Biorobotics - Build Your
Own Robotic Air Muscle Actuator
An air muscle is a simple pneumatic
device developed in the 1950's by J.L. McKibben. Like biological muscles,
air muscles contract when activated. Robotists find it interesting that air
muscles provide a reasonable working copy of biological muscles. So much so
that researchers can use a human skeleton with air muscles attached to the
skeleton at primary biological muscle locations to study biomechanics and
low level neural properties of biological muscles.
Read More...
Robot - From Wikipedia
A robot is an electro-mechanical device
that can perform autonomous or preprogrammed tasks. A robot may act under
the direct control of a human (eg. the robotic arm of the space shuttle) or
autonomously under the control of a programmed computer. Robots may be used
to perform tasks that are too dangerous or difficult for humans to implement
directly (e.g. nuclear waste clean up) or may be used to automate repetitive
tasks that can be performed with more precision by a robot than by the
employment of a human (e.g. automobile production.)
Read More...
Small Robot Motion Control: The Dilberts
This paper describes the
servo and motion control techniques used in my robots
Dilbert and
Dilbert II. Both robots use small DC permanent magnet motors and some
sort of encoder scheme that allows the control programs to measure, in
absolute terms, how much each motor shaft turns.
Read More...
Availability, reliability, flexibility and comprehensive
diagnostics are the most significant demands placed upon safety systems
today. Increasing payloads, work ranges and cycle times of robotic processes
necessitate a different approach to safety, particularly other than that
offered by conventional safety relays and fencing. The development of
fieldbus for safety-related applications and new International and European
Standards have fundamentally changed the manner in which safety is now being
engineered in the plant. BMW are the first to directly integrate robotic
safety functions using a safety-related fieldbus.
Read More...
How
Robots are Used in the Composites Industry
Increasing costs and
environmental regulations have forced composites manufacturers to consider
robotic automation for the application of fiberglass chop and gel. As
noted in the accompanying case study, robotic automation can be used to
apply spray chop and gel to anything from chicken coop fan housings to boats
and bathtubs. In a recent process examination, robots provided several
key benefits over manual application methods
Read More...
Open
source robotics toolkits
Building a robot involves skills from
many disciplines, including embedded firmware and hardware design, sensor
selection, controls systems design, and mechanical design. But simulation
environments can provide a virtual arena for testing, measuring, and
visualizing robotics algorithms without the high cost (and time) of
development. This article introduces you to some of the open source robotics
toolkits for Linux®, demonstrates their capabilities, and helps you decide
which is best for you.
Read More...
Robot
catcher grabs high speed projectiles
If robots are to inherit the
Earth, then they should at least be able to catch. So say the researchers
behind a bot that can match the most skilled human baseball player faced
with a hurtling ball. The robotic catcher, developed by scientists at the
University of Tokyo, Japan, can comfortably grab a ball careering through
the air at 300 kilometres per hour, or 83 metres per second, its creators
say. And, of course, the robot never gets tired of doing so.
Read More...
