tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59792742011-09-06T11:34:36.281-07:00Jacob's Robotics ResearchDiscussing issues and ideas in the field of robotics.everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.comBlogger211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1140767623226008742006-02-23T23:52:00.000-08:002006-02-23T23:55:16.050-08:00More Random Observations of Insignificant PhenomenaIf a sheet of 8.5x11 in. paper is taped to a wall via the top two corners, over time the bottom half of the page tends to curl inward. The cause of this is unclear but it may be caused by some form of creep or the stresses involved in temperature fluctuation if the top half of the paper is held fixed. Moisture might have something to do with. Theeveristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com113tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1138499722526380492006-01-28T17:54:00.000-08:002006-01-28T17:57:11.840-08:00Observations of the Palm Tree in Front of My ApartmentWhile observing a withered palm tree in front of my apartment, I noticed several different activities that this tree is simultaneously engaged in. For one, it is gradually trying to curve around the corner of my apartment building since our building is largely blocking out the sun. The tree is growing at a 80 degree angle from the ground planeeveristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1113374676898763752005-04-12T23:20:00.000-07:002005-04-12T23:44:36.900-07:00Node SynchronizationSuppose you have many robots in an area or perhaps you have wireless sensors distributed in an environment. However, you would like to get them all synchronized so that they have the same time or that they do an action all simultaneously. How would you do this?This is a problem of time and how to keep it across multiple locations on different computing resources. One everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1112939796644648482005-04-07T22:35:00.000-07:002005-04-08T09:31:46.900-07:00Robot SoftwareOne of the difficulties of doing research on robotic platforms is the lack of available software to accomplish basic functions like obstacle avoidance, mapping, vision, etc. For those software components that are available, they only work in limited circumstances on certain platforms. This situation makes the prospect of doing your own original robotics application an especially everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1110526373630588272005-03-10T23:20:00.000-08:002005-03-10T23:43:43.206-08:00Conflicts of ResourcesOne of the things that you will discover when you try to build your own autonomous robot is the competing and conflicting demands for resources. These generally include the following: Sensors Computation Power Communication Motor Speed / Torque Size Time You want your robot to do smart things so you need computation. But running an 800MHz processor takes a loteveristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1110436593674496342005-03-09T22:20:00.000-08:002005-03-09T22:36:33.676-08:00Future of Construction RobotsOne of the big applications I see for the future of robotics is in construction. Particularly, I think the field is ripe for earth-moving robots. We currently have all the raw materials in the form of large manually-operated construction vehicles from likes of John Deere and Caterpillar. All that is needed are these vehicles to be given electronic controls and put everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1109913218903499202005-03-03T20:49:00.000-08:002005-03-03T21:13:38.903-08:00Walking GaitsWalking gaits are the study of legged motion and how legs can be used to produce different kinds of motion. We're interested in learning how to control these legs, and also we want to extract general principles of legged motion, so we can easily port these to novel robot designs.There are the typical bipeds which is what humans are, two-legged creatures. And there are the quadrupedeveristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1109654686276546062005-02-28T21:17:00.000-08:002005-02-28T21:25:48.270-08:00From this link at Robots.net, and the article originally from the Guardian Unlimited, they talk about DARPA's plan to introduce legged payload carriers to the US military. Specifically, a 4-legged robot named BigDog that's quite agile for most legged robots today.I've heard this before, but I can't remember where. I believe attended a presentation on this concept. Basically this all about everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1109609360302964542005-02-28T08:48:00.000-08:002005-02-28T08:49:20.306-08:00Lab Work and Robotics WikiIt's been a while since my last diary entry, but I've beenworking hard on my lab projects. Unfortunately I can't talkmuch about it until we get our NASA contract signed.In other news, I've launched a robotics wiki to try and make acollaborative resource for robotics. It's got a lot ofstuff in it already for being such a new wiki. I've alsodecided to make the content everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1109089113540523192005-02-22T08:18:00.000-08:002005-02-22T08:18:33.543-08:00Hard Problems in RoboticsThere are so many things that need to be solved in robotics, that it's so difficult to choose just one to solve. I think that's a problem I have with focus. Even a seemingly simple problem opens up a whole can of worms of unsolved issues.Suppose you consider the problem of a robot exploring some unknown planetary terrain. Let's assume that all the high-level directiveseveristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1100421503644569202004-11-14T01:35:00.000-08:002004-11-14T00:38:23.643-08:00Robosphere 2004, Nov. 9-10 Eyewitness Account (Part 2)
I should mention that as a condition for being allowed to
attend the Robosphere workshop for free, I was supposed to
volunteer my time to help with the proceedings. I spent the
early part of lunch getting briefed on my responsibilities.
My job title for the first day was Miscellaneous. I was
essentially supposed to sit near the entrance everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com99tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1100333906749291992004-11-13T01:17:00.000-08:002004-11-13T00:18:26.750-08:00Robosphere 2004, Nov. 9-10
Eyewitness Account
Robosphere is a bi-annual robotics workshop that focus on
deploying robots into space for long-term operations. This
includes adding robustness to existing robot platforms and
making robots more and more self-sufficient such as being
able to self-repair, perform habitat construction, utilize
in-situ resources, and be more autonomous.
I wasn't everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1084858967071831722004-05-17T22:20:00.000-07:002004-05-17T22:42:47.070-07:00"Visualisation of Surveillance Coverage by Latency Mapping"
A paper by Patrick Chisan Hew in 2003 from the Defence Science and Technology Organisation in Australia.
Hew describes a technique for visualizing information about surveillance coverage by mobile sensor platforms.
There are three key concepts that explain the approach:
1. Swath - This a space region R covered by a mobile sensor everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1084749273250473912004-05-16T16:02:00.000-07:002004-05-16T16:14:33.250-07:00"Surveillance Coverage of Sensor Networks under a Random Mobility Strategy"
This is a paper by Kesidis, Konstantopoulus, and Phoha about the surveillance coverage of mobile sensors in a 2d or 3d space. They assume the sensors move in a Brownian motion strategy and that the sensors have a uniform spherical surveillance coverage around each device.
They give a mathematical formulation to everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1076525597554921042004-02-11T10:53:00.000-08:002004-02-11T10:56:32.123-08:00Self-Assembly Videos
I just released a movie yesterday on the progress of my work in space self-assembly.
This demonstrates a single assembly step of connecting two beams together. The two robots are connected together by a variable-length tether that holds them together. We call this the "mirror roll" since the robots need to be symmetrically aligned for this to work properly.
This is the everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1075967985451684422004-02-04T23:59:00.000-08:002004-02-05T00:02:29.140-08:00The Meaning of Task
I think one of the fundamental ways we evaluate nearly all robotics applications or theories is based on the almighty task. If we define a task, then we can say what the requirements are, what information is needed, and how well a particular robot is accomplishing something.
One needs to take into account that we define tasks in terms of human perceptual schemas and motor everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1075528548322535692004-01-30T21:55:00.000-08:002004-01-30T22:28:43.793-08:00Integrating the Physical and Computational Worlds
An agent is an abstract computer science term that means a black-box that takes a set of percepts from the environment, perfrom some "computation", and exerts a set of actions on that environment. This is an useful concept to talk about AI-like entities or just about anything (even non-AI things) in an useful theoretical framework.
Embodiment everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1075442137085787422004-01-29T21:55:00.000-08:002004-01-29T22:09:09.606-08:00Robotic Basics
In order to create a general theory of robotics, you need to get down to simple basics of what exactly a robot is. I will ignore all the pop culture perception of robots and create my own working definition:
A robot is an autonomous machine composed of sensors and effectors that acts in the real-world to accomplish a task.
What's interesting is what this throws out as not beingeveristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1074959287665061082004-01-24T07:48:00.000-08:002004-01-24T07:51:21.873-08:00Mars Rover to Land Tonight
The Opportunity mars rover lands tonight Saturday, 24th at 9pm PST. (Sunday 25th at 5am UTC)
Apparently the command center at JPL in Pasadena will be televised on C-SPAN for those of you who have cable television.
Nasa TV is also available on the web, but it will probably be very crowded around that time.
In the meantime, check out this awesome satellite picture everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1067480720503658642003-10-29T18:25:00.000-08:002003-10-29T20:03:16.400-08:00Back From Modular Robotics Workshop
I just got back yesterday from Las Vegas where the IROS conference is happening. That's the "International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems". However, I showed up before it started and left the day it began. I attended a workshop that preceded the general conference organized by Mark Yim and his crew from the "smart matter" division at PARC.
everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979274.post-1066883350595963862003-10-22T21:29:00.000-07:002003-10-22T21:32:54.123-07:00On Genetic Methods of Robot Design
In class today, we discussed the general method of solving problems using genetic algorithms which are loosely derived from the concept of natural selection in evolution. The idea is that you create a population of "genes" which serve as the basic building block in which you operate. These genes are interpreted in some way to attempt to solve a problem. Then everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09108862666765715101noreply@blogger.com0