$25 Raspberry Pi Credit-card Sized Computer Almost Ready For Shipment
The Raspberry Pi is a ARM based single-board computer developed to run Linux for just $25 ($35 for model B with WiFi). The board contains an ARM1176JZFS, with floating point, running at 700Mhz, and a Videocore 4 GPU. The GPU is capable of BluRay quality playback, using H.264 at 40MBits/s. It has a fast 3D core accessed using the supplied OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG libraries. The board has an HDMI port, one USB 2.0 port, one micro USB port for power, an audio jack, RCA video out and a SD card slot.
They aren't taking orders yet but you can track the status by joining their mailing list here.
NASA Open Sources Aircraft Design Software
OpenVSP (Vehicle Sketch Pad) is a parametric aircraft geometry tool. OpenVSP allows the user to create a 3D model of an aircraft defined by common engineering parameters. This model can be processed into formats suitable for engineering analysis. VSP allows even novices to quickly become proficient in defining three-dimensional, watertight aircraft geometry.
The predecessors to OpenVSP have been developed by J.R. Gloudemans and others for NASA since the early 1990's. On January 10 2012, OpenVSP was released as an open source project under the NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA) version 1.3.
Windows, Mac or Linux versions are available here.
A set of video tutorials can be viewed here.
DIY Drones Amateur UAVs
DIY Drones is an excellent community site for amateur unmanned vehicle development. Using Arduino as a foundation they have created the ArduPilotMega universal autopilot autopilot hardware. It combines sophisticated IMU-based autopilot electronics with free Arduino-based autopilot software that can turn any RC vehicle into a fully-autonomous UAV. The software is open source and currently has three variations: Arduplane, for any fixed-wing aircraft, Arducopter, for any rotary-wing aircraft, and ArduRover, for any ground or water-based vehicle. The site has an active forum as well as a store where you can purchase all the ArduPilot Mega Controller, other Arduino hardware or complete Drone kits.
STMicroelectronic's iNEMO Body-motion Suit
STMicroelectronics has unveiled a smart suit prototype with sewn-in new multi-sensor ST iNEMO® motion co-processor that recognize complex movements of the wearer’s body and translate them to a digital model with outstanding precision and speed. The current-generation prototype of ST’s body-motion reconstruction suit demonstrates the optimal performance of the miniaturized iNEMO multi-sensor nodes attached on each arm, forearm, thigh, calf, and two on the back; additional nodes can be mounted on hands, on shoes or on the head. Tests with realistic, complex human body motions have proven the outstanding precision and speed of ST’s body-motion reconstruction suit, with deviation in spatial accuracy below 0.5 degrees during movements and the time needed to process and apply the sensor data to the skeleton model less than 15 milliseconds.
MAVRK Modular Hardware Prototyping Platform
At CES Texas Instruments was showing off its new open source platform MAVRK. MAVRK is an acronym for Modular and Versatile Reference Kit. The MAVRK platform contains a motherboard, several MAVRK modules, and firmware to communicate between the modules. MAVRK modules are reference designs around TI silicon that will connect to the motherboard with a common footprint. With several modules connected, a user can configure multiple combinations of RF, AD/DA, transceivers, signal conditioning, and driver circuits as a system-level design. In the video one motherboard hosts the TCA8418 keypad scanner to sense user input. The MSP430F5438A on this motherboard decodes the keypad input for motor spin speed and the joystick direction for spin direction. It then beams this information to a second motherboard connected to robotic treads, with an MSP430F5137 processing the signals, and an MSP430F2274 controlling the signals to the DRV88414 motor driver. The DRV8814 drives the two motors that turn the robot treads.
A 3D Printing Primer
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship "Enterprise". Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. Do these words sound familiar? Well, today man has gone where no man has gone before. On the star ship Enterprise, there is a device known as a "replicator." The concept was to have a 23rd century technology that could replicate anything by reconstituting raw material into the object desired.
Microsoft Announces Kinect for Windows And New SDK At CES
Earlier this week Microsoft announced that they would officially be bringing their Kinect hardware to the Windows platform. The hardware is the mostly the same but new firmware allows the depth camera to see objects as close as 50cm away without losing accuracy or precision. Microsoft also says Kinect for Windows is 20% faster than it was in the last release and the accuracy rate of skeletal tracking and joint recognition have been substantially improved.
Microsoft has allowed the beta SDK to be used with Xbox Kinect and will continue to allow existing projects access to the SDK but they also state that all future projects will need to purchase the Kinect For Windows hardware in order to have access to upcoming SDK releases. Kinect For Windows and the SDK will cost $249 ($149 for an academic license).
3D Home Printer From 3D@Home
The consumer electronics show CES is this week so we are probably going to see a couple new 3D printers announced. MakerBot has been teasing a new version of their Thing-O-Matic and today 3D@Home announced their Cube printer. The printer will cost $1,299 and print standard .STL files to print out ABS plastic models. 3D@Home also plans to offer a print on demand service for larger models.
Is 2012 The Year That Robot Applications Take Root?
Tell us what apps you want.
Low-cost Spectral Imaging Solution
Hyperspectral imaging, also called imaging spectroscopy, is a method of obtaining the spectral content of each pixel in a 2D image. The spectral data can be used into identify the chemical compounds or materials. Up till now hyperspectral imaging devices have been very expensive, starting at around $25,000 dollars. Engineers at the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Arizona have shown that they can perform CTIS spectral imaging using an unmodified consumer camera. The device they have developed can be used in a hyperspectral imaging mode that allows the spectral measurement of a whole image with up to 5-nm spectral resolution and 120 x 120-pixel spatial resolution and can be built for under $1000.
Flight Assembled Architecture
Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D’Andrea are a fully automated construction project at the FRAC Centre in Orléans, France that uses flying robots to assemble a six meter high tower constructed of 1500 polystyrene foam bricks. The exhibit lasts from up to February 19, 2012. The same team previously used a robot called "R-O-B" to build a looping wall in New York and the award-winning Structural Oscillations installation at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale.
FMC Technologies to Increase Ownership of Schilling Robotics to 100 Percent
FMC Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: FTI) announced today that it has given notice to exercise its purchase option for the remaining 55% of outstanding shares of Schilling Robotics LLC ("Schilling"). The transaction is expected to close on or about March 30, 2012. FMC purchased its existing 45% interest in Schilling and obtained the purchase option in 2008. Schilling is a leading producer of remotely operated vehicles ("ROVs"), ROV manipulator systems, control systems and other high-technology equipment and services for oil and gas subsea exploration and production. FMC and Schilling have collaborated on a variety of projects and technology advances over the past three years, including an innovative control system for Petrobras' Congro/Corvina project that will use subsea robotics technology to operate the manifold and separation station valves. "We are pleased that Schilling will become part of FMC," said John Gremp, Chairman, President and CEO of FMC Technologies. "Their technologies will help us develop additional solutions to further strengthen our subsea leadership position."
Case Study: Micron Resolution Vision Inspection Systems
Compass Automation has rapidly become an industry-leading provider of high resolution, in-line vision inspection systems. In the fall of 2011 Compass completed the project highlighted below for Mitchel & Scott Machine Company, providing an automated vision inspection and thread checker system. Compass was able to provide Mitchel & Scott with an outstanding product in an extremely tight timeline. This system exceeded the quoted performance, providing a repeatability of 2 microns, a reproducability of 4 microns, and passing a Gage R&R with a score of 7.4%.
Robotics and Roads
Bill Zurn was inspired to develop a road repair machine patent after being frustrated by all of the potholes on the freeways & city streets. He postulated that a more efficient method of repairing roads was possible by adding robotic modules and computer controlling methods to repair machines.
Robotics is a Highly Fragmented Industry With Few Common Standards or Platforms
Recently there's been a clammer for (and against) a universal open-source robotic operating system. The proponents main argument is that such a system is beneficial particularly for rapid prototyping in the development of new systems while almost all of the industrial robot manufacturers argue that their robots are performing mission critical tasks which require secure and fail-safe operating systems - which they have developed and optimized over the past 50 years.
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