Recent blog entries for kittipat_0541

I had a chance to see the surgical navigation using the electromagnetic technology in order to locate each small part of instruments very precisely (it can even give to 1 mm and 1 degree accuracy), but they work in a very limited environment. This type of surgical technology is invented for the minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Can anyone help me out on how it work if we would like to use it w/ our robot? As I mentioned... it's 1 mm/1 degree accurate, i don't think precision machining using this technology is a big deal at all! Besides, although all the instruments connected by wires, they react hard-core realtime.

I had a chance to go for a furniture fair last couple of weeks and found that Roomba was showing there. I didn't know what happened but it actually falls off the stair that was supposed to be showing the housewives that Roomba will never fall off the edges!!! :D

Seems like the kids are more interested in Mr. Roomba than any housewife/husband ever does. One of them asked the distributor "Mister! Can I try throwing it and let my dog catch it?" I guess if the next models of Roomba look like the ones in Starwars the kids will definitely cry to have them clean the carpets at home! ("I....I am...m y..o..urr Cle..eanerrr..")

I just saw the vdo clip from Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). It is the Kuka robot that runs by the visual feedback system. Though it seems like Thailand technology is lagging Japanese's at least by another 10 years (U. of Tokyo was able to make a robot arm that can catch the ball that is shot toward it at very high speed... and not only catching the coming object... it can also catch the "dropping" ball ... w/ best accuracy), it is a very good start for Thailand. Cheers to Dr. Manukid! I would have to say that it might inspire more people to go into real-time applications of robots in the country.

My colleagues were having great time constructing a air/water scooter, which is the scooter that can fly on air and run on the surface of water. Currently, they are able to make it fly (without passenger on it), but the instability of the flight is still very obvious. However, running on the surface of the water is something to be worked on. As of now, their model looks more or less like a helicopter but w/ 4 sets of motors and blades.

May be using servo to control the orientation of the motors should help, but we still can't get rid of the blades since they are pretty long... i will come up w/ their pictures of prototype soon

I just emailed the robomenu the recent indoor mobile robot we have at our institute, the Gripper-mounted Mobile Robot

check it out... probably as soon as the webmaster post it...

by the way, how do we add the robot to robots.net database?? I couldn't figure out how.. so, I just sent him an email with the robot spec. and pictures.. hope he will post it for me..

I was working with the simulation model for intelligent vehicle last night using just basic components like the infrared LEDs and LDRs to developed a program that would avoid the rear end collisions in car. Using just one OpAmp in comparator mode, I linked the car models with the computer program developed on VB and able to get 2 detecting ranges to keep track of the two cars' distance. However, I found out something so strange about using parallel port that is it works differently (more precise I guess) if you join its ground pin to the ground of the external circuit. I tried not joining them; it gave almost the same result of the input reading but in a not very stable manner... I kinda repeat it several times to confirm this phenomena, and yes it is. Does my printer port has something wrong in it?

Can anyone suggest me the site where I can find more detail about some simple or homemade kind of sonar? Love to have it. thanks kittipat_0541(at)yahoo.com

My university is trying to arrange a robot camp for 12th grade kids from local schools. Sixty students are attending the camp. We will try to have a line tracking robot competition for them (group of 3). Providing only the basic program in assembly and circuit diagrams, we would like them to try to their best in modifying it to get the best performance line tracking behavior. Do you think they can finish it in a day? Any suggestion for shopping list and competition's regulation? kittipat_0541 (at)yahoo.com

Instead of having the Volts and Nuts sort of magazine, we do have our own electronics (I would prefer calling it "robo-tronics") magazine called "Hobby Electronics". It's been published since the last fifteen years I guess. Sad thing was I was trying to build a "worm" looking robot according to their design. After I soldered everything together, it didn't work! The worm, which was supposed to be going around zigzag and once hit the front wall it will make a sort of u-turn, kinda went straight, and it kept going straight once hit the wall!

It was meant to be a christmas gift to my nephew, who seems to be so much interested in robots, that I like to inspire him. Anyway, he found it out and played with it (without me knowing). Finally, he ended up burning the motors cuz he kept it ran against the wall. Poor him. He said "I never know that robot can smell (burned)"!

The next vol. from Hobby Electronics made some correction in the previous volume's circuit, but I didn't see them correct the 'worm'... sad, isn't it?

My team mate in robocup team has run out of memory space in the MCS51 microprocessor, but we still have the whole program of the PID algorithm to get the steady speed of the motors that run the omni-wheels. We consulted the distributors and the manual, but they only suggest us to use external memory device. With limited space in the robot circuit, we can't bear having more electronic device into it. So, we found "xregister" and used it without knowing what it is. The result turns out to be the inconsistance of robot responses, which we have no clue of the source. Has anybody heard of this "xregister" thing? Please advise

I am trying to work on the intelligent vehicle only in just the part of the rear-end collision avoidance. For local vision (of course, Thai student doesn't have enough to pay for the GPS, which cost something like $5,000), I was able to find the ultrasonic from underground market, which costs only US$50. With that operating already, I still do not know how to integrate the braking system. Is it possible without the robot arm stepping on the brake? Can anybody kindly suggest? kittipat_0541(at)yahoo.com