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Add Stereo Vision to Your Robot with Surveyor Stereo Vision System Posted on October 3rd, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News 
Howard Gordon who runs Surveyor Corporation just sent me details on their latest product, the Surveyor Stereo Vision System, or SVS for short. The system allows you to record high-resolution full-frame video using two video cameras for a complete stereo vision system. Better yet, the whole set-up is 2.5″ x 6.0″ and only weighs 5 oz.
The SVS is open source, and it is intended for researchers, educators and developers interested in enabling depth perception in their applications without the need for an array of active sensors (e.g. laser scanners, ultrasonics, infrared, etc).
The SVS uses two beefy Blackfin DSP’s from Analog devices to do video processing, and can also simultaneously control 8 servos and has a built-in dual motor driver capable of supplying up to 1 Amp per motor. Also included is WiFi connectivity via a Lantronix MatchPort.
The firmware for the SVS is GPL Open Source and comes functional with basic image processing features like, “histogram, pixel sampling, mean, frame difference, blob, scan, count, [and] find”. Currently in development are stereo correspondence and image rectification functions.
Surveyor is targeting this device to the educational and hobbiest crowd, and is selling the SVS for a (very) modest $550. It looks like a great new gadget for robot builders to stick on their creations. Toss on some goofy 3D glasses, and that autonomous aerial footage will really come to life!
Update: Howard has mounted the SVS system to a robotic blimp. You can check out some video after the jump.
(more…) No Comments » Robot Suppliers in India? Give Me Your Insight Posted on October 1st, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News I get a lot of traffic, mail, and comments from folks living in India that are interested in robotics. Some of them are current robot builders, while others want to get in on the action but can’t seem to find the parts they need. So, the question I’m ask you, the readers, is do you know of any good suppliers for robots and electronic parts in India?
While many American robot suppliers will ship internationally, often the high fees make purchasing even moderate amounts of parts cost prohibitive. So, for the sake of our robot loving neighbors in India, I thought we could help them out by finding some local places to buy parts.
Please leave any suggestions in the comments below, or email me at william at gorobotics dot net. 1 Comment » LEGO Wall-E’s Posted on September 29th, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News 
Hopefully by now, most of the American robot lovers out there have seen the wonderful movie, Wall-E. In addition to the amazing builders that have create Wall-E models, there are quite a few very well made Wall-E models built out of LEGO bricks. The Brothers Brick have posted two great LEGO Wall-E roundup posts, to highlight some of the creations.
No Comments » Autosub6000 to Explore World’s Deepest Oceans Posted on September 24th, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News  Autosub6000 being lifted from the water
A 5.5m long, 6,100 lb robotic submarine called the Autosub6000 (I wonder if there was a 5000) is getting ready to explore the depths of the Cayman Trough in the Caribbean. The Cayman Trough, which you may remember from the film, The Abyss, has never been explored do to its incredible depths of up to 25,000 ft (the Mariana Trench, by comparison, is 29,000 ft deep). The AUV will be used by the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton (NOCS) on two, month-long, autonomous, exploration trips to plumb the depths of the trough. Autosub6000 will be used to autonomously identify volcanic acvitivty, and mark the location for a ROV, Isis, to take samples. The unique features of the vents are expexted to yield many new species of life.
“They could be hotter than 500C (930F), and if they are that hot, they will probably have quite different chemistry and life forms - we expect to find new species.”
Good luck Autosub6000, stear clear of the aliens.
[Via Slashdot] No Comments » Mesa Imaging’s SwissRanger 3D Camera Outputs Depth Info For Each Pixel at 29 fps Posted on September 13th, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News  Sample output from the SwissRanger 3D camera
A new video camera, developed by Mesa Imaging, captures 3D images at up to 29 fps. The 176×144 pixel camera outputs live video footage with depth information for each pixel. The camera gives precision depth information from 0.3m to 3m, with an accuracy of less than 0.3cm. This amazing sensor is being sold by Acroname for $7,500, but compared to many laser rangefinders, which only capture data in two dimensions, this is quite a deal.
The measurement precision is determined by the amount of light which is reflected from the scene back to the imager chip. As a general rule of thumb when operated indoors, the distance accuracy is approximately 1% of the full range. The distance accuracy can be improved by increasing the modulation frequency or optical power, or by reducing the frame rate.
 Data is transferred from the camera to a computer via a USB connection. The sensor uses time-of-flight (TOF) phase detection to determine the distance to objects. The camera illuminates the field-of-view with 1W of IR light, via LEDs modulated at 20MHz. Mesa has several publications listed on their site which further describes the technology behind the camera.
A sensor like this will go a long way in solving the ever elusive problem of letting robots accurately know where they are and what’s around them. Mesa also plans on targeting the video game and medical system markets for their camera systems. For more information about the camera you can check out Mesa’s FAQ section. No Comments » Introducing The Robobuilder Kits - Move Over Bioloid! Posted on August 25th, 2008 by William Cox in Hobbyiest 
The RoboBuilder robotics kits from a Korean company of the same name (or is it IRobou?) is now available for purchase from Trossen Robotics. The kits, which are similar to the Bioloid robotics kits from Robotis, employ modular components, like motors and sensors, to allow builders to quickly create a wide variety of robotic creations. RoboBuilder touts features such as metal ball bearings, PID motor control for precise motion, and reverse/over voltage protection. The kits also come with distance and sound sensors.
The basic RoboBuilder kit starts at $420 and goes all the way up to $1,500 for the Expert kit. Have any of our readers played with the kits yet? Let us know how they are by leaving a comment.
You can check out a video of the RoboBuilder humanoid model after the break.
(more…) No Comments » Lean to Build a 60-Pound Combat Robot at Tech Shop, CA Posted on August 23rd, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News 
The Tech Shop in Menlo Park, CA is offering a class on how to build a 60-pound combat robot.
Here is your chance to build your own fire-spewing, buzz-saw wielding combat robot with the help and guidance of veteran combat robot builders!
In this 2-day full-weekend class, you and your team member will learn to create a 60-pound fighting robot platform with help from the world’s best combat robot builders.
The $595 registration fee allows two team members to attend and a $995 materials fee covers supplies for creating your own machine of mass destruction.
No Comments » LEGO Lovin’ - Jas Nagra’s Mechs Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News Everyone needs a little LEGO love, every now-and-then, so here’s some nice robots built by Jas Nagra.
 LEGO Mech built by Jas Nagra
 LEGO Mecha built by Jas Nagra
[Via Brothers Brick] No Comments » Georgia Tech Wins the 4th Mission of the International Aerial Robotics Competition Posted on August 19th, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News 
At the 18th annual International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC), Georgia Tech came away as the winner, with prize money of $27,000. The event, which was held on July 28th - Aug. 1st, 2008, marked the conclusion of the 4th Mission of the IARC, with a new mission being released for the 2009 competition. The competition, which as been existance since 1991 (the creator of the competition, Robert Michelson, coined the term ‘Aerial Robotics’), and has long been known as a grueling, and nearly impossible, robotics competition.
The forth mission was divided into 4 different levels - a 3km ingress path, locating a specific building in a town environment, flying into, or launching a sensor into, the building and sending back pictures, and finally doing all three steps in under 15 minutes. Several teams were able to complete 3 of the first 4 steps, but no team was able to complete all the steps in under 15 minutes, the “winner take all” requirement. The judges divided the total prize winnings of $80,000 USD between 10 teams, with Georgia Tech taking the most money.
The new 2009 competition will be announced soon. Based on previous competitions, it will be interesting to see the level of difficulty that the new 5th mission will require. No Comments » Check Out the Robots Podcast Posted on August 14th, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News  Check out the Robots Podcast
For those of you that just can’t get enough robot news, you should definitely check out the Robots Podcast. The show is now produced in part by Markus Waible, of Talking Robots fame, who kindly sent us a note letting us know about the show. Markus also writes for the IEEE Automaton blog, which is on our feedlist, and another great news resource.
The most recent episode of the Robots Podcast features Steven Rainwater from robots.net and Mikell Taylor with the Automaton blog and Bluefin Robotics, a maker of AUVs and a competitor to iRobot. They discuss the online robotics community, blogging about robots, and life at Bluefin. Steven, if you’re reading this, I do have one nit to pick - GoRobotics.net actually started before robots.net, but we’ll overlook the slip.
A new Robots Podcast is released every two weeks, with the next episode slated to appear on August 15th. In the meantime, you can go and check out the four previous episodes. The site also has a growing robotics forum you can check out. 3 Comments » DelFly Micro is World’s Smallest Ornithopter - Weights Only 3g with Camera Posted on August 11th, 2008 by William Cox in Science  The DelFly Micro, built by Delft University of Technology, is the world’s smallest ornithopther. The flapping robot has a 10 cm wingspan and even includes a video camera. In a mere year-and-a-half, the team decreased the weight from the 16 grams of the DelFly II, to the amazing 3 grams of the DelFly Micro.
The group hopes to use the ornithopther to study the aerodynamics of small flapping vehicles, as computer simulations prove very difficult. They also hope to use the onboard camera to achieve autonomous flight using machine vision. The current vehicle has a 30mAh lithium polymer battery that allows for 3 minutes of flight-time (the battery is 1/3 of the DelFly’s weight). The wings are made of mylar and flap at 30 Hz.
You can see some video of the ornithopther flying after the jump.
Update: The August 15th edition (MP3) of the Robots Podcast features an interview with the creators of the DelFly Micro.
(more…) 2 Comments » Pentagon’s Unmanned Spokesdrone Completes First Press Conference Mission Posted on August 11th, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News The Onion once again lays on some robot funnies. Previously they took on the question, are we giving the robots that run our society too much power? See the latest below.
Pentagon’s Unmanned Spokesdrone Completes First Press Conference Mission
[Via DIY Drones]
2 Comments » The AirSniper is no joke, but the AirKnife is Posted on August 6th, 2008 by William Cox in Military  Chris Anderson, over at DIY Drones, recently posted a full page advertisement, from the July edition of the AUVSI magazine, for AUS International’s AirSniper product. The AirSniper is described as, “a VTOL combat mini UAV intended for close infantry support.” Or, in other words, “a gun with wings.”
Now, this idea seems like a solid one – why not mount weapons on UAVs? In fact, it’s been done before. However, I don’t think anyone has every proposed a UAV sniper system that can also be torn-down to work as a regular, old, gun. Also, AUS claims,
Our patent pending “tilt and stop” rotor design concept gives AirSniper hovering performance and agility of helicopters, with speed and endurance of fixed wing airplanes.
Supposedly the airframe also allows for “precise aiming at any flight speed.” Quite a claim. The comedic aspects of the advertisement give some reason to doubt as to AUS International’s ability to bring this to market. Chris even said, “if this were the April edition, I’d think it was an April Fool’s joke”.
Some of the more laughable lines from the ad:
For an enemy up there, you could be like a sitting duck.
With AirSniper, sitting duck is the other guy.
WIRED’s DangerRoom blog also got into the action with their latest idea, the AirKnife.
Ok, so after AUS International had been give such a bad rap, what did I do? Well, I contacted them to find out what the skinny was. Check out our correspondance after the jump. (more…) 5 Comments » University of Maryland Wins the 11th International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition Posted on August 4th, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News 
Pictured above is a group photo of all the teams competing in the 11th annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle competition. University of Maryland won the competition, unseating University of Florida from their 3 year winning streak. Congratulations to all the teams. The final standings for the top 8 teams are below. Pictured below is Maryland’s vehicle and a team photo.
 
Final Standings:
University of Maryland
University of Texas at Dallas
École de technologie supérieure
University of Florida
United States Naval Academy
University of Victoria
Cornell
Florida Atlantic University
No Comments » 11th Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition This Weekend Posted on July 31st, 2008 by William Cox in Latest News 
Don’t forget that the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s 11th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition is taking place this weekend in San Diego, CA.
This year’s theme is “Underseas 11″ and will feature gambling themed tasks, such as grabbing a sack of cash from a “bank vault”, traversing an “air duct” (a floating PCV structure), and the like.
The competition is open to the public this Saturday and Sunday and is held at the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center’s Transducer Evaluation Center (TRANSDEC) pool located on Point Loma, San Diego. You can read the spectator FAQ (PDF) for more details.
25 teams from around the glob are registered for the competition, including my alma mater, NC State University. The teams have to construct a fully autonomous underwater vehicle that is capable of navigating, using machine vision, and acoustic navigation. It should be interesting (the competition is rather boring, since it’s underwater, but talking to the teams is fun). So, if you’re in the area, please go out and cheer them on. Send me some pictures if you do.
Update: The team from Cornell appears to be live-blogging the event.
Update 2: You can watch a live webcast of the finals here. It looks like the underwater video is being shot with an LBV from Seabotix.
Update 3: Here’s a list of the teams going into the finals.
Update 4: You can see the final standings here. Surprise ending! No Comments » Older Posts »
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