http://www.shawnschaerer.com Robots! Robots! Robots! Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:57:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en   So I am happy to show some pictures of the MAC-BOT concept and prototype.  The MAC-BOT is based on the PC-BOT 914 robot with a Mac Mini computer running OSX.  The MAC-BOT concept is a joint venture between White Box Robotics Inc and Cogmation Robotics Inc. [gallery] The prototype is in the early ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/11/28/mac-bot-prototype-unveiled/ (Click on Picture to launch video)   After writing the PC-BOT driver I thought I should do something interesting now that it is integrated in robotFoundry. I quickly developed an IR avoidance routine and let our PC-BOT loose in the office. Eventually these routines will be part of the stock robotFoundry behaviours.  If you ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/11/28/104/ Last week I finally completed the robotFoundry driver for the PC-BOT.  The 914 is very solid platform and think it is a very good platform for commercial robot systems.  Next I will finish the PC-BOT simulation model, most of the work has been completed, I just need to calibrate it.  We will also ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/11/27/pc-bot-914-driver-completed/ This week I was invited to give a talk to the department of Engineering at the University of Manitoba.  The talk was about graphical coding / visual programing of robotic systems and how leveraging the power of these tools can lower development costs and speed up development time.  One ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/10/10/invited-talk-on-high-level-robot-development-and-3d-simulation/ I am starting on another robotSuite project.  We have received a PC-BOT 914 from White Box Robotics and we will fully support this robot in robotSim and robotFoundry.  We have already completed a 3D model and I am now starting to do the integration ( writing the low level drivers) of the ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/10/02/integration-and-simulation-of-whitebox-robotics-pc-bot-914/ Today, I finally managed to get a 22 DOF humanoid robot simulated in robotSim.  Man what a lot of work.  I really thought it would have taken a lot less time, but thats how it goes.  Most of the problems were with Unity's lack of documentation on configurable joints.  I ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/10/02/successful-simulation-of-a-humanoid-robot-more-fun-with-physx-joints-and-transforms/ Ok, So it looks like my assumption was correct that manipulating the individual segments directly, somehow bypasses the physics calculations.   I actually managed to rig my model with configurable joints and make the joints stable ( no jitter ).  The biggest gotcha that I found is to make sure that the ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/09/26/simulating-a-humanoid-robot-fun-with-physx-joints-and-transforms-part-2/ Over the course of the last few weeks I have been developing a humanoid robot simulation for robotSim This has not been a very easy task and I seriously thought that it would take a lot less time than it did. After getting all of the kinks out of the 3d model ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/09/26/simulating-a-humanoid-robot-fun-with-physx-joints-and-transforms/ Simulating humanoid robots are not a simple task.  I have been working on simulating joints and discovered that the current PhysX engine does not implement certain functions and that this will change the way we simulate joints. Currently PhysX cannot report back how much torque is being applied to a joint, ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/09/11/simulating-joint-torque-on-a-humanoid-robot-part-1/ I have been working on simulating a pressure sensor for humanoid robots. Pressure sensors mounted on both feet of a humanoid can provide a measure of how the weight of the robot is distributed across its entire body. This information is useful for humanoid robot balancing and stable walking algorithms. There ... http://www.shawnschaerer.com/2008/09/08/simulating-a-humanoid-robot-pressure-sensor-foot-part-1/