Robotics Articles

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Microsoft Robotics Studio Now Available to Provide Common Development Platform
Among the many remarkable innovations emerging out of the robotics industry, from surveillance robots that can defuse roadside bombs to robotic arms that perform surgeries, one persistent challenge has been the lack of a common development platform that would allow developers to easily create robotic applications for varied hardware platforms. Today, Microsoft Corp. is closing this gap with the release of Microsoft^® Robotics Studio, a new Windows^®-based development environment for creating robotic software for a wide variety of hardware platforms. Microsoft also introduced a new third-party partner program featuring Microsoft Robotics Studio-enabled applications, services and robots from independent software vendors, service providers, hardware component vendors and robot manufacturers. Already more than 30 third-party companies have pledged support for the new robotics development and runtime platform. Read more...

Microsoft previews robotics development platform
Microsoft has released a "community technology preview" (CTP) of a new Windows-based environment aimed at helping academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers create robotic applications targeting a wide variety of robotic platforms. The company, along with several partners, demonstrated working models based on Robotics Studio at the RoboBusiness conference this week. Microsoft describes Robotics Studio as an "end-to-end robotics development platform" that includes a visual programming tool for creating and debugging robotic applications. Developers can also simulate robotic applications using realistic 3-D models based on the PhysX engine from Ageia, which Microsoft has licensed. Read more...

Robotics Development Kit
The Robotics Development Kit offers an introduction into the world of robots for both beginners and advanced robot enthusiasts. A variety of devices are provided because it is important for every robot to be able to interact with its environment. The devices allow the robot to see, sense magnetic fields, speak, accept external commands, and move. All of these devices make it fit for robot sumo competition. The exercise booklet included in the kit will quickly teach you how to use the embedded programming tools and get you on your way to developing applications for the robot. Each device has its own chapter, describing how to operate and use its drivers. Bonus chapters on Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) and advanced project ideas are included. The electronic compass and text-to-speech converter are unique to the CCS Robotics Kit. The compass allows the robot to move freely and still know its heading and location. The text-to-speech converter provides a more personal way to interact with people. Read more...

Sony opens robot architecture to aid development
Sony Corp. has promised to disclose the software specifications of its Open-R Architecture for Aibo robots to provide an open development environment for robotics research, making Aibo the hardware platform. The Open-R Software Development Kit (SDK) will be available at Sony's Aibo Web site starting June 3, and will be offered free of charge on condition that the results be used only for non-commercial purposes. Sony will continue to request a license contract for those who intend to sell commercial software based on the Open-R architecture. Read more...

Industrial robots are reshaping manufacturing
It would be tough to find a company seemingly more evocative of 20th-century, "old economy" America than Allied-Locke Industries. The family-owned-and-run manufacturing firm is headquartered about 100 miles due west of Chicago in rural Dixon, Ill.--the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan. It sits right there on Corregidor Road, named after the Philippines island fortress where outnumbered American forces fiercely resisted the invading Japanese in the early months of World War II. No one walking onto Allied-Locke's low-light, high-decibel factory floor is going to mistake the place for the clean room at a semiconductor manufacturing plant. Allied's operations appear about as unglamorous and low tech as one might expect at a maker of chains and sprockets--except, that is, for a smattering of robots. Read more...

ROBOTICS AND COMPUTER-INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING
The emphasis of the journal Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing is on disseminating the application of research to the development of new or improved industrially-relevant manufacturing technologies, equipment, and strategies. Preference is given to papers describing research whose initial feasibility has been demonstrated either in a real manufacturing enterprise or experimentally in a laboratory. Case-studies describing technology transfer and deployment from research institutions to industry or the implementation and scale-up of new technologies in industry, as well as review papers on topical issues in manufacturing, are equally encouraged. Read more...

Industrial Robot Products
For two decades, Adept Technology has been the leading innovator of industrial robots for high speed manufacturing, and vision-guided industrial robotics. In 1984, Adept introduced the AdeptOne industrial robot, the first direct-drive, high-speed SCARA robot. Soon after, Adept pioneered vision guidance for industrial robots and now has thousands of vision-guided industrial robotic systems installed worldwide performing vision-guided assembly, part feeding and packaging applications. Today, Adept's broad industrial robot family includes high-speed SCARA robots, six-axis articulated robots, and XYZ linear modules. Read more...