HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: doctor@tardis.arc.nasa.gov (Terry Fong)
Subject: Re: GPS & Digital Compass vendors?
Keywords: DGPS, navigation
Reply-To: terry@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 00:13:49 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.193224.12784@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, vadim@CS.Stanford.EDU (Vadim Akselrod) writes:
|> I'm planning to incorporate a Global Positioning System and a Digital
|> Compass into a wheeled robot for improved navigation.  If anyone is familiar
|> with vendors that market either a GPS or such a compass, I would love to
|> hear about it!  Thanks in advance!

For GPS-based navigation, it really depends on how much you are
willing to spend for accuracy. If you can live with GPS without SA
(i.e., approx. 25 meters), then a number of manufacturers carry
"cheap" units. These units are being sold primarily to the recreational
aviation and marine markets by Trimble, Navstar, Maganox, etc. A good
source for vendors is "GPS World" magazine. 

If you want better accuracy than 25 meters, you can setup a fairly
cheap differential GPS system which will give you around 2 meter (or less)
accuracy. Of course, you need to setup a GPS base station which can
broadcast DGPS corrections to the vehicle (typically done with low
power UHF/VHF radios). The best (i.e., "cheapest") solution for mobile
vehicles is:

	Base Station:	Navstar XR4-G   (approx. $2500)
	Remote Station:	Trimble Placer GPS 300 (approx. $1250)
	UHF/VHF radios: approx. $2000

Of course, you can get better than 25 meter accuracy with regular GPS
(i.e., surveyors routinely get centimeter accuracy), if you are
willing to sit a position and wait a while. For real-time (i.e. near 1
Hz) updates, however, you really need DGPS.

As for digital compasses, well, I've been looking... If anyone has
pointers to some, I'd love to hear about them! So far, the only thing
I've found is the KVH C100 "Compass Engine" (basically a flux-gate
compass with some electronics). It costs approx. $700 and will give
0.5 degree heading accuracy.

-Terry
NASA Ames Research Center

-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
Q:"What do you do with your life?"   | Terry Fong <terry@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>
A:"Nothing. But I do it terribly     | NASA Ames, M/S 269-3, Moffett Field, CA
   well!" - John Drake (Secret Agent)| (415) 604-6063 voice, 604-4036 fax
From: sharkey@robots.ox.ac.uk (Paul Sharkey)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Head/Eye Trackers to Slave Cameras
Date: 1 Oct 92 08:51:50 GMT
Organization: Robotics Research Group, Engineering Science Dept, Oxford, UK.
Originator: sharkey@othello.robots


Does anyone have info on tracking of head and eye movements (ie
products/sensors/methods)?

Furthermore has anyone used such head/eye trackers to slave camera(s)
on pan/tilt mechanisms?

Thanks

Paul.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Paul M Sharkey                   Office:  +44 (0)865 273 150   
Reactive Vision Laboratory          Lab:     +44 (0)865 273 168
Robotics Research Group             Fax:     +44 (0)865 273 908
Dept Engineering Science  
Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PJ          Email:   sharkey@uk.ac.ox.robots

 
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: greyham@research.canon.oz.au (Graham Stoney)
Subject: Re: gcc cross compiler for the 6811?
Organization: Canon Information Systems Research Australia
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 12:31:41 GMT

doug@cc.gatech.edu (Doug MacKenzie) writes:
>How about using one of the Motorola 6833x micro-controllers and avoid the
>whole 6811 compiler problem completely?  The new 68333 is a 68332 with
>64K bytes of EEPROM, 4K battery backed ram & 8 channel 10bit A/D unit,
>all on one chip.  In march, samples were $199, I assume the price is less
>now.

>The best thing is the family runs 68020 code directly, so you can use the
>GCC without modifications.  Plus, the 6833x's are able to run multiple
>PWM outputs (I think 8?) with on-chip timer coprocessor without impacting
		      ^^ - 68332 gives you 16.
>the CPU-32's performance.  This allows driving Futaba actuators directly.

I used a 68332 in a mobile robot a team of us built; we had timer channels to
spare and all the timing was done in the processor. That included all the
timing for ultrasonic sensors, infrared sensors, a digital compass and two
PWM motor drives. Heaps of grunt too, and the GNU compiler works a beaut.

regs,
Graham
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: monte@spider.wri.com (Monte Seyer)
Subject: programming the miniboard
Summary: compact 6811 code tips?
Keywords: compact code 6811 miniboard
Organization: Wolfram Research, Inc.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 16:26:41 GMT

I have been experimenting with writing C code for the miniboard
using the Micro-C 6811 developers special.
I haven't much experience writing code for small systems or in assembly.

I have a few questions regarding programming the 6811/miniboard:

With 2k memory, is coding in assembly pretty much required? 
When using the libraries from Fred Martin, can the libraries
be configured so that portions not being used are eliminated?
Are any special cc11 flags useful?
Any caveats on what constructs to avoid?
Any suggestions/tricks for writing compact C/assembly code for 6811?
Suggestions for books on the above topic?

As an aside, what sorts of tasks are you planning for your miniboard?
What about two or more miniboards working together?

Thanks,

Monte Seyer
monte@wri.com
From: 72417.1514@CompuServe.COM (taylor corey)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: IRCC
Date: 28 Sep 92 19:07:08 GMT

Dinesh Atreya from Texas A&M writes:
 
>We (Texas A&M University Robotics group) are interested in
>finding information about vendors supplying Instrumented
>RCC's. These are regular RCC's (Remote Compliance Centers)
>which provide a facility of reading the deflections in the
>RCC to compute the kinematic transformations of the
>end effector.
>
>In case anybody has any information about such (similar)
>devices, please post on net or send an email to
>                   Dinesh S. Atreya
>          email address: dinesh@cs.tamu.edu
>
>THANK YOU
>
>dinesh
 
The only place I heard of building IRCCs (instrumented RCC) was Draper Labs
up in MASS. in MIT country (near MIT).  Draper does not sell their IRCC
commercially but you still might be able to get one.  I do not know of anyone
who commercially sells IRCCs.  Some people have used a force/torque sensor
combined with a regular RCC successfully.  The advantage to using a IRCC is
that the shear pad performance can measured over time and the geometry is
better (lower stack height).  My guess is that an F/T sensor would have
better resolution and of course, the f/t sensor could be used for other
applications.
 
--Taylor Corey (formerly w/Lord Corp)
From: ssingh@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Sanjiv Singh)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Inverse Kinematics for T3 wanted
Date: 1 Oct 92 15:32:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: okra.SSINGH.92Oct1103231
Reply-To: ssingh@ri.cmu.edu (Sanjiv Singh)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Field Robotics Center, CMU


I am looking for the inverse kinematics of the hydraulic (not
electric) T3 robot made by Cincinnatti Milacron.  The company
is no longer in business, and though ABB has taken over some
of the service contracts, there doesnt seem to be anybody there
who I could talk to about Kinematics.

					 -Sanjiv
					  ssingh@cmu.edu
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sanjiv Singh                                    ssingh@ri.cmu.edu
Field Robotics Center                           (412) 268-5895
Carnegie Mellon University
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dmiller@dg.UUCP (David Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Stiquito nervous system?
Date: 29 Sep 92 21:06:18 GMT
Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC

Actually, experimentation is being done at Boston University, in something
very similar to this.  They are building a chip with small actuated legs,
which can be moved by the logic on the chip. The whole thing is ~1cm on a side.
(It looks something like a small ant from what I've heard.)

Anyone with more info care to comment?
From: lazzaro@boom.CS.Berkeley.EDU (John Lazzaro)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Wanted: A few good roboticists
Date: 26 Sep 1992 22:19:10 GMT
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: boom.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <mt!psja.nagle@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes:
>huber@sinaloa.jsc.nasa.gov (Eric Huber) writes:
>>Position Title: Member Technical Staff
>>Location: near Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 
>
>     It's sad seeing America's robotics expertise thrown away on
>one-of-a-kind systems like this.  We'll never catch up with Japan that way.
>

I think space projects can push the state of the art in directions not
explored by more down-to-earth applications, and in this sense the
expertise is not thrown away at all. If new advances and techniques
are disseminated through publications, these results become available
to all.
From: arkin@cc.gatech.edu (Ronald Arkin)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Robotic Helicopters
Keywords: Autonomous,Control,Helicopters
Date: 1 Oct 92 11:50:16 GMT
Reply-To: arkin@cc.gatech.edu (Ronald Arkin)
Organization: College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <1ad5gbINNjh1@mensa.usc.edu> lewis@mensa.usc.edu (tony lewis) writes:
>
>Does anyone have references to (pointers to article, names, phone #)
>of anyone working on the problem of control of autonomous helicopers
>or flying vehicles in general. I understand that there has been some
>work at Purdue and also in Japan but I have been unable to locate
>any references. 
>
>-Tony Lewis
>lewis@mensa.usc.edu



There are two articles in the most recent issue of Applied Intelligence
(Vol. 2, No. 3, Sept, 1992, about the research at Georgia Tech and
UT-Arlington. These were based on the entries for the first AUVS
compeition for unmanned aerial vehicles. This competition is held
annually every summer at Georgia TEch, sponsored by the Association for
Unmanned Vehicle Systems and offers a $10,000 prize. Contact
Bob Michelson (rmichels@gtri01.gatech.edu), not me, for more
info on the upcoming 1993 event.

- Ron
Ronald C. Arkin
College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0280
Phone: (404)-894-8209            Fax: (404)-853-9378
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: kilian@cray.com (Alan Kilian)
Subject: mmartin@phi.ece.jhu.edu Please send me a better address.
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 28 Sep 92 11:07:31 CDT


mmartin@phi.ece.jhu.edu

I cannot mail to you. Please send me a better email address.

You can send to kilian@cray.com

                -Alan Kilian

-- 
 -Alan Kilian           kilian@cray.com 612.683.5499 (Work) 612.721.3990 (Home)
  Cray Research, Inc.   655 F Lone Oak Drive, Eagan  MN, 55121 
                        "It's based on actual math". -Dilbert
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: jrichard@cs.ulowell.edu (John 'MacGyver' Richardson)
Subject: Re: Miniboard PCB's
Organization: /usr/ug/1993/jrichard/.organization
	<1992Sep26.050943.21676@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 14:16:56 GMT


Speaking of miniboards, is anyone still selling them?  I'm interested in
getting at least two, but I I don't get response from the fellow who I
thought was selling them (Peter Dunster).

On a related node, has anyone thought about adding 6811 code into gcc2.2.2?  


John 'MacGyver' Richardson |"sun dogs fire on the horizon        \ \   \
jrichard@cs.ulowell.edu    | meteor rain stars across the night   * *   \   /\
jrichard@duck.ulowell.edu  | ...the spark still flies                /\  * /  \
                           | reflected in another pair of eyes." /\ /  \/\/
                                                           ------  \   / / 


Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: sathaye@austria.ece.cmu.edu (Shirish S. Sathaye)
Subject: ICARCV'92
Organization: Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 19:30:12 GMT


Here's hoping that somebody can help me out.

If you have the proceedings of the recent ICARCV'92 held in Singapore
please email to this account. I desperately wanted a copy of an
article from there and cannot find the proceedings anywhere.

Thank you very much in advance,
Shirish Sathaye
From: shirish@sequoiasequoia.com (Shirish Jamthe)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Admission info. wanted
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:14:43 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3


	I am looking for any information available about institutes having MS & PhD programs in Robotics.
I will be thankful if you can email me the following info. :

1) Schools doing research in this area.
2) Where do they stand with respect to other schools.
3) A brief discription about the work done there.
4) email addresses and/or phone numbers of the graduate admissions coordinator.
5) I need a lot of advice in this field before I decide to join in 1994 so I would require email addresses/
   phone nos. and/or postal addresses of Guides/Professors/Friends who can guide me.

Thanks in advance.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shirish	Jamthe
email: shirish@sequoia.sequoia.com
Phone: (508) 460-6825	(R)
       (508) 480-0800 ext 1670 (Off.) 9am to 7pm Mon. to Fri.
Address:
	25-6 Briarwood Lane
	Marlborough MA 01752

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: vxv4@po.CWRU.Edu (Virgilio Velasco)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Papers on (near) optimal traj. control
Date: 4 Oct 1992 19:21:31 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: vxv4@po.CWRU.Edu (Virgilio Velasco)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc5.ins.cwru.edu



	Does anyone out there know of some good papers on optimal or
near-optimal robot arm trajectory control?  I'm working on my MS thesis
and would like to propose some revisions to the plan which my adviser
and I currently have.

	Any help you give will earn you several megatons of gratitude
from this struggling grad student.
 
-- 
Virgilio "Dean" Velasco Jr., grad student & roboticist-in-training, CWRU

   "Bullwinkle, that man's intimdating a referee!"     |    My boss is a 
   "Not very well.  He doesn't look like one at all."  |  Jewish carpenter.
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: pdivine@unixg.ubc.ca (Patrick Devine)
Subject: Re: Digital Altimeters?
Keywords: digital altimeter fly
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Distribution: USA
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 08:24:41 GMT

I beleive there was a digital altimeter in Radio Electronics around a year or
so ago.  I can't recall the issue or anything, but try to do a search in
a mag database and something SHOULD pop up.

-- 
|  The Postman Pat Show                featuring  o industrial strength noise |
|  PO Box 75115                                   o clips from all of your    |
|  White Rock, BC                                   favorite tv shows!        |
|  Canada,  V4A 9M4  (send for catalog)           o Loops! & Loops! & Loops!  |
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: fernando@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (Fernando Pineda)
Subject: Re: Robotic Helicopters
Reply-To: fernando@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (Fernando Pineda)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Labs
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 16:40:25 GMT

I believe that Steve Suddarth at AFOSR is sponsoring work on this. He has 
distributed small helicopters to selected research groups that he is sponsoring.
He can be reached at suddarth.cs.umd.edu

Fernando Pineda (fernando@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: fredm@media.mit.edu (Fred G Martin)
Subject: Re: programming the miniboard
Keywords: compact code 6811 miniboard
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 03:45:08 GMT

In article <monte.718302401@spider.wri.com> monte@spider.wri.com
(Monte Seyer) writes: 

>I have been experimenting with writing C code for the miniboard
>using the Micro-C 6811 developers special.
>I haven't much experience writing code for small systems or in assembly.
>
>I have a few questions regarding programming the 6811/miniboard:
>
>With 2k memory, is coding in assembly pretty much required? 

It all depends on how large your project is.  I've seen people do some
pretty neat things in straight C before running out of the 2K of
memory.

The basic libraries are about 700 bytes and the C compiler is not
terribly efficient, so don't expect a large amount of code to fit, but
small things work just fine.

>When using the libraries from Fred Martin, can the libraries
>be configured so that portions not being used are eliminated?

When a given library routine is used, the whole file that contains it
is linked.  If you don't use any routines in a particular file, that
file is not linked.   One way to make more space would be to create a
separate file for each library routine, so you really only link the
ones you use.  MINILIB.SRC would be a good candidate for this.

Other things that can be removed:  the pulse width modulation routine
takes up 100 bytes or so, you can kill that from 6811ST.SRC and fix the
motor routine in MINILIB.SRC.

(You can see that I've already done some of this type of optimization
by creating #defines that either plug in or remove some functionality.
This is a good way to keep generality while conserving code space).

>Are any special cc11 flags useful?

Yes, use the optimizer.  I've never had any problems with it, and it
can only make your code smaller and faster.

>Any caveats on what constructs to avoid?
>Any suggestions/tricks for writing compact C/assembly code for 6811?

For both of these, I'd look at the assembly output of the compiler to
learn what works and what doesn't.  It's pretty straight-forward to
see what C code compiles to what assembly code.

One thing I've done is taken subroutines written in C and re-coded
them in assembly to save space.

>Suggestions for books on the above topic?

Make sure you have a copy of Motorola's 6811 book, the big pink one.
I also like the little pamphlet reference guide.  Call Motorola at
(800) 521-6274 to get copies.

>As an aside, what sorts of tasks are you planning for your miniboard?
>What about two or more miniboards working together?

This is something I'd really like to hear about.  Greg Ratcliff tells
me he's shipped 250 boards---wow!  I never thought there'd be such a
demand for this little board.

If you want to send project descriptions to me, I'll collate them and
post back to the net.

Cheers!

	-Fred
From: Jonathan.Mills@mailbox.bison.mb.ca (Jonathan Mills)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Stiquito Files Fixed/ IP Number
Date: 24 Sep 92 23:44:45 CST

Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington

Please accept my apologies for the file mixup.  The PostScript file is
now in the /pub directory but under a new name, and a UNIX-encoded
Microsoft Word 4 copy of the technical report has been added.

You can ftp in directly to the net address of cs.indiana.edu:

	129.79.254.191

There have been some connections broken due to timeouts.  I've split
and compressed the PostScript & raw Word 4 files, and will do the same
for the .hqx version if necessary. If you have problems with timeouts,
our net guru, Bruce Sheu, has kindly offered to help.  Send him mail
at shei@cs.indiana.edu.

To get the tech reports, connect using anonymous ftp.  The reports are
in /pub.  Set the ftp mode to binary to access the PostScript and raw
Word 4 files:

	stiquito.ps.aa.Z (restore with uncompress, cat)
	stiquito.ps.ab.Z
	stiquito.ps.ac.Z

	stiquito.w4.aa.Z (restore with uncompress, cat, uudecode
	stiquito.w4.ab.Z  to get a MacBinary Word 4 document)
	stiquito.w4.ac.Z


Here are answers to some questions on the report:

Does the robot walk autonomously using materials provided in the kit?

-No, but it is fairly easy to attach a small printed circuit board
 to the aluminum tubes that extend from the robot's back.  A draft
of Part 2 containing two transistorized oscillators controlled by
ECG 3034 phototransistors will be posted sooner than I'd expected, due
to these requests.  These circuits, and a 9-volt cell, turn Stiquito
into a legged Braitenburg photophilic or photophobic bug.

What is nitinol wire?

-Nitinol, sold under various tradenames (BioMetal, Flexinol) is an
almost-50-50 alloy of nickel and titanium that changes between two
crystalline structures as it is heated and cooled.  It can exert
useful force during the transitions, and make as many as 5,000,000
transitions before it ceases to work (maybe more).  Passing a current
through nitinol generates enough heat to cause it to contract.  A
spring or other force is necessary for the wire to expand back to its
original longer length when it cools.  Nitinol can be manufactured
in many shapes (eyeglasses, braces for teeth, etc.), but the cost
of special-forming is said to be high, how high I don't know.  The
wire costs $10 per meter from Dynalloy, Inc., Mondo-Tronics, & 
a few other manufacturers, but drops to $5.50 in 101 meter lengths.

The September-October issue of "Midnight Engineering" has a cover
photograph of a similar nitinol-propelled robot developed
independently by Roger Gilbertson of Mondo-Tronics.  I think that
Stiquito looks a little sleeker, but then I'm predjudiced! 

 * Origin: The Electronic Mailbox (1:348/7.0)
From: hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: 'Bye for now
Date: 7 Oct 92 01:37:51 GMT
Organization: The Cat Factory



Y'r 'umble founder regrets to report that the funding for his robot work
has been withdrawn and other duties are pressing.

It's been fun and interesting, if not terribly useful to me. (-:

Good luck to you all.


The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@polymath.tti.com)
Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp                   Turn the rascals out!
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (310) 450-9111, x2483     No incumbents in '92!
Santa Monica, CA  90405
From: jonathan@vort.cuc.ab.ca (Jonathan Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: motorola
Date: 27 Sep 92 00:53:28 GMT
Organization: n. Organizing or being organized; organized body or system or society.


I believe 512-891-3733 (Austin Texas) is the current one.  If in doubt,
call your nearest Motorola sales office.

-- 
Jonathan Levine (voice) 403-686-0473 | Digital Alternatives      (Calgary AB)
                (fax)   403-686-1254 | Virtual  Universe         (Calgary AB)
uucp:        jonathan@vort.cuc.ab.ca | Survival Research Laboratories (SF CA)
From: nanders@plains.NoDak.edu (Noel Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: HC11 Texts (was Re: gcc cross compiler for the 6811?)
Date: 7 Oct 92 00:03:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.21006
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network

The text we use here to get people up to speed with the HC11 is Greenfield's
_The 68HC11 Microcontroller_ which is published by Saunders College Publishing,
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 91-050630.  It has most of the content
of the HC11 reference manual while being much more readable.  It should be
suitable for CS people with circuits a la physics and an architecture/organiza-
tion class behind them.  All examples are in assembly language.

Another HC11 book is Lipovski's _Single and Multi-Chip Microcomputer Interfac-
ing_.  This one assumes a prior course in assembly language and gives 
examples in C as well as assembler.  It also requires more of an EE background,
stuff like circuits and digital logic.

-- 
Noel W. Anderson                   nanders@plains.nodak.edu (Internet)
Asst Prof, Computer Engineering         "I speak for myself, not NDSU"
EE Dept, North Dakota State University         nanders@plains (BITNET)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics