From nivek@ri.cmu.edu Mon Feb 13 11:48:30 EST 1995 Article: 17935 of comp.robotics Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!nivek From: nivek+@cs.cmu.edu (Kevin Dowling) Newsgroups: comp.robotics,news.answers,comp.answers Subject: comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) part 4/5 Supersedes: Followup-To: poster Date: 13 Feb 1995 03:55:03 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, School of Computer Science Lines: 2682 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT-Edu Expires: 29 Mar 1995 03:53:11 GMT Message-ID: References: Reply-To: nivek@ri.cmu.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: j.gp.cs.cmu.edu Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions and their answers about robotics. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to the comp.robotics newsgroup Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.robotics:17935 news.answers:37806 comp.answers:10022 Archive-name: robotics-faq/part4 Last-modified: Mon Dec 12 12:00:45 1994 This is part 4 of 5 of the comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list. This FAQ addresses commonly asked questions relating to robotics. ____________________________________________________________________________Pa Copyright Notice 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 1994 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 posted to any USENET newsgroup, on-line service, or BBS as long as it is posted in its entirety and includes this copyright statement. This FAQ may not be distributed for financial gain. This FAQ may not be included in commercial collections or compilations without express permission from the author. Changes, additions, comments, suggestions and questions to: Kevin Dowling tel: 412.268.8830 Robotics Institute fax: 412.268.5895 Carnegie Mellon University net: nivek@ri.cmu.edu Pittsburgh, PA 15213 ___________________________________________________________________________ Part 4/5 [10] What Robotics related products are there? [10.1] Sensors [10.1.1] Cameras [10.1.2] Inertial measurement devices and gyros [10.1.3] Rangefinding devices [10.1.4] Force/torque, accelerometers, tactile [10.1.5] Sonar sensors [10.1.6] Pan/tilt mechanisms [10.1.7] Measuring robot position [10.1.8] Measuring linear motion [10.1.9] Interfacing sensors [10.2] Actuators [10.2.1] RC-Servos [10.2.2] Shape memory materials [10.2.3] Stepper Motor Controller [10.3] Imaging for Robotics [10.4] Wireless Communication [10.4.1] RF Modems [10.4.1] RF Video [10.4.2] RF Ethernet [10.5] Robot Parts: Suppliers and Sources ____________________________________________________________________________ [10] What Robotics related products are there? Robots are amazingly interdisciplinary; systems are comprised of mechanics, electronics, hardware and software and issues germane to all these catagories. As a result, the design and constructions of such systems requires a corresponding variety of components and parts. This section provides information about products available for some of these areas. ------------------------------ [10.1] 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. This list covers the following: [10.1.1] Cameras [10.1.2] Inertial measurement devices and gyros [10.1.3] Rangefinding devices [10.1.4] Force/torque, accelerometers, tactile [10.1.5] Sonar sensors [10.1.6] Pan/tilt mechanisms [10.1.7] Robot position and 3DOF input devices [10.1.8] Measuring linear motion [10.1.9] Interfacing sensors ------------------------------ [10.1.1] Cameras There are a large number of cameras on the market and even many consumer products such as the smaller camcorders are inexpensive and suitable for some imaging applications. I'll try to list some different and unusual ones here. Note that although some of these cameras are very small many of them are appended to a large box of electronics via a cable that supplies power and transmits video. For mobile applications DC power inputs may be an issue as well. I've also included servo-lens products as well in this section. CCTV Corporation 280 Huyler St. South Hackensack, NJ 07606 tel: 201.489.9595 tel: 800.221.2240 fax: 201.489.0111 CCTV makes a number of small CCD surveillance cameras. Some as small as a pack of cigarettes that sell for less than $300. Small cameras -- 'Pincam' 1.5"x1.5"x.75" pinhole camera for $200. MOD-250 and MOD-275 are all single PC board cameras with wide angle 3.6 mm lenses 514x491V resolution, and composite outputs. Other cameras come in unique enclosures for surveilance (e.g. cigarette packs, clocks, smoke detectors). Cohu P.O. Box 85623 San Diego, CA 92186-5623 tel: 619.277.6700 X225 fax: 619.277.0221 Cohu makes a number of solid state cameras including board level and remote head devices. The 1100 series is designed for OEM use. It outputs standard RS-170 with 768x494 CCD resolution. 10cmx4.5cmx1.6cm w/o lens. Other units include the 550 series Intensified Monochrome CCD Camera for low-light applications. The 4110 has digital output (eliminates pixel jitter), The 6X00 series are small monochrome remote head cameras and the 8000 series cameras are color remote head devices. A variety of ouputs are available includeing NTSC, RGB, PAL/Y-C. A high resolution unit, the 8410 series, provides 1134x486 pixels (850 horz TV lines) DAK Industries 8200 Remnet Ave Canoga Park, CA 91304 tel: 800.325.0800 (ordering) tel: 800.888.9818 (technical) fax: 818.888.2837 DAK sells all kinds of gadgets for the home and business. One device is a security camera that is smaller than a credit card (length and width) and 38mm deep. B/W 251,904 pixels, 60 degree lens and built-in microphone. Has built-in IR transmitters for seeing in total darkness. $199 for camera, 20m cable, AC adapter and stands. Other packages include monitors and two-camera switcher for $299 total. Extra cable is $29.90 Dalsa Inc 605 McMurray Rd. Waterloo, ON, Canada N2V 2E9 tel: 519.886.6000 Modular cameras -- you choose the entire configuration from the CCD device to the video output format. Known for their large selection of high speed, high sensitivity and high resolution CCD chips (up to 25 million pixels on a single chip CCD). Electrim Corp. P.O. Box 2074 Princeton, NJ. 08543 tel: 609.683.5546 fax: 609.683.5882 Offers digitial cameras and acquisition cards in an integrated system for use with PC's. The EDC-1000C is a complete image acquisition system with a 751x488v resolution camera that supports 24 bit color for $950 (including the PC interface card). The EDC-1000HR is the monochrome version. A recently released system (11/94) offers a ADSP2101 DSP on board the acquisition card. Elmo Mfg Corp 70 New Hyde Park Rd. New Hyde Park, NY 11040 tel: 516.775.3200 800.974.ELMO fax: 516.775.3297 Micro-sized cameras including a 12mm color unit, the UN411E. The ME441E is a remote head B&W ccd camera for machine vision applications. 17mm, 14g. Wide variety of features including electronics shuttering, field/frame modes, interlace and non-interlace etc. Fortunel Systems, Inc. 103 Ivywood Lane Cary, NC 27511 tel: 919-851-9100 fax: 919-859-9800 Internet: fortunel@vnet.net Servolens is a video-based computer-controlled motorized lens designed for active vision. It is connected to the computer through a standard RS232 serial port. Each axis (field of view, focusing distance, iris opening) is independently controlled and fully calibrated (encoder feedback). The following auto functions are supported: auto-iris, auto-focus and auto-zoom (keeps apparent size of object constant). Two models are available, based on zoom factor: x6 and x10. A C++ class library in source code format is also available to control the lens on DOS and UNIX platforms. Gateway Electronics, INC. 8123 Page Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63130 tel: 314.427.6116 Ultra Minature Camera $149.50. 1.6" X 1.8" X 1" with a 3.6 mm wide angle lens a 1/3 CCD sensor 380 lines of resolution and electronic sutter time of 1/60 - 1/50,000 sec. 12 VDC Video Camera and monitor combination 9" solid state monitor. This is a closed circuit camera monitor system that runs on 115 VAC. There is also a microphone in the Camera. $125.00 Hamamatsu Corp. 360 Foothill Road Bridewater, NJ 08807-0910 908 231-1116 908 231-0852 (fax) Offers a linup of general purpose single CCD cameras. The C4200 is a 768x493V single CCD color camera. The C3967 is a 3 CCD remote head color camera with 786x493V resolution. They also offer off-the-shelf image improvement/enhancing hardware and CCD chips (1024x1024V) Images Company P.O. Box 140742 Staten Island, NY 10314 tel: 718.698.8305 Microminature B/W video camera $200.00. TV Transmitter (KIT) $45.00 Marshall Electronics Culver City, CA Contact: Steve Kraig tel: 310.390.6608 World's smallest low-cost digital camera on a single chip; under $10 for volume users. It is the first commercially available image sensor to have a built-in A/D converter. The Digital Video Camera Chip, VVL1070 delivers a digitized B&W image through processor-compatible serial and parallel ports. The IC uses a proprietary CMOS sensor technology developed by VLSI Vision Ltd., which also is developing a whole series of single-chip EIA cameras that will be shortly introduced to the American market. The chip features a 160 x 160 pixel array. Pixel size is 10.5 x 10.5 microns. All circuitry to drive and sense the array is packaged in a single Optical Quad Flatpak. The digital converter provides an 8-bit digital output for serial or parallel interface. Other features include an analog output with sync pulses, wide-range electronic exposure control for use with a variety of low-cost fixed-aperture lenses and automatic black level circuitry. Power consumption is less than 100mw. An Engineering Level Evaluation Kit is available to reduce development costs and allow designers to rapidly develop a prototype using their own defined interface circuitry. The kit includes a fully operational PCB using an LCC with glass lid mounted in an anodized aluminum enclosure with both a "C" mount 12mm lens and a wide-angle 4.3mm fixed-focus lens. Also offers both a 330 line and 510x492v resolution miniature color cameras. Micro Video Products 16201 Osborne St. Westminster, CA 92683 tel: 714.842.4648 tel: 800.473.0538 Mini B/W camera $179.00 2.5x2.5x5cm and 70g. 7-14 VCD and 80 milliamps Also carry underwater cameras, and transmitter/recievers for video. NEC America 1555 Walnut Hill Lane Irving, TX 75038 tel: 214.751.7000 tel: 800.323.6656 Offers many types of general purpose monochrome cameras as well as a 811x508V resolution color camera with a variety of output formats (RGB, NTSC, Y/C). The TI-324A is a small high-res B/W CCD camera designed for machine vision and robotics applications. A variety of other B/W and Color CCD cameras are also made. Panasonic tel: 201.392.4576 John Gregler - sales rep Sells a complete line of monochrome cameras and a high performance broadcast quality 3 CCD RGB color camera. Pulnix America Inc. 1330 Orleans Dr. Sunnyvale, CA 94089 408 747-0300 800 445-5444 x127 Katie McVeigh - sales rep Offers gereral purpose, reasonably priced CCD cameras. The TMC-7RGB is a 768x494V resolution color camera with electronic shutter for $1100. Many monochrome cameras are available including a high resolution 1024x1024V. The 'Card-Cam' line of cameras are small PC board cameras with simple C-mount remote heads. Resources UN-LTD. 8030 South Willow Street, Bldg 2 Manchester, NH 03109 tel: 603.668.2499 CCD Micro Camera From Chinon. $159.00 B/W 1/3" CCD with a full 250,000+ pixels. 350 lines of resolution. Auto gain control and electronic shutter. 9 VDC at 80 milliamps. Adjustable focus 4mm, f 1.8 lens (provides 78 degree FOV, 10mm to infinity). Standard Composite video out. Weighs 14g, IR Sensitive. Sony Electronics Inc. 1200 N. Arlington Heights Road Itasca, IL 60143 tel: 708.773.7604 Karel Heike -- sales rep Sony XC/999/999P is a nice small color CCD camera the size of a microphone. CCD resolution is 768Hx493V. The 999 is NTSC and the 999P is the PAL format. XC-75 has small camera head and separate electronics. The XC711 is a nice general purpose single CCD color camera with 768x493V resolution, but not as expensive as to XC999. The XC-711 RR is the remote head version. An appreciable lineup of monochrome cameras are offered as well. Supercircuits 13552 Research Blvd #B Austin, TX 78750 tel: 512.335.9777 fax: 512.335.1925 net: info@ccd.scx.com Electronic timers and beepers, miniature cameras and transmitters. Super Circuits specializes in affordable microvideo products. One of the tiny cameras, the PC-9XS is about the size of a silver dollar, has 380 lines resolution, 1 lux rating at a price of only $149. Some of the cameras go down to .2 lux. Other products include small color cameras, ATV UHF transmitter kits, Short range transmitter sets, and other specialty video products. Texas Instruments TI makes a $35 CCD Imager, the TC-211, with 192x165 resolution. Following article is on a design for a camera using this chip over a parallel port from a PC. Telescope Making, Issue 46, Winter 91/92 Newark Electronics sells the TC211-M for around US$50.00 See TI's Array Image Sensor Products data manual for more details. Toshiba America Information and Imaging Technologies Group 1010 Johnson Drive Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-6900 tel: 800.253.5429 fax: 708.541.1927 Toshiba IK-M40A high resolution microminiature color camera. Camera head is 39mm long, 17mm diameter and weighs 16g. 1/2" CCD w/ 410,000 pixels, high sensitivity (5 lux at F1.6) and electronic shutter. RGB output standard. uses cables up to 30m. Several lenses available. About $2K. Toshiba also makes a very small C-mount Lens color CCD camera, the IK-C40A. It is only slight larger than a 30mm cube. Wintriss Engineering Corp 6342 Ferris Square San Diego, CA 92121 tel: 619.550.7300 tel: 800.733.8089 Wintriss makes a 2048 pixel line scan camera that can be used for object imaging, velocity measurement and positioning with multiple cameras. Can be used to determine spped and trajectory of objects in flight. This has been used in archery applications. RS485 interface with 8Mb/sec serial data rate. Can be linked directly with Wintriss DSP boards for post-processing and communications. Price $1250. Xillix Technologies Corporation Suite 200 2339 Colombia Street Vancouver B.C. V5Y 3Y3 tel: 604.875.6161 fax: 604.872.3356 Specializing in High-res CCD cameras. Product line includes a 12-bit 1317x1035 pixel resolution. Target market has been medical imaging. Full computer control and compatible with a number of image capture and display boards. ------------------------------ [10.1.2] Inertial measurement devices and gyros This includes such devices as accelerometers such as accelerometers, gyros, and inertial devices used for measuring orientation or acceleration of moving vehicles. Accelerometers are devices for measuring the rate of change in velocity and can provide estimations of distance or be used to detect high forces. There are several gyros mainly for radio controlled helicopters. These are rate gyros, used to sense the rate of turn about a particular axis (usually vertical, for tail rotor control), and are designed to connect between an R/C receiver and a servo. These gyros work by modifying the PWM signal that the rx produces, before it gets to the servo. The sensing is usually done by a linear hall effect device, which senses the position of a magnet on the bottom of the flywheel assembly. The gyros have both sensitivity and gain controls, and some can be switched on and off remotely. They have been used for sensing rotation about an axis for a VR headset, with some success. The big advantage is they are relatively cheap, the big disadvantage is high drift rate. Andrew Corporation 10500 W. 153rd Street Orland Park, IL 60462 tel: 708.349.5957 fax: 708.349.5294 Fiber-optic gyro. 77mm diameter by 88mm high. Analog out porportional to rotation rate. Also digital version available. Rate +/- 100 degrees/sec. Stable over -40C to +85C. Power 8-13.5VDC at 250mA. Bias drift 0.005 deg/sec (18 deg/hr). 0.63kg $1100.00 for digital version, $950 for analog. BEI - Systron Donner 2700 Systron Drive, Concord, CA 94518-1399 tel: 510.682.6161 fax: 510.671.6590 GyroChip - a very small solid state angular rate sensor. Based a quartz tuning fork device - all support electronics are included. Max range available: +/-10 deg/sec to +/-1000 deg/sec. Input +/- 5VDC Output scale +/- 2.5VDC. Systron Donner also makes a variety of linear accelerometers and inertial measurement products. Solid state six axis inertial sensor. It provides analog signals for 3 axis acceleration and 3 axis rate. The package is 7.5cmx7.5cmx8cm, weighs ~600grams and takes +-15V unreg in (7W). Bias drift is on the order of 0.005 deg/sec short term (0.1deg/sec long term). Cost is $12,000 for one or $10,000 for 2-9 (a good single axis rate gyro usually costs $6K+). Various acceleration and rate range combinations are available (up to +- 20g). Delivery is about 6wks. A new Gyrochip two is available as well. Specs aren't quite as good but it is cheaper. Gyration Inc. Saratoga CA tel: 408.255.3016 fax: 408.255.9075 Sells small vertical and directional gyros for ~$500. These are standard gimballed gyros, but the drift specs probaly aren't as good as aircraft-quality gyros. Now also sell innovative computer pointers and devices termed 'Gyroengines' that provide quadrature outputs from heading devices. Gyroengines are $3.5K Honeywell 11601 Roosevelt Blvd St. Petersburg, FL 33716 tel: 813.579.6604 fax: 813.579.6696 Honeywll manufactures the modular azimuth and postioning system (MAPS) and utilizes ring-laser gyros. (RLG). The RLG uses two beams of laser light rotating in opposite directions along a path within a sealed and enclosed cavity. As the unit changes heading, the distances the beams travel differ. This difference is can be measured and is directly related to heading. When combined with linear accelerometers the unit provides position and orientation. MAPS has an RS-422 interface, is approx 22x27x38cm and is 20kg. 100W power draw. [Rad hard and rated for howitzer gunfire!] Humphrey [Need Address] Wide variety of gyro and accelerometer devices. KVH Industries 110 Enterprise Center Middletown, RI 02840 tel: 401.847.3327 Nice small well-designed units that provide heading data. About $1K w/ RS232 adapter. Lucas NovaSensor 1055 Mission Court Fremont, CA 94539 tel: 510.490.9100 Lucas makes a 1"x1"x0.5" accelerometer for about $200. Good noise immunity but fragile. Murata Erie North America 2200 Lake Park Drive Smyrna, GA 30080 tel: 800.831.9172 fax: 404.436.3030 Gyrostar piezoelectric vibrating gyroscope. Uses equilateral triangular prism with PE elements attached to faces of prism. High precision compared to other vibration gyroscopes. Measures augular velocity with good linearity. Max augular vel +/- 90 deg/sec, No hysteresis, 58x25x25mm, 45g, output is DC voltage porportional to angular rate. 22.2mV/deg/sec scale factor. Gerhard Weiss has provided some results of experiments with the unit: location: ag_vp_file_server.informatik.uni-kl.de [131.246.192.2] directory: /Public/Gerd/Public/ filename: Gyrostar.ps Pewatron AG Hertistr. 27 CH-8304 Wallisellen Swiss Tel: +41 1 830 29 44 Fax: +41 1 830 51 57 Two-axis Inclinometer. Weight: 2.3gr, voltage: 5V, current: 20mA, dimension: 12 x 12 x 7 mm, Output: 2 analog output. Sine and cosine for 360 degree, voltage swing: +/- 0.4V, Price: about $100. Rumored to have a US distributor: Dinsmore. [if you have further info, please send it to me - nivek] Summitt Instruments Ohio tel: 216.659.3312 Three-axis accelerometer. A tiny cube just under 2.5cm on a side. Approx $1K Sundance Model Products 2427 W. Adrian St. Newbury Park, CA 91320 tel: 805.498.8857 Lists a solid state gyro for model helicopters. The SSG/1 is 38mm x 38mm x 13mm and weighs 43g. Completely solid state with no motor or moving parts. Claims to draw 10% of the power of a gyro with moving parts. No drift specs. Electrolytic tilt sensors or clinometers (not using anything so nasty as mercury, but a conductive fluid whose resistance across various electrodes provides an analog signal proportional to tilt angle). They're not too expensive, although they do tend to have long settling times (up to a few seconds). A couple of US sources: The Fredericks Company tel: 215.947.2500 fax: 215.947.7464 Applied Geomechanics tel: 408.462.2801 fax: 408.462.4418 The smallest, cheapest model is 5x5x2 cm and about $250. It has a 5-terminal electrolytic cell that can measure tilt in two axes to +-20 degrees (optional +-45 degrees). The characteristic "slosh" frequency is about 10 Hz, and it exhibits sub-second settling times and a resolution of 0.01 degrees. The output is two analog signals (X and Y, or Roll and Pitch, if you prefer). It runs off of a 9-volt battery. ------------------------------ [10.1.3] Rangefinding devices Principles There are four basic techniques for distance measurement using electro magetic radiation. These are 1 Pulse Timing 2 Phase Comparison 3 Doppler Methods 4 Interferometry All are used in practice for distance measurement depending on the particular application. Pulse timing, as the name suggests, involves measuring the round time for a signal to be transmitted to a reflective surface and return. This is the principle used in Radar, DME for aircraft, LORAN, Satellite Altimetry, Airborne RADAR Altimetry, Lunar Laser Ranging etc. Some of the newer EDM instruments used by surveyor are also using pulse timing and accuracies of +/- 5mm are possible. Most of the military range finders also use pulse timing. The GPS system uses pulse timing for coarse distance measurement. Very Long Base Interferometry (VLBI) is also a pulse timing technique where signals >from pulsars are timed from two or more radio telescopes and the difference in times of arrival are converted to intercontinental distances with a precision of a few centimetres. Phase difference involves the use of a carrier wave which may be modulated at different wavelengths. By measuring the difference in phase between the transmitted signal and the received signal after it has been reflected from the other end of the target, the distance can be determined as an integer number (unknown) of wavelengths plus a fraction of a wavelength which is known from the phase comparison. By using a range of modulation frequencies the ambiguity can be resolved. There are many applications of this technique. A wide range of carrier frequencies are used ranging from visible through infra red to microwave and right down to VLF. Typical instruments used by surveyors have accuracies of +/-(1to2 mm +1to3 parts per million) and use infra red as the carrier. Precise positioning using GPS can be achieved by phase comparison of the carrier wave signals of the various satellites. Accuracies in position of better than 1 part per million can be achieved. Doppler techniques were used in the earlier satellite positioning systems. The received frequency of a low orbit satellite is compared with the actual transmitted signal as a function of time. The rate of change of frequency gives the slant range between the satellite and the observer while the instant when the two freqencies are the same gives the point of closest approach. By knowing the orbital parameters of the satellite which are transmitted, the observers position can be determined. Interferometric methods are the same as those used in the original Michelson Interferometer. It is used for metrology, high precision distance measurement over short distances (up to 60 metres) and in the definition of the metre. There are a variety of laser rangefinding devices that have been built and used over the past decade for robotics use. The 3D devices are still large, power hungry and heavy but give very nice images suitable for fast map building and navigation work. Expect to pay over $50K for these time-of-flight devices. Most AM Lidars measure phase shift between outgoing and reflected beams. A mirror system rasters the beam forming a video-camera-like image. Some devices supply the reflectance image as well as range which is nice for corresponding the two. Comprehensive references include: Electronic Distance Measurement by JM Rueger, Springer-Verlag P. Besl, ``Active, Optical Range Imaging Sensors'', Machine Vision and Applications, v. 1, p. 127-152, 1988. A longer version of Besl's paper appears in ``Advances in Machine Vision: Architectures and Applications'', J. Sanz (ed.), Springer-Verlag, 1988. Other good surveys are Ray Jarvis' article in IEEE TPAMI v5n2 and Nitzan's article in IEEE PAMI v10n2. A good report on the characterization of a particular scanner is: Experimental Characterization of the Perceptron Laser Rangefinder, In So Kweon, Regis Hoffman, and Eric Krotkov. Carnegie Mellon University Technical Report, CMU-RI-TR-91-1. 1991. M. Hebert and E. Krotkov. 3-D Measurements from Imaging Laser Radars: How Good Are They? Int. Journal of Image and Vision Computing, 10(3):170-178, April 1992 International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 13, No. 4, Aug. 1994, pp 305-314. {get title} A number of laboratory works have also demonstrated FM or chirp systems which can be highly accurate (e.g. high resolution elevation maps of coins) but these are very specialized and I don`t know of commercial devices currently. ----- Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) contact: Narinder Bains (nbains@bart.candu.aecl.ca) net: 905.823.9040 x6120 Laser Eye ranging system. It consists of a robotic head with a combined vision / range sensor. The sensor provides colour images and distance to an object in the centre of the camera field of view. There is of course software to process images from the camera and detect a target, to control the head, communication, nice GUIs, etc. Is being used for vehicle navigation. >From the head position you get the bearing to the target and the rangefinder provides you with the distance. Angular resolution is better than 0.05 degree, the distance can be measured up to 100m with accuracy of ~5 cm. Note that the range measurement is 1D along the camera axis. The cost of the vision system and complexity of the software depends on your specific application: how difficult is it to detect and track your vehicle, how fast is it moving, is it possible to use special markers, is illumination constant, etc. ----- BCT GmbH Martin-Schmeisser-Weg 9 D-44227 Dortmund BCT in Germany makes laser-3D-scanners with a CAD-interface ----- 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. ----- Erwin Sick GmbH. UK: Erwin Sick Optic-Electronic Ltd. Waldrich House 39 Hedley Road St. Albans Herfordshire AL1 5BN tel: 0727/831121 fax: 0727/856767 PLS-100: This device measures distance by TOF from 4 cm up to 80 m, guaranteed range of 4 m (at a black lether target), is eye-safe (IEC Class 1), takes a 180 degree scan in 20 ms, total 25 scans a second, angle resolution 0.5 degree (361 scan points in a scan). This device is build in a industrial IP65 case. And it is rather cheap (6.900,- DM + VAT, in Germany). ----- ESP Technologies 21 LeParc Drive Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 tel: 609.275.0356 fax: 609.275.0356 $15K LED based IR ranging system. 15cm diameter rotating scanning device with collimated LED light beam that uses phase differences to calculate distance. Range 0.6 to 6m. 2.5cm resolution, 15cm accuracy. 1Khz update rate ----- Hammamatsu Corp. New Jersey tel: 908.231.0960 fax: 908.231.1539 Hamamatsu S4282 Light Modulation Photo IC The size of a normal transistor (approx 1/4" square). It has 4 leads, Vcc, Gnd, Vout, LED. All you do is attach an IR LED to the LED lead to give you an instant IR proximity detector (the photo diode detector is built into the part). Two can be aimed at each other and they won't interfere since they'll be out of phase. They have another model with a lens over the photo diode that is claimed could be used up to 30 feet! Hammamatsu also sells a number of photo sensors like color sensors, position sensitive detectors, pyroelectric sensors. S4282-11 short range $7.75 single unit S4282-72 long range $19.00 single unit ----- IBEO Lasertechnik Ingenieurburo fur Elektronik + Optik Fahrenkron 125 D 2000 Hamburg 71 tel: 040 645 87 - 01 fax: 040 645 87 - 101 2D and 3D laser scanners. 8frame/sec, 220 degree view, 4600 points/sec. Accuracy +/- 20mm (1 sigma) from 0.5 - 500? 24W power. System specs can be configured for variety of applications ----- LaserMax Rochester, NY tel: 716.272.5420 Manufactures semiconductor laser diode packages and cylindrical lenses. Packages and small and rugged. ----- Odetics 1515 South Manchester Ave Anaheim, CA 92802-2907 tel: 714.758.0300 Odetics has made a number of smaller laser scanners. That is, smaller than their larger ERIM and Perceptron brethren. I have not heard any independent reviews of the product however. ----- Origin Instruments 854 Greenview Drive Grand Praire, TX 750750-2438 tel: 214.606.8740 fax: 214.606.8741 The Dynasight sensor is a 3-D optical radar that provides real-time 3-D measurements of passive targets with sub-millimeter resolution. Automatic search and track is provided, eye-safe operation and no adjustments or alignment required. Original application was head tracking of computer users but end- effector tracking is also viable. Operatin range depends on target size 0.1-1.5m for 7mm target, 0.3-4m for 25mm target and 1 to 6m for 75mm targets. RS-232 interface. Accuracies 1mm cross range and 4mm down range, resolutions 0.1mm cross range and 0.4mm down range. A number of labs have built light stripe devices using projected light LCD shutters and laser line projectors determine distance through geometry (as opposed to directly measuring distance through time-of-flight means) One common need is that of generating the laser line. ----- Perceptron 23855 Research Drive Farmington Hills, MI 48335-2643 tel: 313.478.7710 tel: 800.333.7753 fax: 313.478.7059 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. LASAR product - provides range and reflectance. Programmable field of view (15 to 60 deg) Vertical viewing angle from 3 to 72 degrees. Depth of field from 2 to 40 meters. Up to 1024 x 2048 pixels per image (programmable) and 360,000 pixels/second data acquisition. VME and PC-compatible interface cards available. Windows software provides starting point for custom applications. Less than $50K with a variety of performance and interface options. ----- Riegl Laser Measurement Systems [company HQ is Dr. Johannes Riegl GmbH, 85 km, NW of Vienna, Austria] Riegl USA 8516 Old Winter Garden Road Suite 101 Orlando, FL 32835 tel: 407.294.2799 fax: 407.294.3215 Laser range finders, laser speed sensors, laser distance meters, motor scanners, laser radar systems. Pulsed laser devices. One of the neatest is the Laser Scout, which gives range, azimuth and inclination to the target and can be used with GPS to give position coordinates of the device you are pointing at. $10K. Accuracy up to +/- 10cm (depending on model) Laser Radar Scanner (LRS 90-3) is a 1D scanner with 36 deg field of view and a +/- 3cm accuracy. 2-80m distance, $10K. There are several other distance models as well. ----- Schwarz Electro-Optics 3404 N. Orange Blossom Trail Orlando, FL 32804 tel: 407.298.1802 fax: 407.297.1794 Schwarz makes some very nice point range laser ranging devices. These devices are slightly bigger than a soda can. About $6-12K. CMU experience for use in simulated unmanned air vehicle platform worked well. Their MARS (marine angle range system) is a rotating laser device that reflects off targets in the environment. Max range up to 1000meters using corner prisms. Accuracy +/- 1m. Erebus (Dante) Scanner used Schwarz device as base. ------------------------------ [10.1.4] Force/torque, accelerometers, tactile Force measurement provides indications of magnitude and direction of forces for use in manipulation or locomotion. A variety of control schemes have been implemented in force controlled systems to allow smooth and accurate control in situations that would otherwise be precluded without such devices. A number of load cells and acceleration measuring devices are described here: Rich Voyles embarked on a force/torque sensor comparison many months ago and compiled some of the results in a paper that is available via Mosaic or anonymous ftp. http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/deadslug/ftp/home.html ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/usr/anon/user/deadslug/ft.sensor.ps.Z The paper is woefully incomplete. The JR3 sensor we borrowed was broken so we borrowed another and got limited data. The old Lord data collection is incomplete and the Assurance Technologies data is not fully included in the report. There is some data from California Cybernetics. If there is sufficient interest, we can finish the compilation. By the way, we only seek to provide the data we gathered an make no claims as to its accuracy or completeness. Use at your own risk. The opinions expressed do not represent those of Carnegie Mellon University nor any of its sponsors. Send e-mail to robodude@cmu.edu with the subject "More Force Data" if you read the report and would like to see it expanded. Any other comments can be put in the body. -Richard Voyles ----- Analog Devices tel: 617.937.1426 Analog Devices have the ADXL50 accelerometer which comes in a 10-pin TO-5 can. It is primarily used with air-bags and has a 1994 projected price of $5 in quantities. In the Electronic Design August 8, 1991 issue it quoted the current price as $21.75 for 1000 off quantities. Analog Devices ADXL50 accelerometer. Power Supply........................... +5V (+/- 5%) Measurement Range...................... +/- 50g Pre-Amp Zero-g output level............ +1.8V Pre-Amp output span.................... +1.8V (+/-1.2V) at +/-50g Uncommitted amp output range........... +0.25V to +4.75V Overall Accuracy....................... 5% of Full Scale Linearity.............................. 0.5% of Full Scale Bandwidth.............................. DC to 1kHz Voltage Noise (p-p) at BW = 0.3kHz..................... +/-0.24% of Full Scale at BW = 1.0kHz..................... +/-0.48% of Full Scale Transverse Sensitivity................. 2% Unpowered Shock Survival............... 2000g Assurance Technologies (ATI) (formerly Lord Industrial Automation) 503D Highway 70 East Garner, North Carolina 27529 tel: 919.772.0115 fax: 919.772.8259 Largest supplier of multi-axis force sensors. Use silicon rather than foil strain gages for lower strain levels and increased life. F/T sensor ratings from +/- 15lbs to +/- 150lbs (+/- 15 in-lbs to +/- 600 in-lbs) weights are 0.4 and 2.2 lbs for the 4 available sensors. Serial or parallel digital interface or analog interface. ATI also makes robotic tool-changers and an RCC device for assembly operations. An ATI sensor is also incorporated in the Hughes SMARTee end-effector. Bonneville Scientific 1849 W. No. Temple, Bldg E. Salt Lake City, UT 84116 tel: 801.359.0402 fax: 801.359.0416 Array sensor system that uses PVDF ultrasonic emmitter/detector attached to an elastomer material. Time-of-flight of the pulse as it bounces off of other side of the material is porportional to distance through the elastomer. The distance is porportional the pressure on the pad. Bonneville claims it can be made thin enough for a skin and they have pictures of it being used on a robot finger picking up a washer which can be recognized on their output graphics. Example product: Model 300 - 16x16 tactile sensor system - $5K TOF resolution - 12.5 ns Sheet thickness resolution - 6 microns Pressure resolution - 0.5 psi (3.4 kPa) Force resolution - 1g Rubber linearity - 5-15% deviation Overload - > 1000PSI (7000kPa) Spatial resolution - 1.8mm Scan rate on 16x16 pad - 240 Hz An evaluation kit is available SE-1 Evaluation Kit - $99.00 includes SE-1 sensor and electronics. SE-1 Sensor is $42 in single quantity. California Cybernetics 10322 Sherman Grove Sunland, CA 91040 tel: 818.353.5991 fax: 818.951.3889 Six DOF F-T devices. Up to 1000Hz sampling rate, reportedly easy to interface. Cybernet 1919 Green Road Suite B-101 Ann Arbor, MI 48105 tel: 313.668.2567 fax: 313.668.8780 net: PER-force - A 6dof compact force-reflecting controller. Can be used for teleoperationor interactive graphics applications. Ercon Need addresses Somewhere in MA Conductive rubber and conductive inks. You build a semi-rigid circuit board with inter-digitated fingers to apply to one side of the rubber. The rubber has a rough surface that under increasing load allows more rubber to contact. They can make rubber with all sorts of conductive properties. Force Imaging 3424 Touhy Avenue Chicago, IL 60645-2717 tel: 708.674.7665 tel: 800.348.3240 fax: 708.674.6355 Uniforce Force Sensors. They function similiar to a variable resistor in an electrical circuit. As a force is exerted on the sensor, the two layers of pressure sensitive material compress together and cause a change in resistance which corresponds to a change in pressure. As force increases, resistance decreases. A Uniforce experimenters kit is available for $550 and includes PC-AT card, cables, software, manual and nine Uniforce sensors in three force ranges. They have ISA boards, PCMCIA version and a PPIO version as well. Sensors available in ranges from 0-500g to 0-400kg. Uniforce sensors can be provided in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and force ranges. Software is also available to display force values in real-time. Hughes STX 4400 Forbes Blvd Lanham, MD 20706 tel: 301.794.5016 fax: 301.306.0963 A 6-dof end-effector with automatic load sensing and compensation. Control modes include position control (cartesian with user spec-ed poses and frames), impedence and force control modes. Programmable behaviors (sliding, hinge, move-to-touch, guarded move, follow etc), open architecture (VxWorks, VME, user-linakable libraries) and a lot more. Interfaces available included RS-232, ethernet, RS-422 and SCSI. Pretty amazing end-effector! Interlink Electronics 1110 Mark Ave. Carpinteria, CA 93013 tel: 805.484.8855 805.484.1331 (product support) fax: 805.484.8989 Force Sensing resistors made from polymer thick films. Very thin. Response is approx. 1/R to force. Article in March 1993 issue of Electronics Now/Radio Electronics. JR3 22 Harter Avenue Woodland, CA 95695 tel: 916.661.3677 6-DOF force-torque sensors. Strain gage technology. Newer packages have all electronics built into the sensor. Make some high-force devices as well. CMU's Ambler used JR3's on all the feet with good success. Complete force torque data at 8Khz, signal digitization within sensor body, low noise susceptibility, synch serial at 2MHz, inexpensive cabling. Merritt Systems, Inc. P.O. Box 2103 Merritt Island, FL 32954-2103 Contact: Dr. Dan Wegerif tel: 407.452.7828 MSI is involved in the development of "Whole-Arm Sensor Technology" under 2 NASA Phase II SBIR's. Their proximity sensing technology is based on IR arrays which they call "SensorCells". It allows the use of IR, acoustic and capacitive (under-development) sensors in the same sensor skin. Silicon Designs, Inc. 1445-NW Mall Street Issaquah, WA. 98027-5344 Tel: (206) 391-8329 Fax: (206) 391-0446 Silicon Designs makes capacitive accelerometers. Model 1010, Digital output: Produces Digital pulse train in which the density of pulses (number of pulses a second) is proprtional to applied acceleration. It operates with a single +5 volt power supply and requires a clock of 100kHz - 1MHz. The output is ratiometric to the clock frequency and independent of the power supply voltage. Two forms of digital signals are provided for direct interfacing to a microprocessor or counter. This devices comes in a PLCC package that is smaller than a penny. Model 1210, Analog output: Provides two analog outputs, 1-4 volts, or 4-1 volt, with O g's at 2.5 volts. The outputs can be used either differentially or single ended referenced to 2.5 volts. Two reference voltages--+5.0 and +2.5 volts (nominal)-- are required; the output scale factor is ratiometric to the +5 volt reference voltage. Prices start at about $100 and they offer a digital accelerometer evaluation board for $200. Silicon Microstructures, Inc. 46725 Fremont Boulevard Fremont CA. 94538 tel: 510.490.5010 fax: 510.490.1119 Model 7170 series and 7130 series capacitive accelerometers. These are relatively large devices with built in ASIC signal processing. They have very good accuracy specs and are pre-calibrated. They also make pressure sensors. Spectra Symbol 3101 West 2100 South Salt Lake City, UT 84119 Bend sensor for glove device. Their business is custom membrane controls: switches, membrane potentiometers, and the bend sensors. ------------------------------ [10.1.5] Sonar sensors The time it takes for an acoustic pulse to propagate through air or water, reflect from the environment and return to a detector is porportional to the distance. Acoustic time-of-flight devices have been around for awhile now. The ubiquitous Polaroid device is cheap and easily integrated and has has found wide use in robotic devices. Other companies have developed nice complete turnkey sonar devices though and Polaroid is no longer the only choice. Polaroid 119 Windsor St, Cambridge, MA 02139 tel: 617.577.4681 fax: 617.577.3213 tel: 800.225.1000 ordering tel: 800.225.1618 technical assistance Polaroid Ultrasonic Components Group offers two ultrasonic ranging kits: Specs: Distance range: 0.26 to 10.7 meters Resolution: Nominal +- 3mm to 3m, +-1% over entire range Sonar acceptance angle: approx. 20 degrees Power Requirement: 6VDC, 2.5 Amps (1 ms pulse), 150mA quiescent Weight: Transducer, 8.2gm, Ranging module, 18.4 gm Designer's Kit: 1 transducer, 1 ranging module, electronics display accurate to 1/10th meter. Cost is $169 OEM kit: 2 transducers, 2 ranging modules. $99. NEW Piezotransducer kit 2.5cm-1500cm +/- 1%, RS-232 port and analog output, extra real estate, $299 This section describes a simple addition to the drive circuitry, the Polaroid ranging system can detect objects as close as 10cm. The board has two extra signals: BLNK and BINH. Asserting BLNK (driving it HIGH) resets the ECHO RS-latch, and asserting BINH shortens the internal blanking interval (which is 2.38 ms by default). Thus, the solution would seem to lie in asserting BINH after a reasonable amount of time (< 2.38 ms after asserting INIT) to detect objects closer than 1.3 feet. This doesn't work very well because BINH is very susceptable to noise, and attaching a driver to it wreaks havoc possibly because of the anomalous current sink during the transmit phase. This can be fixed by asserting BLNK during the blanking period (ie the new blanking period) while negating BINH and asserting BIHN after the blanking period while negating BLNK. This can be done easily with a one-shot or some other timing device (eg computer timer, etc). A computer timer can be used. The timer goes HIGH tblank ms after INIT is asserted, where tblank=0.15*dist and dist is the threshold distance in inches). The timer output goes to BINH and the inverted timer output goes to BLNK. The timer output should be inverted with an LS/TTL inverter to delay the negation of BLNK, otherwise the RS latch may do weird things. [From Richard LeGrand] Siemans - nice complete sensor package, 5 degree cone angle Massa - components Texas Instruments Type SN28827 Sonar Ranging Module See TI Applications Notes D2780 Under $50, needs only 5VDC Not sure if these units are still manufactured but they are often in surplus catalogs. ------------------------------ [10.1.6] Pan/Tilt devices A common robotic need. Most pan-tilts sold today by companies such as Pelco and Vicon are for CCTV applications for continuous scanning or remote operation. At most these will have potentiometers for feedback. A number of undersea companies make pan-tilt devices as well that are rugged and nicely packaged, but these tend to be heavier and more expensive than their terrestrial counterparts. ----- Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) contact: Narinder Bains (nbains@bart.candu.aecl.ca) net: 905.823.9040 x6120 P02 pan/tilt head. High speed with digital servos (120 deg/sec), encoders and continuous rotation. Controller as well. ----- Brooks Support Systems Williamson, NY tel: 800-836-0285 contact: Frank Dickey BSS makes a small pan/tilt unit: 4.5" high by 3.5" wide x 3.5" long 40 oz. 12V dc operating current 150 mA pan 359 degrees tilts 160 degrees Price: $3100 ----- CameraMan CameraMan is a pan/tilt device built to support any camcorder and has a wireless interface to an external remote control. 360 deg pan and 50 deg of tilt. The unit is made by ParkerVision and sold through Columbia AudioVideo (and probably other suppliers) ----- CCTV Corporation 315 Hudson Street New York, NY 10013 tel: 800.221.2240 fax: 212.463.9758 Standard CCTV pan-tilt devices like those from Vicon and others. Inexpensive but no computer control. $557 - $1400 ----- Directed Perception 1451 Capuchino Avenue, Burlingame, CA 94010 tel: 415.342.9399 Small computer controlled pan-tilt unit Model PTU-46-17.5 Weighs 1kg and can support ~1.5kg camera payload. Very nice specs: 330 deg/sec slew, 3.06 arcmin accuracy, on-the-fly position and speed changes. 11-40VDC unregulated power input, RS-232 interface. Can use RS-485 using RJ-11 to provide control of multiple PT units. Cost: $1935 Includes PT unit, controller, cable and power supply. $1800 w/o power supply. ----- Emco Intertest Inc 27-1 Ironia Road Flanders, NJ 07836 tel: 201.927.2900 fax: 201.927.8004 MicroPan PTX-400 very small P/T designed for remote viewing with micro-CCD cameras. Weight 115g. Height under 7cm. ----- Fujinon 10 High Point Drive Wayne, NJ 07470 tel: 201.633.5600 fax: 201.633.5216 Fujinon CPT-10. 300 deg pan, =/- 95deg tilt. 15 deg/sec speed. 2kg. Payload 4kg. Analog input control. ----- Omniview tel: 615.690.5600 Instead of a conventional camera, you use one with a very wide fish-eye lens. The (very distorted) image is then sent thru a box that digitizes and processes the data in order to simulate a regular camera. You can (completely in software) pan, tilt, rotate, and zoom the image with great flexibility. $10K. ----- Photosea 6377 Nancy Ridge Drive San Diego, CA 92121 tel: 619.452.8903 Underwater pan-tilts including Cobra, very small design. ----- Remote Ocean Systems 5111-L Santa Fe Street San Diego, CA 92109 tel: 619.483.3902 fax: 619.483.2407 Underwater P/T systems, expensive but very nicely packaged. PT-5 is a new subminature P/T device that can accomodate a small CCD color camera and mini wet&dry lights. The P/T is 13.5cm high and 10cm wide. Uses small brushless motors with harmonic drives. Radiation tolerant and corrosion resistant. 360 scan on both axes. ----- RSI Research Ltd. Pacific Marine Technology Center #3-203 Harbour Road Victoria, BC. CANADA V9A 3S2 (604) 360-1025 FAX: (604) 360-1161 Underwater Pan/tilt devices. ----- Telemetrics Hawthorne, NJ tel: 201.423.0347 Computer controlled P/T devices - fairly large though. ----- TeleRobotics International, Inc. 7325 Oak Ridge Hwy Suite 104 Knoxville, TN 37931 tel: 615.690.5600 fax: 615.690.2913 An all-electronic pan/tilt/zoom resampler. That is, they put a box behind a camera with a fish-eye lens. The box has digital inputs for pan, tilt, zoom, rotation. The box resamples the video signal and produces an output as though the image were acquired by a camera with those parameters. Used as an alternative to pan/tilt devices. ----- Zebra Kinesis (spin-off of Zebra Robotics) Jeff Kerr tel: 415.328.8884 Small Pan/tilt head. ------------------------------ [10.1.7] Measuring robot position How do I measure the postion of my arm/mobile robot/thing? In many applications there is a need to accurately measure the position of an end-effector (hand or gripper) or find coordinate locations on objects, or track motion, or give a time and position history of a moving object. Virtual reality applications need this kind of device to provide realtime adjustments to views that are projected to VR users. See news:sci.virtual-worlds for discussions on this topic. Robotics people have needed this to provide accurate assessments of manipulator motions and mobile robot positions. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is an excellent positioning system that is useful in outdoor settings, although recent developments in Psuedolites (Pseudo Satellities) may bring GPS technology indoors and to urban envrionments. While accuracy is intentionally degraded by the US Military recent advances in differential systems and innovative tracking techniques can give 20cm real-time accuracy. Even newer techniques such as carrier-phase are bringing this figure into the mm range for real-time. See news:sci.geo.satellite-nav for full discussions of this technology. Papers: Useful papers to solve for transforms from positioning devices for multiple reference frames: Roger Tsai and Rainer Lenz, IEEE Trans. on Robotics and Automation, Jun 1989. C. C. Wang, IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, April 1992. Useful papers for evaluating 3 ad 6 DOF human input devices: Shumin Zhai, Investigation of Feel for 6 DOF Inputs: Isometric and Elastic Rate Control for Manipulation in 3D Environments, Proc. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 37th Annual Meeting,Seattle, WA, October 1993. Shumin Zhai and Paul Milgram, Human Performance Evalulation of Manipulation Schemes in Virtual Environments", Proc. Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium, IEEE, Seattle, WA, September 1993. Shumin Zhai and Paul Milgram, Human Performance Evalulation of Isometric and Elastic Rate Controllers in a 6 DOF Tracking Task, Proc. SPIE vol. 2057, Telemanipulator Technology", Boston, MA, September 1993. Commercial Devices: ----- Blevins Enterprises tel: 208-885-3805 contact: Nick Sewell Blevins writes their own utilities and sell 3D digitizers starting @ around $2,400 on up to around $75,000. Software is compatible with Lightwave and 3D Studio modelling programs and will be ported to SGI and PC's soon. Provide software to talk with Polhemus, a sonic digitizer and a jointed-arm unit from Immersion. ----- Cyberware 8 Harris Court 3D Monterey, CA 93940 tel: 408.373.1441 fax: 408.373.3582 Italian distributor: 91-22-6409-949 Has 3D scanner. Cyberware has software for editing 3D models, and stitching multiple scans into a single coherent whole. Software is $5-10K each. Cyberware 3030RGB/HIREZ scanner with MM motion platform, complete with all software, training and one-year support costs [US] $75,200. ----- Intelligent Solutions Inc. One Endicott Avenue Marblehead, MA 01945 tel: 617.639.8144 fax: 617.639.8144 net: isi@world.std.com contact: Jim Maddox Intelligent Solutions Inc. was formed in Nov. of 1993 by four of the former engineers of Denning Mobile Robotics. They are focusing on building smart sensors and their first product is the EZNav Position Sensor. EZNav is a precision optical position sensor that can be used on moving platforms such as automated guided vehicles, robots, or material handling equipment. EZNav uses an eye safe scanning laser with a 360 degree field of view to measure the azimuth angle to wall mounted reference reflectors. This angle data can be used to triangulate the position and heading relative to the known target locations. EZNav is unique in its ability to use passive reflectors as well as coded electronic targets. Current work includes adding the triangulation calculations to the EZNav sensor and a new Ultrasonic based position sensor. Specs: Target Range 30m passive up to 180m active Abs. Accuracy +/- 0.03 degrees RMS Scan Rate 12 per second Data Rate 9.6k baud RS 232 Power 24 volts at 300 ma Size 30cm Dia x 35cm High Weight 4.5kg An EZNav sensor with 10 passive targets costs $6,600. There is a ten percent discount for educational uses. ----- Polhemus Inc. tel: 802.655.3139 fax: 802.655.1439 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 Corporation PO Box 527 Burlington VT 05402 USA tel: 802.860.6440 fax: 802.860.6439 net: ascen@world.std.com Sales: Jack Scully Technical Support: Steven Work Product is called Flock of Birds. A 6d0f measuring device. Ftp site is ftp://ftp.std.com/ftp/vendors/Ascension/ gen_lit.txt - Contains general literature on 6D motion tracking system. Accuracy Specifications, comments from prominent users, list of 3rd party software vendors, FAQ on tracking system, etc. Ascii text. tecpaper.wp6 - Technical Description of Flock of Birds (TM) 6D tracking system. In Binary WordPerfect 6.0 format. userware.zip - Latest version of our User Software, including source code. Enjoy. pkzipped binary file. manual.wp6 - Latest version of our User Manual. In Binary WordPerfect 6.0 format. readme.txt - more info on files located in Ascension's FTP directory. Ascii text. Sensitivity to metal is claimed to be on the order 5 to 10 times less than Polhemus tracker. Range and specifications are much better as well. The Ascension Flock of Birds tracker is DC pulsed, where the Polhemus is AC magnetic field. The AC field set up standing waves in metal (conduction and ferris) which magnify the distortion effect. Charts provided by Acension: KEY PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS OF ASCENSION & POLHEMUS TRACKING DEVICES ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Parameter Ascension Polhemus Polhemus Flock of Birds Isotrak II Fastrak Measurement Rate (Measurements/sec) 1 Receiver 144 60 120 2 Receivers 144 30 60 @ Max Number of Rcvrs 144 30 30 Maximum Number of Receivers 30 2 32 Number of Transmitters to 1 1 4 Support Max Number of Receivers Maximum Data Output Rate 312K 115K 115K (Baud or Bytes) Lag Increase with Multiple No Yes Yes Receivers** Range - Standard Transmitter 3' 5'* 10'* - Extended Transmitter 8' N/A N/A Accuracy Degradation Due to: Conductive Metals Low High High Stainless Steel None High High (300 series) CRT Interference Rejection Yes No Yes LCD Noise Susceptability No Yes Yes Unit Cost (1 Receiver) $2,695 $2,875 $5,750 * Note 1: Polhemus specifies range at maximum transmitter-sensor separation distances. At these ranges, outputs will contain significant amounts of noise, which may render their measurements worthless. We will provide you with a number of references who have independently assessed actual range performance of both Ascension and Polhemus trackers. ** Note 2: For a complete discussion of latency in competitive motion trackers, contact Ascension. Specifications: Technical Translation range: plus or minus 3'(8' optional) in any direction Angular range: plus of minuw 180 degrees Azimuth & Roll plus or minus 90 degrees Elevation Translation accuracy: 0.1" RMS Translation resolution: 0.03" Angular accuracy 0.5 degrees RMS Angular resolution 0.1 degrees RMS @ 12" Update rate: Up to 144 measurements/second Outputs: X,Y,Z positional coordinates and orientation angles or rotation matrix Interface: RS-232C with selectable baud rates to 115,200; or RS-422/485 with selectable baud rates to 310,000 Format: Binary Modes: Point or stream Physical Transmitter: 3.75-inch cube (internally mounted in Enclosure or externally mounted with 10' cable) or extended range transmitter option: 12-inch cube externally mounte with 20' cable Receiver: 1.0" x 1.0" x 0.8" cube (or optional 3-button mouse) with 10' or 25' cable Enclosure: 9.5" x 11.5" x 2.6" Power: User provided or optional external plug-in: US/European version Environment: Large metallic objects in operating volume may degrade performance ----- RSI Research Ltd. Pacific Marine Technology Center #3-203 Harbour Road Victoria, BC. CANADA V9A 3S2 tel: 604.360.1025 fax: 604.360.1161 RSI Research makes a 6 DOF joystick. It has a medium workspace (about 10 cm radius) and several buttons. ----- Shooting Star Technology 1921 Holdom Avenue Burnaby, B.C. Canada V5B 3W4 tel: 604.298.8574 fax: 604.298.8580 ADL-1 6DOF tracker. Gives position/orientation measurements up to 240 times/second, with low latency (0.35 to 1.88 milliseconds.) ----- Abrams-Gentile Entertainment, Inc., 244 West 54th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10019 tel: 212.757.0700. Mattel marketed the PowerGlove for use in gaming (Nintendo). It tracked finger motions through small bend sensors. The Mattel PowerGlove was developed by Abrams-Gentile. The sensors themselves are simple resistors varying from about 200K to 500K ohms depending on the amount of flex. ----- Denning Branch International Robotics 1401 Ridge Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15233 tel: (412) 322-4412 fax: (412) 322-2040 email: Soon. Messages to hpm@cs.cmu.edu will be forwarded. Denning-Branch is a merger of Denning Mobile Robotics, once located in the Boston area, and makers of human-size mobile robots since 1983, and Branch and Associates, of Hobart, Australia, designers and builders of smaller mobile robots since 1979. LaserNav Robot-mounted scanning infrared laser unit that uses wall mounted bar-coded retroreflectors or active transponders to navigate to centimeter precision in 10-meter-scale areas. $8K ----- Guidance Control Systems 44 Hidcote Road, Leicester 011 44 455 822 441 ext 3808 fax 011 44 455 824 551 Contact: Malcolm Roberts GCS's core group developed the rotating scanner and passive target system. Featured in several papers out of Oxford. Caterpillar has North American rights for materials handling applications. Uses passive targets with barcodes. Targets have unique ID's and surveyed positions. Rotating laser gives angles between targets. Target positions combined with angles gives vehicle position and heading. 2Hz scan rate but clever use of dead reckoned information and kalman filtering can give very impressive results. ----- MacLeod Technologies 315 Littleton Rd. Chelmsford, MA 01824 tel: 508.250.4949 Update speed: 20 hz position accuracy: +/-0.05inches (1.27 mm) direction accuracy: +/- 0.05 degrees 3 D reference points cover 1 acre 1D, 2D or 3D feedback Cost: About $5K for positioning system They claim to be able to get this kind of accuracy even while the robot is moving at several meters/sec. ----- Selspot Systems Ltd 1233 Chicago Road Troy, MI 48083 tel: 313.583.6940 fax: 313.583.1746 In Sweden: tel: +46-31-878110 fax: +46-31-278992 Two camera system registers 3D position of IR LED's at very high rates. Selspots Robot Check System can provide non-contact 3D measurement and analysis of robot motion at 500 Hz rate. System has been used for over 20 years. Used in motion studies for people, animals and robots. ----- Qualisys AB Ogardesvagen 4 S-433 30 Partille Sweden MacReflex system uses CCD-based cameras for non-contacting measurement of robots. Two camera system is typical. Uses small passive targets and IR LED's colocated with the cameras lens. Video processor calculates centroid of markers and displays in real-time. Information is used to provide data and analysis of position, velocity, acceleration, angles, angle velocity and acceleration and position vs. time. Specs: Noise level 1:200000, Resolution 1:70000, Relative accuracy: 1:30000, and absolute accuracy 1:10000. Accuracy is defined as standard deviation of difference between measured and true positions/longest diagonal in measurement volume. Qualisys 41C New London Turnpike Glastonbury, CT 06033 tel: 203.657.3585 fax: 203.657.3595 Selspot is marketed by: Innovision Systems 30521 Schoenherr, Ste 104 Warren, MI 48093 tel: 313.751.0600 fax: 313.573.9845 Coordinate Measuring Machines are now widely used for process control, statistical monitoring, entering 3D from a physical part into a CAD system and many other uses. CMM's tend to be large and expensive. ----- Supraporte Inc 5145-I Avenida Encinas, Carlsbad, CA 92008 Portable 6-axis measuring system. Model 2000 now available with battery power pack. Very accurate. Very expensive. ----- Faro 125 Technology Park Lake Mary, FL 32746-6204 tel: 800.736.6063 tel: 407.333.9911 fax: 407.333.4181 Metrecom: 6DOF articulated pointer, like a portable CMM. Endpoint accuracies are around .005" -> .025", depending on model. Counterbalnaced design. Three models from 1.8m to 2.4m reach and accuracies ranging from +/- .635mm to .127mm and prices from $14.4K to $51.4K respectively. ----- Cheasapeake Laser Systems 222 Gale Lane Kennett Square, PA 19348 tel: 215.444.2300 fax: 215.444.2323 Laser metrology systems. CMS-3000 is a servo controlled tracking laser interferometer measureing tool. The tracker follows a retroreflective target whil providing real-time coordinate information of the retro center location. Position of the target is provided in XYZ coordinates via linear distance and two high accuracy angular encoders. CMS-3000 can provide measurements over a large volume. 30m radial, > 110 degrees elevation, > 270 horizontal. Down to 0.6 micron resolution, 2 parts in 10^5 accuracy for range. (1m/sec tracking) up to 6m/sec tracking at 5 micron resolution. Lightweight and cost effective versus CMM's and offers speed and accuracy advantages over theodolites and photogrammetry equipment. System can be leased by hour/week/month. About $180K to buy. ------------------------------ [10.1.8] Measuring linear motion There are very few devices to directly give absolute position for linear motions. Often rack and pinion drives are combined with geared rotary encoders to give absolute position. Here are some manufacturers of Magneorestrictive sensors for measuring absolute linear position. Accuracy is usually around 0.05% of full scale. Futaba also makes an absolute linear position glass scale device. Gemco Magnetek 1080 N. Crooks Road Clawson, MI 48017-1097 tel: 313.435.0700 fax: 313.435.8120 Balluff PO Box 937 8125 Holton Drive Florence, KY 41042 tel: 800.543.8390 fax: 606.727.4823 MTS Systems Corporation (Temposonics) Sensors Division Box 13218 Research Triangle Park, NC 27708 tel: 919.677.0100 fax: 919.677.0200 Norstat PO Box 377 Hibernia, NJ 07842 tel: 201.586.2500 fax: 201.586.1590 ------------------------------ [10.1.9] Interfacing sensors Atmos Technology,Inc 1060 Lincoln Av, San Jose Ca 95125 tel: 408.292.8066 fax: 408.292.8241 The AT1000A is a single chip sensor interface circuit that has been used in pressure, acceleration, temperature and humidity applications. 20 PIN SOIC Package, 12-Bit A/D Converter, 64 Bits EEPROM memory. Programmable pulsed current source via EEPROM memory. Three channel A/D: Iout1,Iout2, and Vdiff. ------------------------------ [10.2] Actuators [This is a new section and there is much to add - contributions welcome] How do I get a motor under computer control? What kind of motor should I use? What are the differences between actuator types? What other types of actuation are there? Types of motors: Synchronous Stepper AC servo Brushless DC servo Brushed DC servo ------------------------------ [10.2.1] RC-Servos R/C servos for model airplanes, cars and other vehicles are light, rugged, cheap and fairly easy to interface. For prices etc see one of the many Radio Control magazines on the market. Three wire connector for RC-servos: Pin 1 = White = Signal Pin 2 = Red = +5 Pin 3 = Black = Signal and Power Ground [Tang = pin 1] The signal is a variable width pulse ranging from 1-2ms in duration and repeating every 12-20 ms. The output shaft rotates to a position porportional to the input pulse width. Input pulse width is compared to an internal timer pulse. The timer period is controlled by a pot coupled to the servo's output shaft. The difference between the two pulse widths is an error signal. The servo attempts to reduce or eliminate the error signal by driving the output shaft in the appropriate direction. When the error signal is within about 5 micro-seconds the drivers are turned off to preventing oscillation or 'hunting'. How to reverse a servo? The easiest way to do this is to hit your R/C hobby shop and buy a servo reverser. This is a dedicated electronic module that plugs between the servo and the controller (usually the R/C receiver) and processes the pulse to "reverse" it. Basically, the device uses a 3 msec one-shot and an XOR gate. If your local hobby shop doesn't have them, check Ace R/C catalog. See ads in any R/C magazine. A harder way is as follows. You have to reverse both the motor and the potentiometer leads. It would be much easier to reverse the control input. All modern radios have "reverse" switches for all channels. In the past you could have one of 3 solutions: a. Live with the servo as-is. Design your model with the servo direction in mind. b. Some companies had "reversed" servos. Probably no longer available. c. Use a gadget between the receiver and radio that reverses the servo. Possibly a single 4538 (Motorola MC14538) with 2 resistors, 3 capacitors and a trimmer pot. d. Modify the servo. This is the most difficult and least desired solution. Impossible if the motor is soldered directly to the PCB (seen in some servos). [from Itai Nashon] The following article is an excellent source on servo facts and a PIC-based circuit to control R/C Servos. (See the Microcontrollers Section for more info on the PIC) The Juggler's Delight: PIC-based Controller For Up To Eight Servos by Scott Edward. The Computer Applications Journal, October 1994 p14 [A kit is available as well for the circuit, including PC board, IC's etc] Commercial controller for RC servos: Pontech 401 E 17th St Suite B Costa Mesa, CA 92627 tel: 714.642.8458 Pontech has a SV100 Servo Motor Controller which is based on the PIC 16C84 microcontroller. It accepts RS232 serial data signal from a host computer and poutput PWM to control up to four RC servo motors. Multiple boards can be parallel together to allow more servos. They also sell FUTABA FP-S148 servos. boards: $49.95, servos: $16.95, + $5.00 shipping and handling Vantec 460 Casa Real Pl. Nipomo, CA 93444 tel: 805.929.5055 Design and manufacture of Electronic Systems for remote control mobile robots and vehicles. Vantec makes a servo control that has been used successfully in this type of application and can be used for velocity or position closed loop control. We can also modify R/C transmitters for operation on special frequencies. contact: Rich Howe ------------------------------ [10.2.2] Shape memory materials Nickel-titanium alloys were first discovered by the Naval Ordinance Laboratory decades ago and the material was termed NiTinOL. These materials have the intriguing property that they provide actuation through cycling of current through the materials. It undergoes a 'phase change' exhibited as force and motion in the wire. Research into shape memory alloys, polymer gels and micromechanism devices is ongoing. Library browsing is a must to get recent information on these areas. ----- Mondotronics 524 San Anselmo Ave., #107 San Anselmo, CA 94960 tel: 415.455.9330 tel: 800.374.5764 fax: 415.455.9333 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 book. ----- Memry Technologies 57 Commerce Drive Brookfield, CT 06804 tel: 203.740.7311 fax: 203.775.2359 Memry sell a Mitsubishi developed polyurethane based Shape Memory Polymer. The material undergoes property changes in hardness, flexibility, elastic modulus and vapor permeability under temperature change. Medical applications is one focus for this material. ----- Milford Instruments United Kingdom tel: (0977) 683665 fax: (0977) 681465. Importers of the Parallax BASIC Stamps and Muscle Wires into the UK. ----- Bridgestone Corporation 3-2-25 Nishikubo, Musashino City, Tokyo 180. tel: 0422 54 5820 Rubbertuators: Rubber-based device that bends under applied pneumatic pressure. For a rotation unit typical rotation angles are 360,120,90 degrees for linear unit the contraction rate cannot exceed 20%. ----- TiNi Alloy Company 1621 Neptune Drive San Leandro, CA 94577 Sheets and wire of NiTinOL alloys. ------------------------------ [10.2.3] Stepper Motor Controller Wally Blackburn has provided a stepper motor controller design that easily connects to a parallel port: ftp://ft.bode.ee.ulaberta.you/pub/cookbook/unsorted/pc_stepr.zip This is the info file for the Opto-Isolated Stepper Motor Controller. While the info is oriented towards control via a PC parallel port, the controller can really interface to just about anything. The controller uses a UCN5804B controller IC from Allegro. This chip can control motors at up to 35V and 1.25A continuously. Peaks of up to 50V and 1.5A can be tolerated according to the data sheet. The inputs to the UCN5804B are optically isolated from the control circuitry. Input control voltages from 3 to 12V are acceptable. Diodes are used to protect the UCN5804B from negative transients from the motor windings. For efficient low-voltage operation, Schottky diodes are used. I have recently rewritten the instructions and included a simple parallel port control program in QuickBASIC. The Turbo C source is still included also. I still have kits for the controller. Wally Blackburn wrb@ccsitn.cb.att.com Here are some files on the operation and use of stepper motors from Steve Walz: ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew/ stepper.viz steppers.tut ibmlpt.faq tomlpt.faq ____________________________________________________________________________ [10.3] Imaging and Vision for Robotics [This is a new and incomplete section - need more information here] There are a wide variety of frame grabbers, computer vision systems and image processing tools available. For VME, Multibus, PC Bus, even SBUS and STD, there are a number of options for getting images into your computer. ----- Analogic Corporation 8 Centennial Drive Peabody, MA 01960 508 977-3000 Howard Cohen 508 977-6813 (fax) DASM-VIP Input: RGB, Y/C, NTSC, RS-170A, CCIR, RS-343A Memory: up to 16mb Bus: SCSI (2.5 Mb/s asynch, or 5 Mb/s synch.) Can be interfaced to PC/ISA via SCSI card. Processing: TMS320C31 33.3 MHz, 33.3 MFLOPs, 16.7 MIPS. Analogic also provides an 'ISA bus Floating-Point DSP Signal Processor' AP85c with a SCSI port and 5 TMS320C31 processors for 200 MFLOPs, and up to 16Mb of global DRAM and upt to 1Mb of local SRAM per processor. Other: RS-343A, CCIR, NTSC, or S-Video display output. User programmed RS-232 port for debugging, or whatever. An optional multi-tasking realtime DSP operating system written by Analogic is available. DASM-VIP with 16Mb costs $5995. The AP85c with 16Mb is $12,600. ----- Cognex Corp. One Vision Drive Natick, MA 01760-2059 508 650-3000 Joseph B. Considine - sales rep 508 650-3332 Offers a vision system mostly targeted for industry. Good selection of image processing routines. 5000 Series Input: Up to 4 cameras multiplexed, RS-170 or CCIR 12 bit grey scale Memory: up to 16Mb Bus: ISA Processing: 25Mhz 68030, 68882 Floating point coprocessor, 'VC-1' custom ASIC for 2D correlation, blob analysis, histograms, and various transforms, 'VC-2' custom ASIC for character recognition, line finding, edge detection, Gaussian and LaPlacian filtering. Other: Functions as VGA adapter eliminating the need for a separate video card -- allows display of images. Also provides RGB and monochrome video outputs. ----- Coreco Inc. 6969 Trans-Canada Highway Suite 113 St. Laurent Quebec Canada H4T 1V8 514 333-1301 800 361-4914 (USA) Ralph Tesson - sales rep 514 333-1388 (fax) A variety of ISA DSP-based bus frame grabbers and imaging cards for PCs. Inputs for many cards includes RGB, NTSC, RS-170, CCIR, or PAL 24 bit color, Y-C, RS-330, up to 16Mb VRAM and 64Mb DRAM. DSP-based boards. Outputs include external display support, composite video etc. Wide variety of convolutions and logical operations on images available including histogramming. ----- Current Technology Inc 97 Madbury Road Durham, NH 03824 603 868-2270 Michael Glover 603 838-1352 (fax) FF1 Frame Grabber Input: RS-170 or CCIR Memory: up to 1024x1024x16 bits image memory. Bus: Half-size XT slot. Processing: Analog Devices ADSP 2105 DSP (20 MOPs). Performs 3x3 convolution in 390 ms. Other: Library of C callable functions, and windows DLL. Very inexpensive -- $995. ----- Data Cube [real-time frame buffers and imaging analysis] [need address] ----- Data Translation 100 Locke Drive Marlboro, MA 01752 tel: (508) 481-3700 tel: (800) 525-8528 fax: (508) 481-8627 Offers 8 different models of general purpose monochome frame grabbers with various resolutions and memory sizes. ----- Dipix 1051 Baxter Road Ottawa, Ontario Canada K2C 3P1 613 596-4942 800 724-5929 ext 146 Paul Lamar - sales rep Dipix offers 3 general purpose frame-grabbers: Comet: captures RGB or 3 NTSC or PAL monochrome channels. 2Mb framestore and 24-bit RAMDAC for RGB display. Magic: captures RGB, RS-170, CCIR, NTSC, PAL, or Y/C. 3Mb framestore and EISA bus compatible IP-8: low-cost monochrome (RS-170A or CCIR) framegrabber with color display capability. XPG-1000 Power Grabber Input: RS-170, CCIR, digital, or programmable. Multiple input modules Memory: up to 256Mb of image memory, 512Kb cache Bus: ISA/VL and PCI bus Processing: 50 Mhz TMS320C40 DSP from TI (which is programmable in C) and 'Power Processing Module' Other: Functions as SVGA adapter eliminating the need for a separate video card -- allows display of images. Also provides RGB and XPG-360F Power Grabber Input: 4 analog or one 8 or 16-bit digital input, programmable, or RS-170, RS-330, CCIR Memory: up to 80Mb Bus: ISA/VL Processing: TMS320C30 DSP from TI (which is programmable in C). DT-Connect bus. Other: Realtime display available ----- ImageNation Corporation P.O. Box 276 Beaverton, OR 97075 tel: (503) 641-7408 tel: (800) 366-9131 fax: (503) 643-2458 Cortex I Video Frame Grabber features half-slot card, real time imaging with display output, 8 bit, RS-170, CCIR formats available, Binary, TIFF file formats, EISA & STD bus products available, single 512 x 484 or four 256 x 242 images ----- Imaging Technology Inc. 55 Middlesex Turnpike Bedford, MA 01730-1421 617 275-2700 217 275-9590 (fax) Offers a modular vision system that can be taylored for the application. Both VME and PC ISA/VL-bus platforms are supported. It seems likely, however, that when all the required modules are selected, the system will have a fairly large pricetag. A system consists of an 'image manager' or IML which is either a VME or PC ISA/VL-bus compatible board. It contains some framstore memory and a slot for the 'acquisition module'. For the PC version, the IML can be used as the system VGA adapter, eliminating the need for a separate display card or module. To add one of the many available computational modules, the 'Computational Module Controller' or CML must be purchased, which also plugs onto (sort of) the IML. The CML has slots for either one or two plug-on computational modules. So, as you can see, it adds up quick. About $23k for a system with 2 C31 DSP computational modules. Device drivers are available for DOS/Windows, VxWorks, OS-9, and Solaris. There are 4 available acquisition modules: Variable Scan: interfaces to RS-170 and CCIR cameras Fast Analog Acquisition: interfaces to high frame rate analog cameras Color Acquisition: interfaces to NTSC, PAL, RGB or multiple RS-170/CCIR cameras. One interesting feature of this module is the ability to program your own color space. Otherwise, it supports HSI, YUV, YIQ and YCrCb color spaces. Digital Acquistion: interfaces to RS-422 or TTL video sources. There are 5 available computational modules: Convolver/Arithmetic Logic Unit (CM-CLU): Accelerates convolution. e.g. a 4x4 convolution on an 8-bit 512x512 image takes 7.5 ms. Programmable Accelerator (CM-PA): Contains a TMS320C31 DSP from TI (which can be programmed in C), 4Mb image memory and 1Mb of EEPROM. Histogram/Feature Extraction Processor (CM-HF): Performs realtime histograms and feature detection. Median and Morphological Processor (CM-MMP): performs morphological filtering, erosion, and dilation. Binary Correlator (CM-BC): Performs high-speed template matching and binary morphology. ----- Mandex Technology, Inc. 1191 Chicago Road Troy, MI 48083 tel: 810.585.1165 fax: 810.585.3745 contact: M. Gupte SMART EYE I: DSP-based real-time image processing system designed specifically for mobile and fixed base robotics systems. Stand-alone image processing system on a single board. Low power consumption, small form factor, and low weight. The single board system includes: four monochrome camera inputs, video digitizer (gain and offset software adjustable), input look-up table, two frame grabbers, additional two video buffers, color mappable image display buffer, color mappable graphics overlay buffer, RGB display driver, serial communications port, and application program RAM and EPROM. Program code can be burned into EPROM. Wide variety of language and development platform support. Additional hardware expansion to provide addtional I/O capabilities. ----- Matrox International Corp. 1055 St. Regis Blvd. Dorval Quebec, Canada H9P 2T4 514 685-2630 800 361-4903 Spiro Plagakis - sales rep 514 685-2853 (fax) The IMAGE series consists of the following mutually compatible hardware: IMAGE-1280 Baseboard consists of a TMS34020 GSP, TMS34082 FPU, 4Mb of DRAM, custom ASICS for fast data transfer, and a high resolution RGB display driver. IMAGE-ASD is a monochrome acquisition card that plugs into the ISA bus. IMAGE-CLD is a color acquisition card that does realtime RGB to HSI conversion and also plugs into the ISA bus. IMAGE-RTP performs a whole slew of processing functions using a bunch of ASICS (e.g. histograms, LaPlacians, morphologies, logical operators, erosion, dilation, centroids, pattern matching, more) IMAGE-FPU accelerates large kernel convolutions and FFTs Matrox also offers an extensive image processing library and utilities that run under Windows. ----- Sharp Electronics 16841 Armstrong Ave. Irvine, CA 92714 714 261-6224 800 562-7427 714 261-9321 (fax) The basic system that Sharp offers is the GPB-1 Input: 4 multiplexed RS-170 inputs 8 bit greyscale. Optional 'Incard' allows 3 parallel camera inputs, or one RGB input, but occupies another ISA slot. Memory: 12 512x512x8 bit framestores. Bus: ISA Processing: High-speed ASICS which perform convolution, histogram analysis, feature extraction, connectivity analysis, more. These operations all take place at 40 ns/pixel. Thus, for example, a 3x3 convolution takes 12 ms for a 512x512x8 bit image. Other processing boards (see below) are available and external interfaces are provided for the addition of a separate Alacron i860 card with 80 Mflops of performance (available 2/95). Other: VGA output for displaying images. An optional 'Single monitor adapter' acts as the system VGA adapter. There are 3 function-specific computational cards that plug into the GPB-1: Alignment card: performs normalized correlation with model data. Auxlut card: has dual 64k 16 bit input 8 bit output lookup tables. A possible application would be RGB to HSI conversion. Auxwarp Card: 'a pixel re-sampler that may be used to modify the geometric shape of an object.' Memory Mapping: Maps large amounts of image data to ISA bus and allows random access of regions of interest, say. Also it allows new GPB-1 commands to be loaded in and ready to go while the GPB-1 is busy with its current command. Occupies a separate ISA slot. Sharp also has available a Windows algorithm development tool which allows the user to develop algorithms using interpreted scripts -- thus eliminating the compiling step. The scripts can then be converted to C-code and compiled, if appropriate. Over 250 C-callable image processing functions are provided. The basic GPB-1 system costs $11,000. A system with an Incard, and Auxlut runs around $20,000. ----- Teleos Research 576 Middlefield Road Palo Alto, CA 94301, USA Tel: 415/328-8800 Fax: 415/328-8880 E-mail: info@teleos.com URL: http://teleos.com/ Advanced Vision Platform, AVP-100 provides: - stereo range measurements - motion measurements - 3D model-based object tracking - video frame rate performance AVP-100 consists of a video processing unit containing an embedded processor, the new PRISM-4 accelerator board, and interface modules. To use the system, all that is required is a camera and a host processor with an Ethernet interface. Connect to http://teleos.com/">http://teleos.com/ for more information or send e-mail to info@teleos.com with the subject 'AVP-100'. TIM-40 PC-based Vision Systems ------------------------------ There are about a handful of companies that support TIM-40 module platforms. (TIM-40 is a specification developed by TI and industry to incorporate the TMS320C40 into a flexible, modular architecture. A single TIM-40 module is 2.5" x 4.2".) The C40 is often referred to as a 'next generation transputer' because of its six 20Mb per sec. comports which make connecting multiple C40s together very easy. The speed at which data can be exchanged makes it well suited for multiprocessor image processing. A system consists of a computer host-specific motherboard (that the TIM-40 modules plug into) and the appropriate TIM-40 modules. All companies listed below support both VME and PC/ISA daughter boards, however, only the PC/ISA boards are described. Since these systems typically consist of more than one processor, development software that supports multiple processors would be nice. 3L Parallel C is an ANSI C compiler that allows you to write multitasked software and divide the tasks between the available processors at compile time. It's built ontop of the TI C compiler which is known for its optimizing and efficient instruction scheduling. Data is sent between arbitrary tasks (which may reside on separate processors) by sending C structures. Thus, the development environment is comfortable and intuitive. All companies listed offer 3L Parallel C. ----- Transtech Parallel Systems Corp. 20 Thornwood Drive Ithaca, NY 14850-1263 607 257-6502 Andy Stevens - sales rep 607 257-2980 (fax) TIM-40 PC/AT motherboard: 4 TIM-40 sites. Communication between one TIM-40 slot and PC takes place through 1K FIFO buffer. JTAG support for debugging. RGB/Composite framegrabber module: occupies 2 TIM-40 slots and accepts RS-170 RS-330, CCIR, NTSC, PAL, Y/C or RGB. Has an onboard 50Mhz TMS320C40 (50 MFLOPs). 3Mb of VRAM and up to 4Mb of DRAM is available. Flexible Memory TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, has onboard 50 Mhz TMS320C40s (50 MFLOPs) and up to 4Mb of DRAM. Dual C40 TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, has 2 onboard 50 Mhz TMS320C40 (100 MFLOPs) and 512k SRAM per processor. Display TIM-40: allows display of RGB images. ----- Spectrum Signal Processing Inc. 8525 Baxter Place, 100 Production Court Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 4V7 604 421-5422 604 421-1764 (fax) 508 366-7355 Mark Coutour 800 232 1842 Paul DeBruyn 800 663-8986 QPC40 Motherboard: 4 TIM-40 sites. Communication between any of the 4 TIM-40 slots and the PC takes place through 2 16 bit ISA bus locations (one for transmit, one for receive) per TIM-40 slot. JTAG support for debugging. RGB/Composite framegrabber module: occupies 2 TIM-40 slots and accepts RS-170 or RGB. Has an onboard 50Mhz TMS320C40 (50 MFLOPs) and a RAMDAC for displaying RGB images. 32kb of EEPROM, 512kb of SRAM, and up to 16Mb of DRAM is available. Currently, (11/94) this module is not supported by 3L Parallel C, nor does it have framegrab software source available. Several single C40 TIM-40 modules are offered that differ in memory models -- some have EEPROM for boostrapping, or up to 8Mb of DRAM offered on a single TIM-40, or up to 65Mb od DRAM on a double TIM-40. Dual C40 TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, has 2 onboard 50 Mhz TMS320C40 (100 MFLOPs) and 512k SRAM per processor. Spectrum also offers ILIB -- an image processing library with routines to perform convolution, LaPlacians, high and lowpass filtering, more. ----- Traquair Data Systems Inc Tower Building, 112 Prospect St. Ithaca, NY 14851 607 272 4417 Steve Bradshaw 697 272 6211 (fax) HEPC2 Motherboard: 4 TIM-40 Sites. Communication between one TIM-40 slot and the PC host takes place through 2 16 bit ISA locations (one for transmit, one for receive). JTAG support for debugging. CFG-RGB framegrabber module: occupies 2 TIM-40 slots and accepts RS-170 or RGB. Has an onboard 50Mhz TMS320C40 (50 MFLOPs). 1Mb of VRAM framestore and 4Mb of DRAM memory onboard. Frame grab software and source is provided. VIPTIM convolution accelerator: occupies 2 TIM-40 slots. Contains a 50MHz TMS320C40 and ASICs that can convolve at 12.5 million pixels per sec. with kernels up to 7x6 or 14x3. 3, 1Mb VRAM framestores and 4Mb DRAM memory onboard. HETwin dual C40 TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, has 2 onboard 50 Mhz TMS320C40s (100 MFLOPs) and 512kb SRAM per processor. Similar model with 2 C44s and 1Mb SRAM per processor will be available early 95. HEQUAD quad C44 TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, and has 4 onboard TMS320C40s (200 MFLOPs) and 512kb SRAM per processor. occupies 1 TIM Traquair also offers the following software: EYELIB: image processing library (different than ILIB (?)) that performs convolution, histograms, logical operations, more. CDSOFT: a utility that works with 3L Parallel C that allows the display of RGB image data to the PC host's VGA monitor in less than realtime. Mathlib: a math library accelerator for the C40 that in many cases more than doubles the speed of some floating point calculations (e.g. sin). Matlab interface: allows an arbritrary C40 processor to execute functions in Matlab (that's running on the PC host). ------------------------------ [10.4] Wireless Communication Tethers for supplying power and communication are sometimes impractical and at best an annoyance. Digital communication via RF and IR links is becoming cheaper and a number of companies are providing off-the-shelf solutions. For basic serial line communication a wide variety of radio modems are available that use fixed frequencies or spread spectrum techniques. In many cases they are also transparent. That is, you plug them directly into serial ports on the robot and off-board computing directly. Higher bandwidths such as Ethernet or high speed synchronous serial require different hardware. However, with high speed serial communication you may even be able to SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocal) or PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) instead of using a LAN-based device. This area of communication is changing very quickly and new products and companies are appearing every day. [10.4.1] RF Modems [10.4.1] RF Video [10.4.2] RF Ethernet See also a nice list at: [LIST IS NO LONGER THERE - AWAITING NEW SITE] ftp://csd4.csd.uwm.edu/pub/Portables/Wireless/wireless-modems or gopher://csd4.csd.uwm.edu [Maintained by David Kent ] ------------------------------ [10.4.1] RF Modems Comrad, Communications Research and Development Corporation 7210 Georgetown Road, Suite 300 Indianapolis, IN 46268 tel: 317.290.9107 fax: 317.291.3093 Comrad CCL901-DP 900 MHz Wireless Data Link. 500 meter range can be extended through additional transponders. RS232 - 38Kbaud. Battery pack available for portable applications. Two transceiver units, software, power adapter, serial cables for $449.95. Modems. Two channels: 1200-38,400 baud, 100m range, 20m range through two walls. Easy to set up. Cylink 310 N. Mary Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94086 tel: 408.735.5800 tel: 800.533.3958 fax: 408.735.6643 AirLink - series of highspeed synch or async modems to 256kb/s. Interfaces include V.11, RS-232, EIA-530. Spread spectrum device operating in 902-928Mhz range. GRE America, Belmont, CA, tel: 800.233.5973 GINA 6000, spread spectrum, smart wireless modem, up to 128 Kbps, 902MHz, 1 watt Hamtronics, Inc. 65-D Moul Rd. Hilton, NY 14468-9535 tel: 716.392.9430 fax: 716.392.9420 1200 and 9600 baud units/modules for a few hundred dollars. Micrilor Inc 17 Lakeside Park, Wakefield, MA 01880 tel: 617.246.0130 fax: 617.246.0157 RS-232, T1221 and R1221 transmitters. 902-928MHz, no FCC license required. Data rates to 64k-baud. >100m range. Power 35mA@3VDC, Antenna is 60cm RG174 coax. Price: $550 ea. Monicor Electronics Fort Lauderdale, FL tel: 305.979.1907 fax: 305.979.2611 System 310 two-card OEM set for use in palmtops and handheld computing. System 310 board set transmits at 1mW to 2W for a range of 3 to 3km range. Priced at $660 in quantity. Model IC-15-48 - rugged RS232 4800 baud modem. Can network a number of these portables. $1630. Motorola Radio-Telephone Systems Group Arlington Heights, ILL tel: 708.632.5000 AltairNet: 18GHz-based system design for wireless, indoors networking. The boxes are fairly large, about the size of a shoebox, and are relocatable but not portable. Problem is that is that they really aren't for mobile applications. The reception area has holes like swiss cheese. Not a problem with some fine adjustment in stationary applications but a big problem for mobile devices. Pacific Crest Corporation 1190 Miraloma ay, Suite W Sunnyvale, CA 94086-4607 tel: 408.730.5789 tel: 800.795.1001 fax: 408.730.5640 DDR-96 and RDDR-96 Radio modems. To 9600 baud. 2W. Point-to-point communcations. Uses standard RS-232 9pin DB style connectors. Can also be used in packet switching networks. Forward error correction techniques and PLL synchronization. The RDDR is a ruggedized version. Cost is about $1100 and $1230 respectively. FCC license required. Proxim, Inc. Mountain View, CA, tel: 800-229-1630 Proxlink XR, spread spectrum, smart wireless modem, up to 256 Kbps, 902MHz, 500mW, 800 ft range. ---- Other with little information: NCR sells the WaveLAN, which has about a 1Mbit/sec data rate. Not exactly "ethernet", but interfaceable to most networks using MS-DOS boxes as routers. Tetherlink in California is experimenting with a 2Mbit/sec cellular system that is designed for roving portables. [Need address] O'Neil provides bidirectional 19.2Kps RS-232 links that you can run a terminal emulator or SLIP over, range about 100 ft. [need addresses] A number of articles have also been posted about the modification of inexpensive walkie-talkies for wireless communication. Typical bandwidths are limited to about 1200 baud. This may be sufficient for simple command-level control of a mobile mechanism. See Archives. ------------------------------ [10.4.1] RF Video For regular frame rate video over relatively short distances it's hard to beat the price and availability of several consumer products in the $100 range. Check local stores or place like the Sharper Image (Gemini Rabbit is one of the companies making these units) Microwave systems require line-of-site communication, licensing, and are expensive. ------------------------------ [10.4.2] RF Ethernet There are some related articles in the Feb/93 Byte Magazine. Proxim Inc. 295 North Barnardo Ave. Mountain View, CA 94043 tel: 415.960.1630 fax: 415.964.5181 A product announcement for wireless LAN board on p.68 in May/92 Byte Magazine Price: $495 Range: 800 ft. Data Rate: 242 Kbps Channels: 3 Telesystems SLW 85 Scarsdale Road, Suite 201 Don Mills, Ontario, Canada ARLAN radio LAN We've used ARLAN with CMU's Ambler work. It's an ethernet bridge and it smart about routing traffic across the repeater. The 620 is about $5K. Can be used without a license in the US. (spread spectrum) 6 miles range. ------------------------------ [10.5] Robot Parts: Suppliers and Sources Many inquiries on comp.robotics are of the form: Where can I find X? where X might be motors, gears, fasteners, connectors etc. The following companies carry a wide selection of electronics and mechanical parts. With the possible exception of computing these companies should have all you need to build robot mechanisms. Also see the file regularly posted to sci.electronics and a number of the radio newsgroups: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/sci.electronics/My_List_of_Mail_Order_Electronics_Companies All Electronics Corp. P.O. Box 567 Van Nuys, CA 91408 tel: 800.826.5432 Electronics parts. Allied Devices 2365 Milburn Avenue, PO Box 502 Bladwin, NY 11510 tel: 516.223.9100 fax: 516.223.9172 Standard precision mechanical components American Science and Surplus 3605 Howard St. Skokie, IL 60076 tel: 708.982.0870 fax: 800.934.0722 C&H Sales 2176 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA tel: 818.796.2628 tel: 800.325.9465 Surplus parts. Motors etc. Digi-Key Corp. 701 Brooks Avenue South P.O. Box 677 Thief River Falls, MN 56701-0677 tel: 800.344.4539 Distributor of electronics components and semiconductors. Edmund Scientific 101 E. Gloucester Pike Barrington, NJ 08007-1380 tel: 609.573.6250 order tel: 609.573.6260 customer service Lots of optics, science and educational items. A little pricey but nice selection. Edmund also has a Robotic Technology Curriculum with lessons and tests featuring the Movit robots. Curriculum is $65. Electronic Goldmine PO Box 5408 Scottsdale, AZ 85261 tel: 602.451.7454 Fascinating Electronics P.O. Box 126 Beaverton, OR 97075 tel: 503.292.5233 Experimenter's kits and other electronics. Graymark Box 5020 Santa Ana, CA 92704 tel: 800.854.7393 Robot and electonics kits, tools and instruments. Herbach and Rademan Co. 18 Canal St. P.O. Box 122 Bristol, PA 19007-0122 tel: 800.848.8001 (orders) tel: 215.788.5583 (office) fax: 215.788.9577 (fax) Electro-mechanical "surplus" parts, equipment and insturments. JDR Microdevices 1850 South 10th st San Jose, CA 95112-9941 tel: 408.559.1200, 800.538.5000 fax: 800.538.5005 bbs: 408.494.1430 Surplus and lots of electronic components including cameras and some sensors. Some recent components have included: TV transmitter (part # RK-TV6, $19.95 US) transmits composite video + audio to any television set withing 600' on one of channels 2 - 6. Runs on 12VDC. Microwave doppler radar sensor. Claims to detect a person or animal up to 12' away (part number RK-MD3, $19.95 w/o case. Claims to come with complete circuit theory and instructions. Marlin P. Jones tel: 407.848.8236 Lots of neat surplus stuff. McMaster-Carr Supply Company PO box 440 New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0440 tel: 908.329.3200 fax: 908.329.3772 An amazing catalog of hundreds of thousands of parts. Lots of mechanical things but not much for electronics or computing. MECI tel: 800.344.4465 Mendelson Electronics Co., Inc tel: 800.422.3525 Newark Electronics 500 N. Pulaski St. Chicago, IL 60624-1019 tel: 312.784.5100 (check locally) Major distributor of electronics components and equipment (1200+ pages) with branches throughout the US. Nordex 50 Newton Road Danbury, CT 06810-6216 tel: 203.792.9050 Gears, cams, universals etc. PIC Design PO Box 1004 Benson Road Middlebury, CT 06762-1004 tel: 800.243.6125 (except CT) tel: 203.758.8272 Bearings, clutches, brakes, couplings, tools, belts, pulleys, gears etc. Pure Unobtainium [GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!!] 13109 Old Creedmoor Road, Raleigh, NC 27613-7421 tel: 919.676.4525 net: 74065,1363@compuserve.com All kinds of unusual and hard-to-find parts. I2C8 bus parts, stepper motor drivers, microcontrollers, digital power drivers, isolators, muxes, switching regulators, IR remote control, etc etc. No credit cards. Radio Shack Electronic parts and kits. Local retail stores in just about every city) SECS, Inc. 520 Homestead Avenue Mt. Vernon, NY 10550 tel: 914.667.5600 Gears and gear assemblies, belt drives, couplings, bearings, small parts. Seitz Box 1398 Torrington, CT 06790 tel: 203.243.5115 Drive components, gears etc. Servo Systems 115 Main Road PO Box 97 Montville, NJ 07045-9299 tel: 201.335.1007 fax: 201.335.1661 Surplus pieces and prices, motors, actuators, geardrives, controllers, robots, encoders, transducers, amplifiers. Small Parts Inc. 6891 NE Third Ave PO Box 381966 Miami, FL 33238-1966 tel: 305.557.8222 fax: 305.751.6217 Lots of neat small supplies including: materials, metal stock, fasteners, tools etc. This company is the "misc parts" supplier to the "U.S. FIRST" competetion where corporations and HS Students form partnerships to build competing robots like Dr Flowers' ME class at MIT. Stock Drive Products 2101 Jericho Turnpike Bobx 5416 New Hyde Park, NY 11042-5416 tel: 516.328.3300 fax: 516.326.8827 Great set of handbooks of thousands of components. Winfred M. Berg 499 Ocean Ave., East Rockaway, LI, NY 11518 tel: 516.599.5010 Precision Mechanical Components Any technical library should have catalogs from the larger distributors. These include McMaster-Carr, Grainger, Allied, Newark, etc. ____________________________________________________________________________ End of Part4.-- 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