8/11/2019 Getting Started in Robotics

1/1

RO OTI S

Getting started

in

robotics

THE WORD ROBOT CONJURES UP

many different images in people s

minds;

everything

from Hol

lywood s lovable creat ions to the

monstrous

machines that many

once

believed would someday

take

over

the

Earth. Regardless of

what you the think of them, they

are

everywhere today.

For

in

stance,

your

car was probably as

sembled and inspected fo r defects

on a robotic assembly line.

Even so, the number of prob

lems

found

in

new

cars tel ls a lot

about the state of robotics tech

nology. Robots are prone to make

many mistakes; after all,

look

at

who created them owever

those system miscalculations are

not

the same misjudgments of

which

man is so often guil ty. They

are, instead, problems that arise

due to the

limitations

of the tech

nologies involved. Today, the field

of robotics iswhere personal com

puters were n the mid-1970 s.

Our

purpose

In this column, we'll t ry to keep

you up to date on the latest hap

penings in

robot ics f ie ld . We' ll

also cover several technical topics

and

look

at numerous robotic de

vices that you can build. You ll re

ceive

instructions

on

building

a

robotics laboratory, an intelligent

platform, and an ultrasonic vision

system.

We'll inc lude indepth product

reviews of the various robots. And

you'll have the

opportunity

to read

about those

products before

you

see them anywhere else.

And

since the

field

is sti ll in its infancy,

believe it

or

not, you can make a

significant contribution through

personal research. As a reader of

Radio Electronics you are used to

lG l

participating in new technologies.

For example, the first construction

details fo r a personal computer

appeared in these pages.

Personal robots

About two

and a half years ago,

personal robots came to the atten

tion of consumers through the in

t roduct ion o f RB Robot Corp.'s

14618 W.

6th

Ave.

Golden, Colo

rado) small cylindrical rover the

RB 5X That microprocessor-based

unit could directly

execute BASIC

programs entered by the user

from

a remote terminal. Several design

changes have occurred since its in

troduction, including

the addition

of an ultrasonic range finder and a

somewhat articulated arm.

Shortly

thereafter, U.S. Heath

Co. (Benton Harbor, Ml 49022 in

troduced its

HERO

(see Fig. 1).

Both the Heath and RB products

showed that

there

was considera

ble interest in

building

and experi

menting with intelligent vehicles.

Some

t ime

after HERO and

RB 5X made

their

debut, a new

company headed up by Atari's

founder, Nolan

Bushnell,

intro

duced the Tapa robot. That unit

was

much ta lle r,

with a

more

human-like appearance;

but

its

limited capabilities and non-exis

tent

third-party support kept it

from

reaching its full potential. To- .

day, Heath s HERO is said to be

leading in sales, with a

rumored

8000 mach ines in

existence

:

owever t he f ie ld is constantly

widening.

ndustri l robotics

Although the public views the

robotic production line asmerely a

collection

of mechanized arms,

the

industry

is having a love affair

with those

mechanical marvels.

Assernbly-line robots are usually

supplied

materials via a system of

intelligent, roving, driverless vehi

cles. Those vehicles are built using

a combination of technologies, in

cluding mechanical engineering,

electronics engineering, and

cC?m-

puter science.

From those fields come the de

sign of the various robot parts. For

example, mechanical

engineering

provides the body structure, the

wheeled

mechanics, and the arm

linkages. Electronics

engineering

contributes the

control circuitry

and

various

sensory dev ices

needed

to help

make the

robot

system interact

with

its environ

ment.

The sensors include sonic dis

tance-rneasuring systems, tactile

sensors fo r

finger

t ips, wheel

position feedback sensors based

on optoelectronic

or Hall-effect

technologies,

etc. Computer sci-

ontinue on page