============================================================================== RED CIENTIFICA PERUANA ============================================================================== ROBOTICS FAQ ============ This is part 1 of 2 of the comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list. This FAQ addresses commonly asked questions relating to robotics. Changes, additions, comments, suggestions and questions to: nivek@ri.cmu.edu aka: Kevin Dowling Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 ____________________________________________________________________________ Changes since last posting: Lots of updates and additions. I've added a Books Category. One suggestion was to add robotics paper citations - but I think this might be too much. ____________________________________________________________________________ Topics: Part 1 Professional organizations Conference listings Publications Mobile robot companies Manipulator companies Organizations doing robotics Graduate Programs in Robotics Part 2 Sensors Suppliers and sources for Parts Hero Robots Puma Manipulators Simulators Real-Time Operating Systems Acknowledgements ____________________________________________________________________________ Robotics Related Organizations: IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Service Center 445 Hoes Lane Piscataway, NJ 08854-4150 (201) 981-0060 A large organization with hundreds of publications including journals, transactions, Spectrum, sponsoring conferences, workshops and meetings. Society of Manufacturing Engineers, (SME) One SME Drive PO Box 930 Dearborn, MI 48121 (313) 271-1500 American Society of Mechanical Engineers, (ASME) 345 E. 47th Street New York, NY 10017 Mechanical Engineering magazine, like the IEEE's Spectrum, is an excellent general publication on aspects of mechanical engineering. There are often publications on robotics and the ASME sponsors a number of other publications and conferences that are relevant to robotics. National Service Robots Association (NSRA) 900 Victors Way PO Box 3724 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 (313) 994-6088 Robotics Industry Association (RIA) (same address as NSRA) SPIE (The International Society for Optical Engineering) P.O.Box 10 Bellingham, Washington 98227-0010. They have publications, meetings and Conferences in the field of Intelligent robots, Mobile robots, teleoperation, Machine vision, .... etc. Utility/Manufacturer Robot Users group (UMRUG) Contact: Harry T. Roman Principal Engineer - Research MC: 16-H) Public Service Electric and Gas Company 80 Park Plaza PO Box 570 Newark, NJ 07101 (201) 430-6646 Advanced Robot Technology Research Association (Japan) Kikai-shinko Bldg 3-5-8 Shiba-Kohen, Minato-ku, Tokyo (03) 434-0532 fax (03) 434-0217 Has joint research programs with member companies. Members are 20 or so Japanese companies including: Ishikawajima-Harima, Oki Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industry, Kobe Steel, Komatsu, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Toshiba, JGC, NEC, Hitachi, Fanuc, Fujitsu, Fuji, Matshushita Research Institute, Mitsui, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Electric, Yaskawa Center for Autonomous and Man-controlled Robotic and Sensing Systems Charles Jacobus, CAMRSS director ERIM PO Box 8618 Ann Arbor, MI 48107 (313) 994-1200 X2457 Member companies include: Ball Aerospace, Coulter Electronics, ERIM, Fairchild, Ford Aerospace, Geospectra, Grumman, Industrial Technology Institute, KMS Fusion, Michigan State, UofM. AIAA American Insitute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 370 L'Enfant Promenade, SW Washington, DC 20024 (202) 646-7400 Technical Information Service (212) 247-6500 Conferences and publications, several cover automation technologies for servicing on the ground and in space as well as exploration. __________________________________________________________________________ Robotics Conferences: Proceedings should be available in most good libraries or by interlibrary loan. Annual Conference of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation May 2-7, 1993 at the Atlanta Hilton and Towers, Atlanta, Georgia Four copies oof each paper sent by October 2, 1992 to: John Y. S. Luh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Clemson University Clemson, SC 29364, USA Authors will be notified of acceptance by Jan 3, 1993 Final papers due for proceedings by February 3, 1993 Annual Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems Annual Symposium on Industrial Robots Biannual Symposium International Symposium of Robotics Research Biannual Autonomous Intelligent Systems American Association for Artificial Intellignece (AAAI) San Jose, July 1992 There will be a robot competition this year. Contact Han Tallis at tallis@starbase.mitre.com ___________________________________________________________________________ Robotics Publications: IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation IEEE Control Systems Magazine IEEE Computer Magazine IEEN Transactions on PAMI IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics Cost: Have to join IEEE and then subscribe. Student rates are low. International Journal of Robotics Research MIT Press 28 Carleton Street Cambridge, MA 02142 Cost: $50/year to individuals Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems Three issues per volume, $58.50 per volume (individual) Kluwer Academic Publishers Group PO Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands --in the US: PO Box 358 Accord Station, Hingham, MA 02018-0358 Robotics Today Published by: Society of Manufacturing Engineers One SME Drive PO Box 930 Dearborn, MI 48121 (313) 271-1500 Robotics World The end-user's magazine of flexible automation Published quarterly Communication Channels 6255 Barfield Road Atlanta, GA 30328 (404) 256-9800 They also publish the Robotics World Directory $49.95 Robot (Japanese) Industrial Robots and Application Systems published bimonthly Japan Industrial Robot Association (JIRA) Kikai-Shinko Building 3-5-8, Shiba-Kohen, Mina To-ku Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (03) 3434-2919, fax (03) 3578-1404 Robotica International Journal of Information, Education and Research in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Quarterly publication, US $179 per year! Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 2RU (UK) in the US: Cambridge University Press Journals Department 40 West 20th Street New York, NY 10011-4211 Industrial Robot Quarterly, $145/year MCB University Press Ltd. 62 Toller Lane Bradford, West Yorkshire England, BD8 9BY (44) 274 499821, fax (44) 274 547143 --in the US MCB University Press Ltd. PO Box 10812 Birmingham, AL 35201-0812 (800) 633-4931 (toll free US and Canada) Automation in Construction Publisher: Elsevier Science Publisher B. V., Amsterdam. Desk Editor: Erik de Vries The Editor of the journal is Dr. T. Michael Knasel 10324 Lake Avenue Cleveland, OH 441102-1239. Fax. (216) 651-5136. Don't have addresses for: International Journal of Robotics and Automation Robotics and Autonomous Systems Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing Useful and relevant trade magazines: Usually free, mostly ads or industry news. Many articles written by advertisers. Great sources of product information. Our lab at CMU receives 40-50 trade magazines and journals and while no one reads all of them articles and pointers are passed on to people around the lab. This keeps the group abreast of new products and developments. Sensors Helmers Publishing 174 Concord Street PO Box 874 Peterborough, NH 03458-0874 (603) 924-9631 Trade magazine devoted to sensing devices. Publishes annual directory. Cost: Free to qualified subscribers, $55/yr otherwise Machine Design Design News Motion Control GPS World RF Design Sea Technology Laser Focus POB Broadcast Engineering Embedded Systems EE Times Other very useful resources that every laboratory or company should have are the Thomas Register and the EEM. The Thomas Register is $250 for a complete set and they issue new ones every year - usually isn't necessary to get new ones every year. _____________________________________________________________________________ Mobile robot companies: There are a small number of companies targeting the research community for the mobile robot market. TRC, RWI, Cybermotion and Denning have all sold and are selling mobile devices for research and real applications. A number of Automatic Guided Vehicle companies sell their machines but their primary applications are factory operations. Bell and Howell Mailmobile Company 81 Hartwell Avenue Lexington, MA 02173-3127 (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. Cybermotion 5457 Jae Valley Road Roanoke, VA 24014 (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. Denning Mobile Robotics Inc. 21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887 (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 Westlake Village, CA 91361 USA email: robots@isx.com phone: (818) 597-1900 Associated with ISX Robotics of Cambridge. 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. mecos Robotics AG Gutstrasse 38 8400 Winterthur Switzerland Telephone: int + (0)52 29 58 28 Telefax: int + (0)52 29 96 53 E-mail: 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. Movit Robots Available from: Kelvin Electronics (800) 645-9212 Pitsco (800) 835-0686 Edmund Scientific (See Robot Parts Section) 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. Nomadic Technologies 858 La Para Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94306 (415) 493-7700 fax (415) 493-7064 Mobile base and sensors (IR, Laser ranging, touch, GUI software development) $10K range. Real World Interface (RWI) New Hampshire Small synchronous drive bases, primarily for research purposes. Approx $6K TRC 15 Great Pasture Road Danbury, CT 06810 (203) 798-8988 Labmate research platform - $7500, plus additional optional sensors etc. Other prodcuts for hospital markets and floor cleaning machines. (Helpmate and RoboKent respectively) Yamazaki Construction Company, Tokyo Japan. Intelligent Robot Lab Kaika Building 2-7-1 Sotokanda Chiyoda-ku 101 Tokyo Japan phone: 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, Asnieres, France Odetics, Anaheim, CA Six-legged, (pantograph) Walking machine. _____________________________________________________________________________ Robot manipulator companies: Adept Technology 150 Rose Orchard Way San Jose, CA 95134 (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 (800) 323-9555 (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. CRS Plus, POox 163, Station A 830 Harrington Court Burlington, Ontario Canada L7R 3Y2 (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. Motoman [Hobart/Yaskawa] 3160 MacArthur Boulevard Northbrook, IL 60062-1917 (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 repeatability of 0.1 to 0.5 mm over that same range. They are 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 (617) 661-8847 Sell the three-fingered Salisbury hand and force sensing fingertips. Contact: Ken Salisbury, email: Sony Corporation of America Factory Automation Division 542 Route 303 Orangeburg, NY 10962 (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! Zebra Robotics Jeff Kerr Palo Alto Small manipulators with integral force control Sarcos Research Corporation 261 East 300 South Suite 150 Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 Manufacturing is done by: Animate Systems Inc. 1780 West 2300 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84119 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. Kraft Telerobotics Kansas Schilling Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), Vesteraas, Sweden ABB Robotics 2487 South Commerce Drive New Berlin, WI 53151 (414) 789-9235 Now own Cinncinatti Milacron robotics group, Graco and Trallfa. mecos Robotics AG Gutstrasse 38 8400 Winterthur Switzerland tel: int + (0)52 29 58 28 fax: int + (0)52 29 96 53 E-mail: mecos@ifr.ethz.ch Contact: E. Nielsen A new 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 robot manipulators reflect this principle. The mechanical configuration can be changed at will (number and type of joints, length of links, etc.). The controller takes advantage of this principle. 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). _____________________________________________________________________________ Other organizations doing robotics: 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. Redzone Robotics 2425 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4639 (412) 765-3064 A spin-off of CMU, Redzone has focused on hazwaste and nuke manipulator applications but is branching out into mobile applications. Primarily protoypes and not multiple unit manufacturing. Vision Applications NY, NY Small, low cost fovial camera systems. Development stages. Unique integrated, super small camera/pan/tilt device. Miniature active vision systems, video telephones. Mechanical Engineering Lab (MEL) Tsukuba City Kazuo Tanie: Robotics and cybernetics --NASA Centers Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) Pasadena, CA Hazardous-environment robots, teloperation, control, space and planetary missions. Tony Bejczy, Chuck Weisbin, Brian Wilcox, Larry Mathies, Henry Stone, David Miller Ames Research Center (ARC) Moffett Field, CA Telepresence and virtual user interfaces, vision (optical and parallel processing), free-flyers, task planning, agents. Contact: Butler Hine III Terry Fong Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) MD 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. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX More of an operations house but lots of shuttle RMS work. Becoming central site for Artemis (lunar explorer) work. Kennedy Space Center Robotics Group 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. Langley Research Center, (LaRC) VA Jack Pennington - vision, inspection, 3-D sensors Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, TX Robotics and Automation Department Some large systems for servicing aircraft (painting, spraying, deriveting etc) Oak Ridge National Lab ORNL/CESAR PO Box 2008, MS-6364 Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6364 (615) 574-6126 Contact: Alex L. Bangs 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 ______________________________________________________________________________ Graduate Program in Robotics: Preface - Any good school will undoubtedly offer some robotics courses within the 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. 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. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) The Robotics Institute is a 150 person organization that 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 four qualifiers and a program of research leading to a thesis and the degree. Facilities include about 10 mobile systems with more under design and construction. Many manipulator systems and lots of compute cycles/person. The Insitute will be starting an MS program as well. Hans Moravec - Mobile Robots Lab Takeo Kanade - Vision and Autonomous Systems Center Red Whittaker - Field Robotics Center Steve Shafer - Calibrated Imaging Laboratory Pradeep Khosla - Advanced Manipulator Laboartory Matt Mason - Manipulation Laboratory Tom Mitchell - Learning Robots Lab Mel Seigel - Sensors Laboratory (non vision) and many others..... Graduate program contact: Graduate Admissions Coordinator The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 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, Leanring Control, Multi-agent Robotics and Mechanical Design. Leding Faculty members are Drs. R. Bajcsy and R.P. Paul. University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI Artificial Intelligence Lab (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) North Carolina State Univerisity Raleigh, NC Professor Ren Luo (919) 515-5199 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 Southern California (USC) Long history of robotics with interested faculty in CS, EE, ME, and ISE. People include: George Bekey - founder of IEEE R&A Michael Arbib - head Brain Simulation Laboratory Ram Nevatia - Computer Vision Laboratory Ari Requicha - Programmable Automation Laboratory 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. Large Neutral Bouyancy Tank, teleoperations research, Dave Akin - director Dave has flown shuttle experiments. New York University (NYU) Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. 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, human and 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. Dan Koditschek: Application of dynamical systems theory to machine dexterity. 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. California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Pasadena, CA Joel Burdick - serpentine manipulation, control 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. 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. Purdue Avi Kak: Vision and mobile robots Antti Koivo: Manipulation Mirek Skibiniewski: Construction Robotics University of Kentucky Center for Robotics and Manufacturing Systems (founded 1990) University of Alberta Center for Machine Intelligence and Robotics University of Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR) University of Kansas Space Technology Center (Telerobotics) University of Paris INRIA (Nice) just started a Phd program in Robotics. 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 Harvard Roger Brockett Oxford Oxford has a large robotics group. Mobile robots, path planning etc. Mike Brady director Salford University, UK 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 Reading University, UK Prof Kevin Warwick Using Neural Nets in Robotics Novel control algorithms Bristol Polytechnic, UK Mr Khodlebandelhoo Bi arm research Path planning for redundant robots Wall climbing robots Hull University, UK Prof Alan Pugh Garment Manufacturing Arm/controller design 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 telephone: (01) 256 35 84 (secretary) telefax: (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 email: scherrer@ifr.ethz.ch Cornell Ithaca, NY Mechanical Engineering Sam Landsberger Jeff Koechling Bruce Donald -------------- 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 Sensors Suppliers and sources for Parts Hero Robots Puma Manipulators Simulators Real-Time Operating Systems Books Acknowledgements Changes, additions, comments, suggestions and questions to: nivek@ri.cmu.edu aka: Kevin Dowling Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University 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 directory for a large and comprehensive list. Accelerometers: These are devices for measuring the rate of change in velocity and can provide estimations of distance or be used to detect high forces. Lucas NovaSensor 1055 Mission Court Fremont, CA 94539 (510) 490-9100 Lucas makes a 1"x1"x0.5" accelerometer for about $200. Good noise immunity but fragile. Cameras: There are a large number of cameras on the market and many consumer products such as the smaller camcorders are inexpensive and suitable for imaging applications. I'll try to list some different and unusual ones here. Sony has a beautiful small color CCD, the XC-999/999P. It is the size of a microphone. 768Hx493V. 999 is NTSC and the 999P is the PAL format. CIDTech has some really nice ones with CID instead of CCD, especialy good for machine vision, no blooming, fast image grabbing. Gyros: Used for measuring orientation. KVH Industries 110 Enterprise Center Middletown, RI 02840 (401) 847-3327 Nice units that provide heading data. About $1K w/ RS232 adapter. Laser rangefinders: There are a variety of laser rangefinding devices that have been built. The 3D devices are still large, power hungry and heavy but give very nice images suitable for fast map building and navigtion work. Expect to pay over $80K for these time of flight devices. Most AM Lidars measure phase shift between outgoing and reflected beams. A mirror system rasters the beam forming a video-camera-like image. Some devices supply the reflectance image as well as range which is nice for corresponding the two. Comprehensive references include: P. Besl, ``Active, Optical Range Imaging Sensors'', Machine Vision and Applications, v. 1, p. 127-152, 1988. A longer version of Besl's paper appears in ``Advances in Machine Vision: Architectures and Applications'', J. Sanz (ed.), Springer-Verlag, 1988. Other good surveys are Ray Jarvis' article in IEEE TPAMI v5n2 and Nitzan's article in PAMI v10n2. A number of laboratory works have also demonstrated FM or chirp systems which can be highly accurate (e.g. elevation maps of coins are one demonstration of these) but these are very specialized and I don`t know of commercial devices currently. ERIM (Environmental Research Institute of Michigan) ERIM has built a number of custom AM laser rangefinders including those used in the ALV (Autonomous Land Vehicle) program. CMU and Martin Marietta have both used this systems in extensive work. Basic system was a 128x64 2fps 20m (ambiguity interval) system. Odetics Perceptron A spin-off of ERIM, Perceptron has also built a number of AM laser rangefinders. CMU and Caterpillar have used these for map building and obstacle avoidance work in rough terrain navigation. 128x128, 2fps, programmable tilt on nodding mirror. About $90K Schwarz Electro-Optics Schwarz makes some very nice point range laser ranging devices. These devices are slightly bigger than a soda can. About $6K. CMU experience for use in simulated unmanned air vehicle platform worked well. Force and Torque Sensors: California Cybernetics 10322 Sherman Grove Sunland, CA 91040 (818) 353-5991 (818) 951-3889 (fax) 6 dof F-T devices. Sonar sensors: Acoustic time-of-flight devices have been around for awhile now. The ubiquitous Polaroid device is cheap and easily integrated and has has found wide use in robotic devices. Other companies have developed nice complete turnkey sonar devices though and Polaroid is no longer the only choice. Polaroid (617)-577-4681 or write at 119 Windsor St, Cambridge, MA 02139 Polariod Ultrasonic Components Group offers two ultrasonic ranging kits: Specs are: Distance range: 0.26 to 10.7 meters Resolution: Nominal +- 3mm to 3m, +-1% over entire range Sonar acceptance angle: approx. 20 degrees Power Requirement: 6VDC, 2.5 Amps (1 mS pulse), 150mA quiescent Weight: Transducer, 8.2gm Ranging module, 18.4 gm Designer's Kit: 1 transducer, 1 ranging module, electronics display accurate to 1/10th meter. Cost is $169 OEM kit: 2 transducers, 2 ranging modules. Cost is $99. Siemans - nice complete sensor package, 5 degree cone angle Massa - components Position Sensing Devices: Noncontact, cabled measurement of 6DOF's. Virtual reality applications. Polhemus Inc (802) 655-3139 (802) 655-1439 (fax) Burlington, VT 3Space, Isotrak, FasTrak: Electromagnetic devices for sensing xyz and rotations remotely. Limited to 1m or so radius. Sensitive to metallic objects in vicinity. Approx $3k Ascension Technology (802) 655-7879 (802) 655-5904 The Bird. Video systems Selspot - used for biomechanical applications. Pan/Tilt devices: A common robotic need. For 10 years or more I have heard the phrase "If only someone made a nice/small/inexpensive/computer-interfaced pan-tilt mechanism." Most pan-tilts sold today by companies such as Pelco and Vicon are for CCTV applications for continuous scanning or remote operation. At most these will have pots for feedback. A number of undersea companies make pan-tilt devices as well. Remote Ocean Systems 5111-L Santa Fe Street San Diego, CA 92109 (619) 483-3902 Underwater P/T systems, expensive $6K but very nicely packaged RSI Research Sidney, BC (604) 656-0101 Underwater pan-tilts Photosea 6377 Nancy Ridge Drive San Diego, CA 92121 (619) 452-8903 underwater pan-tilts including Cobra, very small design. Telemetrics Hawthorne, NJ (201) 423-0347 Computer controlled P/T devices - fairly large though. Directed Perception 1451 Capuchino Avenue, Burlingame, CA 94010 (415) 342-9399 Computer controlled pan-tilt unit Model PTU-33-17.5 Weighs 1kg and can support ~1.5kg camera payload. Very nice specs: 200 deg/sec slew, 3-4arc-min accuracy, RS-232 interface, About $1200. ____________________________________________________________________________ Robot parts: Suppliers of useful mechanical and electrical components. Allied Devices standard precision mechanical components 2365 Milburn Avenue, PO Box 502 Bladwin, NY 11510 (516) 223-9100 (516) 223-9172 (fax) Winifred Berg C&H Sales Pasadena, CA (818) 796-2628 (800) 325-9465 Surplus parts. Motors etc. Small Parts Inc. 6891 NE Third Ave PO Box 381966 Miami, FL 33238-1966 (305) 751-0856 fax (305) 751-6217 Lots of neat small supplies including: materials, metal stock, fasteners, tools etc. Servo Systems 115 Main Road PO Box 97 Montville, NJ 07045-9299 (201) 335-1007 fax (201) 335-1661 Surplus pieces and prices, motors, actuators, geardrives, controllers, robots, encoders, transducers, amplifiers. Herbach and Rademan 401 E. Erie Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19134 (215) 426-1708 Lots of surplus stuff including AC and DC motors. Nordex 50 Newton Road Danbury, CT 06810-6216 Gears, cams, universals etc. Seitz Box 1398 Torrington, CT 06790 (203) 243-5115 drive components, gears etc. Stock Drive Products 2101 Jericho Turnpike Bobx 5416 New Hyde Park, NY 11042-5416 (516) 328-3300 (516) 326-8827 (fax) Great set of handbooks of thousands of components. Edmund Scientific 101 E. Gloucester Pike Barrington, NJ 08007-1380 (609) 573-6250 order (609) 573-6260 customer service Lots of optics, science and educational items. A little high priced, but nice selection. PIC Design PO Box 1004 Benson Road Middlebury, CT 06762-1004 (800) 243-6125 (except CT) (203) 758-8272 Bearings, clutches, brakes, couplings, tools, belts, pulleys, gears etc. Any technical library should have catalogs from the larger distributors. These might include McMaster-Carr, Grainger, Allied, Newark, etc. ____________________________________________________________________________ Hero robots: Heros are no longer being made but Heath 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. Heathkit Benton Harbor, MI (800) 253-0570 order line tech line (616) 982-3980 _____________________________________________________________________________ Puma manipulators: Pumas are probably the most common robot in university laboratories and one of the most common assembly robots. Designed by Vic Schienman many years ago it was produced for many years by Unimation (later purchased by Westinghouse and sold at a loss later to Staubli, a Swiss company) Found in many university labs as well. PUMA singularities: The PUMA has three singularities: the ``alignment'' singularity (wrist is as close to the axis of joint 1 as it can get), the ``elbow'' singularity (elbow is fully extended or folded up; the latter is not possible because of joint limits), and the wrist singularity (the axes of joints 4 and 6 are aligned). The angles corresponding to these depend on the 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 ] Useful references: [1] Richard Paul, Brian Shimano, and Gordon Mayer, ``Kinematic Control Equations for Simple Manipulators''. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Vol SMC-11, No. 6, June 1981. [2] B Armstrong, O Khatib, and J. Burdick The Explicit Dynamic Model and Inertial Parameters of the PUMA 560 Arm Proceedings IEEE Int. Conference on Robotics and Automation, April 1986 San Francisco, CA pp510-518 _____________________________________________________________________________ Simulators: CADSI PO Box 203 Oakdale, IA 52319 (319) 337-8968 DADS - robot dynamics package Deneb Robotics, Inc. 3285 Lapeer Road West PO Box 214687 (313) 377-6900 Product: IGRIP Platforms: SPARCs, (SGI's?) Cost: US$50-$60,000. Allows offline programming, dynamics capability etc. Mechanical Dynamics Inc. 2301 Commonwealth Blvd Ann Arbor, MI 48105 (313) 944-3800 ADAMS dynamics package Silma/Cimstation 1601 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road Cupertino, California 95014 (408) 725 8908 Product: CimStation Platforms: SGI-4D, SUN SparcStation, Apollo, Intergraph, Computervision, HP, IBM Risc6000 and DEC. Cost: Base system around $55K (commercial license) They also have a University Partnership Program to enable universities to purchase CimStation for around $20K US and $25K International. Provides: Basic CAD Tools: 2D and 3D solid & wireframe, IGES interface, Robot Modelling: generate the required governing equations (iterative or closed form) automatically for "many" classes of robots Path Generation Kinematic Simulation with Collision Detection Dynamic Simulation (CimStation only at this point) I/O Operations John Craig of "Introduction to Robotics" fame is head of Silma's R&D. Silma has a programming environment called SIL complete with its own PASCAL-like iterative language with graphics and robotics extensions. CimStation is built out of this language. This allows you to add your own functionality. E.g. your own path planner. You can also write C-code, compile it, and add it to the system. Comutek 1223 Peoples Avenue Troy, NY 12180 ph# 518 276 2817 fax# 518 276 638 contact: Vinay Joshi Products: Work-Out Cost: Around $25000. Robot Simulations/Workspace [From: "Newsletter of the Australian Robot Association - Jan 1991] ``"Vision in Design" of Punchbowl N.S.W. announces the Australian availability of version 2.0 of the "Workspace" robot-simulation software developed by "Robot Simulations" in the U.K. The software, which runs on an IBM-compatible personal computer, is claimed to provide features similar to those available on much more expensive programs that require workstation hardware. Version 2.0 is said to be faster than the initial version and to offer such capabilities as automatic collision detection, 3D solid shaded colour graphics real-time display of simulations, and an expanded library of inverse kinematics algorithms for standard robots. Up to nine robots and associated machinery may be simulated simultaneously. Custom-designed robots having up to nine links can be simulated.'' Technomatix/Robcad [address?] GMF Robotics 2000 S. Adams Road Auburn Hills, MI 48057 ph# 313 377 7000 Products: OLPW-200 Platforms: ? Cost: ? Auto Simulations, Inc. 655 Medical Drive Bountiful, UT 84010 ph# 801 298 1398 telex 801 298 8186 contact: Teresa Francis, ext 330 Products: AutoMod II Platforms: ? Cost: ? _____________________________________________________________________________ Real-Time Operating Systems This is an abridged list of Dave Stewart's FAQ on RTOS'. See comp.real-time and news.answers for that FAQ. Below is a list of both commercial and research Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) which are being used around the world for implementing robotic systems. Only the names and addresses of the distributors are included. Since the available features of each are constantly changing, and the advantages and disadvantages of each are greatly a matter of opinion and target application, no such descriptions are given. Commercial RTOS: * iRMX III Runs on Intel 80X86-based computers U.S.A.: Intel Corporation 3065 Bowers Avenue Santa Clara, California 95051 tel (408) 987-8080 * 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 (408) 354-7770 fax (408) 354-7085 * OS-9 Runs on Motorola MC680X0-based single board computers. Microware System Corporation 1900 N.W. 114th St. Des Moines, Iowa 50322 tel (515) 224-1929 * 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 (408) 437-0700 fax (408) 437-0711 *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 (800) 228-1249 fax (214) 991-8775 * VxWorks Runs on a wide variety of MC680X0 and SPARC-based single board computers. Requires a workstation for program developments Wind River Systems Inc. 1000 Atlantic Avenue Alameda, CA 94501 (800) 545-9463 fax (415) 814-2010 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 (412) 268-7120 fax (412) 268-3890 email: chimera@ri.cmu.edu * Harmony Runs on MC680X0-based single board computers Canada: Division of Electrical Engineering National Research Council of Canada Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0R6 ref: NRCC Tech Report No. 30081 Robot Control C Library (RCCL) A robot programming environment embedded in C/UNIX. A graphics simulator is provided which supports the PUMA, Stanford, and ``Elbow'' manipulators. The system can be compiled on SGIs (so the Indigo should be fine), and the graphics runs under either X or GL. You can get the system from RCIM for a small fee to cover copying and shipping. Send me some mail if you are interested. John Lloyd Research Center for Intelligent Machines lloyd@curly.mcrcim.mcgill.edu McGill University, Montreal (514) 398-8281 Fax: (514) 398-7348 _____________________________________________________________________________ Books: The readership of this group ranges from the naive user to experienced robot designers and users. Accordingly, this list covers the gamut as well. The Robot Builder's Bonanza: 99 Inexpensive Robotics Projects Gordon McComb TAB Books Interfacing Test Circuits With Single-Board Computers Robert H. Luetzow TAB Books Build Your Own Universal Computer Interface Bruce Chubb TAB Books Robots Peter Marsh Marsh edited the volume and the book is made up of several contributions from robotics researchers. [ok,ok I'm in here too, but it's a very well illustrated book that covers the general topic of robots. Excellent source materials and graphics.] Crescent (Crown) Publishers, NY 1985 Microprocessor Based Robotics Mark J. Robillard Howard Sams & Co. 1983 Advanced Robot Systems Mark J. Robillard Howard Sams & Co. 1984 The 6.270 Robot Builder's Guide Fred Martin Server: kame.media.mit.edu (18.85.0.45) File : ~ftp/pub/fredm/README This directory contains "The 6.270 Robot Builder's Guide", the course notes to the 1992 MIT LEGO Robot Design Competition. Contact: Fred Martin at fredm@media-lab.media.mit.edu _____________________________________________________________________________ Acknowledgements: [People who responded directly to me or the net] 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 -- .