HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: fredm@media.mit.edu (Fred G Martin)
Subject: Mini Board traffic
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 05:56:31 GMT

I'm surprised that several netters feel so strongly that the goings-on
regarding the Mini Board is inappropriate for this newsgroup.  

Some have referred to the Mini Board as a "product."  I wonder if it
is clear that nobody who's been involved in acquiring parts, printing
and distributing boards, or etc. is making money on this---it's not a
commercial venture, and shouldn't be thought of as such.  (Some
people, like Alan Kilian, even sold their parts for a loss, not really
a good business strategy ;-( )

Perhaps you nay-sayers will consider this:  I receive a fairly steady,
though not heavy, stream of requests for more information about the
Mini Board.  I have a stock reply for these people, so it doesn't take
up much of my time to respond, but I'll bet many of these folks would
not hear of the project if not for the mundane traffic about ordering
parts, etc. 

Given that the volume of this newsgroup is really quite small compared
with most, I would ask you to consider not having such a harsh
attitude to a little noise traffic about the Mini Board---if it is
just a minor annoyance, isn't making an entry into your kill file an
appropriate response?

Finally, thanks to the work of another net citizen---Greg Kulosa
(gkulosa@oberon.com)---there will soon be a Mini Board mailing list,
so the point will be moot.  I do hope that some traffic continues to
spill over to this group though, so that new readers can get curious
as to "what is that durned thing?!".

	- Fred



P.S.  If you are one of these new readers, you can find out about the
Mini Board by FTP'ing to cher.media.mit.edu and looking at the file
pub/miniboard/info.
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: connolly@piglet.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Help for Technical Report from CMU
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:46:58 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1ial6nINNk7j@agate.berkeley.edu> lazzaro@boom.CS.Berkeley.EDU (John Lazzaro) writes:
>Does someone lose priority on a research idea presented in a technical
>report, if it turns out they are unable or unwilling to publish in a
>journal or conference?

If person A predates person B with an idea, no amount of publishing by
person B is going to change that fact.  On the other hand, B may have
much more influence on the field if B publishes and A doesn't.  That's
just the way it goes, & person A has to be aware of that possibility.

Let's face it, people simply are not going to comb through tens of
thousands of technical reports (or at least titles) per year from all
the organizations that do research in a given field in the hopes of
finding the very first mention of an idea.  Most people will resort to
something like the Science Citation Index -- which doesn't list tech.
reports.

In article <C0E059.J03.2@cs.cmu.edu> nivek@cs.cmu.edu writes:
>Wallace et al, First Results in Robot Road Following" 
>Proceedings International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence,
>(IJCAI), Los Angeles, CA 1985
>
>This should be available in most university libraries.

Getting back to my original point, this is what I would have hoped a
good reviewer would do!  To be honest, if I were reviewing a paper, I
probably would not strike references to tech. reports, but I would
expect the *author* to supply me with copies on request.  I'm still
not keen on using them as primary sources.
-- 
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Christopher Ian Connolly			connolly@cs.umass.edu
Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics		wa2ifi
University of Massachusetts at Amherst		Amherst, MA 01003
From: gat@robotics.jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: How to explore Mars
Date: 11 Jan 1993 22:48:01 GMT
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: forsight2.jpl.nasa.gov

[Apologies if this is a repeat post; my news server seems to be flaky today.]

In article <GERRY.93Jan8232211@onion.cmu.edu> gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) write
s:
>The Erebus project was probably the single most ambitious robotic
>undertaking ever attempted.  To have accomplished what the Erebus team
>did was a minor miracle itself.  The failure of the Erebus project
                                      ^^^^^^^
Well, it's good to hear someone from CMU calling Erebus something other than
an unqualified success, though I'm not sure I would call it an outright
failure.

>says little to nothing about the one big robot versus multiple robot
>scenario.

Oh, I see.  When a large robot works (like the Ambler) that's evidence in
favor of large robots.  When a large robot fails, it "says little to nothing".

>  Had the project been less ambitious, i.e., had there been
>more time available, the problems that beset the mission would never
>have occured.

The Prophet speaks!  And of course, no other unforseen failures would have
occurred either.

Perhaps if there had been two Dante's, the other one might have made it
further than 6 meters.  And perhaps if there had been 100 of them...

>  It's well and good for people sitting in their snug
>offices running robotic simulations to make snide comments, but they
>should actually try to develop a real system and see what happens.

Here at JPL we have built and demonstrated numerous robots operating
in field conditions.  We've never been to Antarctica, but we have run our
robots in Death Valley (in August, no less).  That's about as real as it
gets.

I do not want to downplay the achievement of the Dante team.  However,
just because you have been to the South Pole and had your picture on
CNN that does not give you liscence to run roughshod over other people's
work.  Perhaps small robots are the answer, perhaps they are not.  But
they are certainly not, as you often imply, a naive solution which can be
casually dismissed.

Erann Gat
gat@robotics.jpl.nasa.gov

Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: gcouger@olesun.okstate.edu (Gordon Couger)
Subject: Re: Cheap color sensor
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:24:00 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.194916.8558@black.clarku.edu> kbasye@black.clarku.edu (Ken Basye) writes:
>
>I've been wondering lately about how one might build a very simple and
>cheap color sensor.  I have in mind something that would be fairly
>reliable in providing 3 or perhaps even 4 bits of discrimination and
>which would be fairly reliable given good input, e.g., having a
>well-lit piece of colored construction paper put in front.
>
We are using some three color light emiting diodes as sensors. They appear to
work well not as sensitive as photo diodes but they will work at reasonable 
light levels. 

I think we got them form LEDTRONICS some place in Calif.
Good luck
Gordon

Gordon Couger
AB5Dg   Agriculture Engineering Oklahoma State University
gcouger@olesun.agen.okstate.edu 405-744-6514 day 744-2794 evenings   
Xref: sparky comp.robotics:2762 news.answers:4903
From: mccoy@ils.nwu.edu (Jim Mccoy)
Subject: Re: How to Explore Mars
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Distribution: comp
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 22:24:37 GMT

In article <HAGERMAN.93Jan7224103@rx7.ece.cmu.edu> hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) writes:
>
>There has been some discussion about the tradeoffs between using one
>large robot and many small robots for planetary exploration.  Has the
>Erebus experiment changed the opinion of anyone here?  I don't want to
>restrict attention to the specific results; for example, I don't think
>we learned anything new about fault tolerance.  Rather, I'm hoping for
>new thoughts engendered by considering the experiment in general.  In
>my mind, for example, the experiment supports large robots for such
>use since a fairly standard large robot design could be fairly easily
>modified to conceivably navigate the volcano, and it seems less likely
>that the same would hold for small robots.  Any other thoughts?

Actually, I came up with a completely different opinion based upon the
failure in Antarctica.  If anything, I believe this adventure has shown the
key weakness in the single robot proposals: if something goes wrong you are
completely screwed.  The scenario in Antarctica was similar to a Mars
exploration in that it is remote and a hostile environment, but one big
difference is that there will be no one around to crawl to the rim of a
canyon to reset the computers or perform other maintenance on Mars.  There
will be no modification of robot design once the mission to explore Mars
begins, you only get to use what you take with you.  Please remember that
the people paying for the exploration are not going to appreciate it if we
end up sending Mars it's biggest paperweight...

If anything, the failure of Erebus seems to point to the disadvantages of
using a single large robot to explore hostile, unknown environments.  With
a single robot you have a single point of failure for the entire mission,
if your robot ends up with machanical difficulties or other problems you
have just wasted millions.  With multiple smaller robots you still have
other robots to continue exploration and you have the option of making the
smaller robots capable of some specialization to explore unique
environments.

The Erebus experiment seemed to provide nothing to support the single robot
proposals, I am really curious as to how anyone could find support for them
under the circumstances of this situation...

jim
-- 
Jim McCoy          |  PGP 2.0 Key md5 hash:
j-mccoy@nwu.edu    |  61323c49024cb089337c78a05aafe8c6
mccoy@ils.nwu.edu  |  finger mccoy@ils.nwu.edu for public key
From: jenkin@cs.yorku.ca (Michael Jenkin)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: A gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a pack of wolves...
Date: 12 Jan 93 03:31:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: yetti.1652
Organization: York University, CS Dept. Toronto

May I suggest a swarm of robots.

See, for example, the session in R&A 92 on swarm robotics, and also


Arkin, R. C., and Hobbs, J. D., ``Dimensions of communication and social
organization in multi-agent robotics systems, SAB 92, 1992.

Beni, G., and Wang, J., ``Swarm intelligence in cellular robotic systems'',
Proc. NATO Advanced Workshop on Robotics and Biological Systems'', Tuscany,
Italy, 1989.

Dudek, G., Jenkin, M., Milios, E., and WIlkes, D., ``A Taxonomy for
Swarm Robotics'', submitted to VI'93, North York, Canada, 1993.

Hackwood, S., and Beni, G., ``Self-organization of sensors for swarm 
intelligence'', Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, 819-829, 1992.

Mataric, M., ``Minimizing complexity in controlling a robot population'',
Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, 830-835, 1992.

Nitz, E., and Arkin, R., ``Communication of behavioral state in multi-agent
retrieval tasks'', Int. Conf. Cons. R. and A., Hawaii, 1993 (to appear).

Ueyama, T., Fukuda, T., and Arai, F., ``Configuration of communication 
structure for distributed intelligent robot system'', Proc. Int.  Conf.
on Robotics and Automation, 807-812, 1992.


Michael Jenkin
York University

Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: ulrich@canberra (Nathan Ulrich)
Subject: Re: How to explore Mars (really about the Dante project)
Reply-To: ulrich@canberra.whoi.edu
Organization: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 02:07:20 GMT

In article <GERRY.93Jan8232211@onion.cmu.edu> gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston)  
writes:
>The Erebus project was probably the single most ambitious robotic
>undertaking ever attempted.  To have accomplished what the Erebus team
>did was a minor miracle itself.

References?  I can think of several dozen more ambitious robotic undertakings  
that were attempted _and_ succeeded, but of course that's just my opinion.  And  
though I respect the accomplishments of Red Whitaker and his team, I'm pretty  
sure he wouldn't call the Dante project a "minor miracle."

>The failure of the Erebus project.....

But I thought the project was an "[sic] Unqualified Success"?  Or was that the  
telerobotic portion?  (Which, by the way, we've been doing routinely for years  
with basically off-the-shelf technology).

>Had the project been less ambitious, i.e., had there been
>more time available, the problems that beset the mission would never
>have occured.

Speaking as someone who has had (too much) experience with fiber optic tether  
failures, I have a hard time believing this statement.  Do you mean more time  
available to prepare for the expedition, or more time on the ice?  Or were  
there other problems of which I'm unaware?  Perhaps you could elucidate? 

>It's well and good for people sitting in their snug
>offices running robotic simulations to make snide comments, but they
>should actually try to develop a real system and see what happens.

I happen to occasionally run simulations in my snug office, and actually look  
forward to it after a month at sea.  Of course, though simulations are valuable  
(didn't the development team simulate Dante before building it?), they should  
be followed by experimentation.  However, you and I are fortunate:  not  
everyone can work in laboratories with multi-million dollar research budgets.

--
Nathan Ulrich
Deep Submergence Laboratory
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
ulrich@canberra.whoi.edu
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: connolly@eeyore.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Help for Technical Report from CMU
Date: 9 Jan 93 23:43:47 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1icosrINN86c@agate.berkeley.edu> lazzaro@boom.CS.Berkeley.EDU (John Lazzaro) writes:
>I agree, but when the author of the TR ("A") sends author "B" a copy
>of the TR and says "please reference my work in future papers," does
>"B" has an obligation to abide by these wishes?

I'd be inclined to respect A's wishes, but I'd prefer to back it up if
possible with an appropriate journal or conference paper.  Mind you,
I'm not saying I'd *never* cite a tech. report -- I just try to avoid
doing so whenever possible.  If it's unavoidable, the sensible thing
seems (to me) to be prepared to supply the tech report on demand
(i.e., the onus is on me to produce a copy, not the reader).

In article <HAGERMAN.93Jan6123758@rx7.ece.cmu.edu> hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) writes:
>In article <58285@dime.cs.umass.edu> connolly@piglet.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly) writes:
>>
>> I'm ... not keen on using [tech reports] as primary sources.
>
>How about books?  

But books normally aren't primary sources!  Most are secondary
sources; good for well-established results that originally appeared in
journals or conferences, or classical results in say, mathematics.
Then there are books which are collections from workshops or
conferences.  In either case, the material appearing in a book usually
*has* been peer-reviewed at some point.

					-CC
-- 
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Christopher Ian Connolly			connolly@cs.umass.edu
Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics		wa2ifi
University of Massachusetts at Amherst		Amherst, MA 01003
From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Cheap color sensor
Date: 11 Jan 93 12:45:33 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <1993Jan8.194916.8558@black.clarku.edu> kbasye@black.clarku.edu (Ken Basye) writes:

>I've been wondering lately about how one might build a very simple and
>cheap color sensor.

>My first thought was to use three photoresistors with R, G and B
>filters (just cellophane, perhaps).

The human RGB colour system is one of the worst among animal colour
vision systems. Most animals employ a 4 primary colour system, and one
that is more evenly spaced. The human system is (in evol terms)
recently developed and biassed towards fine discrimination of fruit
kind and status, and your robot is probably not a fruit eater!
Consider what your robot needs colour for, and give it what it needs.

-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: at687002@longs.lance.colostate.edu (alex tsariounov)
Subject: Re: Motor control parts
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1993 22:20:44 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins
Keywords: servo, chip

Hi, this is a reply to Message-ID: <1993Jan4.041009.19215@adobe.com>.

Motorola makes such a chip:    Part# MC33030.

The servo controller/driver is a pretty fancy servo amp but can
only handle 1.0 Amps.  For higher current you will have to provide
an external power H bridge.  For 1.3A this would not be difficult.

For more info on this device, look at the Moto Linear/Interface Devices 
data book - page 4-339 on.  Along with specs, they provide a number of 
interesting application circuit examples.

alex.
Xref: sparky comp.robotics:2763 news.answers:4904
From: kbasye@black.clarku.edu (Ken Basye)
Subject: Cheap color sensor
Organization: Clark University (Worcester, MA)
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 19:49:16 GMT


I've been wondering lately about how one might build a very simple and
cheap color sensor.  I have in mind something that would be fairly
reliable in providing 3 or perhaps even 4 bits of discrimination and
which would be fairly reliable given good input, e.g., having a
well-lit piece of colored construction paper put in front.

A photoresistor alone might seem to be enough, given that different
pieces of paper will reflect different amounts of light.  So as a
control, imagine that the sheets have been chosen so that a single
photoresistor gets close to the same reading for each sheet, yet they
are easily distinguished by color.

My first thought was to use three photoresistors with R, G and B
filters (just cellophane, perhaps).  Or perhaps there are tuned
versions that would give the same effect.  Better yet, a single
tunable photoresistor could be used with 3 consecutive readings.  
Are there cheap ways to measure dominant frequency directly?  Etc...

kbasye@black.clarku.edu     
Ken Basye
Dept. of Math and CS
Clark University
950 Main St.
Worcester, MA  01610


Newsgroups: comp.robotics,comp.theory.self-org-sys,sci.cognitive
From: ashwin@gatech.edu (Ashwin Ram)
Subject: Re: Use of Genetic Algorithms to evolve robot behavior?
Reply-To: ashwin@cc.gatech.edu (Ashwin Ram)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:05:07 GMT

In article <C0K8zq.54A@world.std.com> lains@world.std.com (Layne L Ainsworth) writes:
>   Has anyone tried to do this: 
>   
>   "Herds" of cheap (really cheap), reprogrammable robots, each loaded
>   with one set of the test "chromosome" population of a Genetic
>   Algorithm system. They could be evaluated to optimize indivdual
>   performance, or "hive" well-being.  Each "generation" would be the
>   same robots, with a new generation of "chromosomes" on board.

See:

Mike Pearce, Ron Arkin and Ashwin Ram (1992), The Learning of Reactive
Control Parameters Through Genetic Algorithms, in Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ
International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS-92),
Raleigh, NC, pp. 130-137.

A postscript version of this paper (without figures :-() is available for
anonymous FTP from ftp.cc.gatech.edu:/pub/ai (see the README file or e-mail
me for instructions).

Ashwin Ram <ashwin@cc.gatech.edu>
Assistant Professor, College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0280
(404) 853-9372 (phone)
(404) 853-9378 (fax)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: dan@sputnik.mit.edu (Daniel A. Rey)
Subject: Measuring Performance and Joint Flexibility
Reply-To: dan@sputnik.mit.edu (dan rey)
Organization: M.I.T.
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 09:02:11 GMT

Hi,

I have a few questions I would like ask this hopefully well-informed group.
I'm new to the field of robotics applications--my background is in
structural dynamic interactions with control systems.

I am interested in improving the *dynamic performance* of a 7 d.o.f. spherical
manipulator (with a reach of approx. 1.5 m) by compensating for the effects
of joint flexibility (due largely to the harmonic drives).


TOPIC 1: Defining and Measuring Dexterous Manipulator PERFORMANCE

 The performance measures I am most interested in are an external measure of
 end-effector position and orientation (i.e. "pose") accuracy, stability, and
 jitter (where I define accuracy to be the error in the desired "pose" and
 the mean "pose", stability to be the RMS error in the "pose" about its mean,
 and jitter to be the RMS error in the "pose" velocity).  Repeatability of
 the "pose", as well as applied force/torque accuracy, stability, and jitter
 will eventually be considered.
 
Q1 - Are these reasonable performance measures for a supposedly dexterous 
         manipulator?  Did I forget something important?  Am I clueless?

Q2 - What off-the-shelf systems have people used (and are happy with) to
         externally measure the static and dynamic end-effector "pose"
         performance?


TOPIC 2:  Compensating for JOINT FLEXIBILITY

 If you are aware of any previous or current work in this area please let me
 know.  Article references, theses, names, whatever...


Thanks for your feed-back.  I will post a summary of the helpful responses
under the headings `Manipulator Performance Measure' and `Joint Flexibility'

Dan

------------------------------------------------------------------
 Daniel A. Rey                                                          
Internet: dan@sputnik.mit.edu
 MIT Space Engineering Research Center
 ------------------------------------------------------------------
From: reeder@reed.edu (P. Douglas Reeder)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: A gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a pack of wolves...
Date: 11 Jan 93 05:13:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1993Jan11.051343.17141
Organization: Div, Grad & Curl

In article <WLIM.93Jan10205822@gdstech.GRUMMAN.COM> wlim@gdstech.GRUMMAN.COM (Willie Lim) writes:
>			   a GANG of robots

My vote goes for this, as it expressess the idea that the robots are 
gathered together to do a job, as in a work gang.




-- 
Doug Reeder                              Internet: reeder@reed.EDU
Div, Grad & Curl                         USENET:   ...!tektronix!reed!reeder
programming & derivative work            BITNET:   reeder@reed.BITNET
I am actively seeking scientific programming contracts.
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
From: tk11957@medtronic.COM (Tim M. Kunau)
Subject: Re: A gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a pack of wolves...
Organization: Medtronic, Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:24:26 GMT

Jonathan Monsarrat (jgm@cs.brown.edu) wrote:

> A bevy of 'bots?
> A flock of robots? A herd? A bunch? A school?
> Enquiring minds want to know.

How 'bout:

	an arm of Pumas (tm)?
	a charge of autonomous mobile systems?  (no, no, doesn't quite work...)

	;-)

--
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| Timothy M. Kunau                        Bradycardia Pacing Net-Ops |
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Newsgroups: comp.robotics