter. Meanwhile, researchers are working on ways to help robots move and "think" more efficiently. Although most robots in use today are designed for specific tasks, the goal is to someday make universal robots, robots that are flexible enough to do just about anything a human does–and more.

reference:http://www.thetech.org

Universal Robots : the history and workings of robotics

If you think robots are mainly the stuff of space movies, think again. Right now, all over the world, robots are on the move. They’re painting cars at Ford plants, assembling Milano cookies for Pepperidge Farms, walking into live volcanoes, driving trains in Paris, and defusing bombs in Northern Ireland. As they grow tougher, nimbler, and smarter, today’s robots are doing more and more things we can’t –or don’t want to–do.

Robots have been with us for less than 50 years, but the idea of inanimate creations to do our bidding is much, much older. The ancient Greek poet Homer described maidens of gold, metallic helpers for the Hephaistos, the Greek god of the forge. The golems of medieval Jewish legend were robot-like servants made of clay, brought to life by a spoken charm. Leonardo da Vinci drew plans for a mechanical man in 1495.

But real robots wouldn’t become possible until the 1950’s and 60’s, with the invention of transistors and integrated circuits. Compact, reliable electronics and a growing computer industry added brains to the brawn of already existing machines. In 1959, researchers demonstrated the possibility of robotic manufacturing when they unveiled a computer-controlled milling machine. Its first product: ashtrays.

Public fascination with robotics peaked in the early 1980’s, spurred in part by movies like Star Wars, which featured robots C3-PO and R2-D2 as helpful sidekicks to the their human masters. But interest sagged in a few short years as people discovered that getting robots to do things that we think of as easy–like moving across a cluttered room–is surprisingly difficult.

Today, robots are enjoying a resurgence. As computer processors are getting faster and cheaper, robots can afford to get smarter. Meanwhile, researchers are working on ways to help robots move and "think" more efficiently. Although most robots in use today are designed for specific tasks, the goal is to someday make universal robots, robots that are flexible enough to do just about anything a human does–and more.

reference:http://www.thetech.org

Disembodied robotic arm clambers round home

A prototype disembodied robotic arm designed to clamber around the home was unveiled in the UK on Thursday.

The metre long arm, called Flexibot, is capable of docking to a wheelchair or a wall and can help disabled people feed themselves. It can also enable users to brush their teeth or shave, and even help with putting on make-up, says its designer Mike Topping, of Staffordshire University's Centre for Rehabilitation Robotics. The 2.3 million Euro project is backed by the European Commission.

The next stage is to use the arms to develop a fully robotic kitchen. "The aim is to enable someone with no arm movement to prepare, cook and serve a three course meal," says Topping.

He got the idea for Flexibot after thinking about ways to extend the capabilities of an existing wheelchair feeding arm called Handy 1. Topping wanted an arm that could detach itself from the chair to perform functions beyond its normal reach.

"It has great potential for aiding people in their own homes," says Terry Coddington, a consultant at the West Midland Rehabilitation Centre, in Birmingham, UK. This is important because it gives a strong sense of empowerment by reducing users' dependence on carers.

Flip flop

Unlike most other mobile robots, Flexibot gets about by flipping end over end from one docking station to the next. The docking points serve the dual purpose of both supporting and powering the droid.

Each arm weighs about 11 kilograms and its five motors making it capable of carrying up to four kilograms. The docking station uses a simple bayonet fitting, much like a light bulb, says Gunnar Bolmsjö, a mechanical engineer at Lund University, in Sweden, who designed it.

This mechanism also allows the robot to attach household devices, such as electric toothbrushes, to either of its ends. In April, the team will add fold-out robotic grippers, which will mean the arm can grasp any object, not just those specially adapted for use.

At the moment the robot has no sensors and navigates simply by logging how far it has already moved. This approach allows an accuracy of one tenth of a millimetre, say the team. Users control the arm either by blowing down a straw or pressing a single button.

Flexibot could also be useful in offices, says Bolmsjö, e.g. replenishing other machines like photocopiers or coffee machines.

Reference: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4767

MiniMechadon Robots

MiniMechadon was designed/constructed from Nov '02 to Dec '03. Currently, the mechanics and electrical hardware are complete. I have written some test code to exercise the servos and demonstrate the flexibility of the robot and for basic walking.

The main goal of the project is to experiment with learning algorithms that will allow the robot to learn how to walk, rather than programming it to do so. The physical design is intended to be a simpler version of my Mechadon robot (12 DOF). While simpler than Mechadon, I feel there is still enough complexity to make the problem interesting while not being overly elaborate. My hope is that the techniques developed with MiniMechadon can be extended to more complex robots such as Mechadon.

There are 4 DOF, each powered by a high speed nano servo (Tower Hobbies TS-5). These servos are rated at 20.8 oz-in of torque at 6.0V and only weigh 0.34oz. The final weight of the robot is about 12oz. The sensor array consists of 4 touch sensors on the bottom of each foot, Left and right IR obstacle detection, and 4 CdS photo detectors located on all four sides of the robot. The heart of the control system is a Microchip PIC16F819 micro-controller and a separate 8 channel A-D converter. I originally designed the control system using a PIC16F84, but I later switched to the PIC16F819 so I could use the Microchip ICD2 in-circuit debugger/programmer. The PIC16F819 is pin compatible with the PIC16F84, but has more peripheral options like a built-in 10-bit 5-channel A-D converter. The ICD2 has worked great (unlike the original ICD) and I would definitely recommend it.

Most of the construction of the robot is brass tubing soldered together with a small pencil torch. The wiring on the legs was run through the tubing so it is not visible. The brass tubing is also used for the bearings in the leg joints. The white plastic pieces were machined from UHMW (a plastic similar to nylon). To be different, I made the circuit board for the control system into a 3-D shape out of 9 separate panels to give the robot a unique look (intended to be a streamlined version of the AT-ST walkers from the Star Wars movies). This was also my first attempt at a homemade surface mount double-sided PCB. The IC's are SOIC packages and the resistors and capacitors are 1206 size packages. It was really no harder to make than a through-hole PCB. I used a product called "Press-n-Peel Blue" to make the boards and I tin plated them with "Tinnit" so they don't corrode. It was interesting to do a PCB layout for a 3-D shape. It gives flexibility that you don't have with a typical flat PCB. I'm currently designing another robot and plan to try some smaller IC packages and to use 0805 resistors and capacitors. Stay tuned for the results. source

Ritorno Robots

Ritorno was designed to attend the same contest I designed Andata for. It is based on the architecture that Keith Kotay in his Robo-Rats Locomotion page called pivot drive.
The vehicle has a small platform in its center. When this platform is raised, the wheels touch the ground and the vehicle can proceed. In this configuration the vehicle has no turning ability at all; on the contrary, it has been designed to go as straight as possible.
To change direction, the vehicle lowers the platform and lifts itself a bit so as the wheels don't touch the ground anymore. At this point, the platform rotates, actually making the robot change the direction toward which it is pointed.
When the desired direction is reached, the platform is raised again and the vehicle can resume its motion.
Here you can see the complete turning sequence. Initially, the platform is raised and the main wheels touch the ground.
When the time to turn comes, the robot stops and lift itself using two large pneumatic cylinders that connect the platform to the body. Notice that the two small wheels attached to the base of the platform cannot rotate; they have the purpose to increase the friction of the platform on the ground.

With the main wheel lifted, the platform turns in respect of the body of the vehicle, acutally making the vehicle itself change its direction.
The rotation of the platform continues until the vehicle reaches the desired direction. For this specific contest, the platform was designed to turn precisely 180°
A bottom view reveals some details of the platform, and the turntable it is attached to.
The main drivetrain is rather simple. In this picture you see also the light sensor used to measure the travelled distance in conjunction with a black&white rotating disc. The short axle pointing downward is the reference point used to measure the distance from the starting/arrival point.
Front view. The supply of air is provided by two air tanks, loaded manually before each run of the robot. They provide enough air for the single lift-lower cycle required to turn the robot 180°.
Removing the central platform, the chassis reveals its simplicity. The front side mounts the drive motor and the touch sensor to detect the wall. The rear side mounts a simple motorized valve switch to operate the pneumatic cylinders. Side view of the platform, taken apart from the robot. The most critical point of this assembly is the high torque needed to turn the robot when its entire weight acts on the turntable. The friction is so high I had to adopt a 144:1 ratio to make the motor able to rotate the robot.
Top view of the platform. There's a gearbox inside, which helps in reaching the high reduction rate mentioned above. The axle coming out of the 24t gear inside the gearbox is connected to an 8t gear, engaged to the inner geared side of the turntable. source