Category Archives: robotics

Robot Rodeos Conjure Up Disasters and Pancake Contests

Extreme Hazard robot essaying an obstacle course at the Robotic Vehicle Range, Kirtland AFB, Alberquerque, NM. Sandia National Labs.

Extreme Hazard robot essaying an obstacle course at the Robotic Vehicle Range, Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, NM. Sandia National Labs.

A sultry day was in the offing near Purnell OK, the seat of McCurtain County in the state’s southeast quadrant, just a dozen miles northwest from the triple point where Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma meet. One hundred forty miles northeast, the National Weather Service Doppler radar station KSRX at Ft. Smith Arkansas, was monitoring a cold front approaching from the west, driven by a mass of cool dry air sweeping down from the northern plains. Typical for the late spring in the American prairie, this eastbound mass was colliding with a warm, wet air mass streaming north from the Gulf of Mexico, now roiling under a cool dry tongue at 700 mb. Buoyant but trapped under heavier cool air, supercells were forming in the humid 850 mb surface layer twenty miles west of Purnell.

Continue reading →

This Football-Sized Robot Sub Handles Law Enforcement's Underwater Beat

This Football-Sized Robot Sub Handles Law Enforcement’s Underwater Beat

From inspecting cargo ships in NYC Harbor to searching for missing persons in South Texas, law enforcement is increasingly supplementing its human divers with these football-sized remote submersibles.

The VideoRay Pro 3 GTO is a tethered, remotely-controlled micro-submersible. The eight-pound machine can dive as far as 500 feet and move at up to 4.1 knots, thanks to its dual 100 mm horizontal thrusters. It’s sensor suite includes, among others, sonar imaging, GPS, water quality sensors, and metal thickness gauges. The Pro 3 GTO, which the NYPD employs also includes a grappling arm, wide-angle front-facing color camera illuminated with Dual 20W Halogen lamps, and an LED-lit HG black-and-white camera on the rear. The submersible is controlled remotely from a suitcase-sized control board.

The device is finding extensive use among in government agencies, like the US Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, the ICE, and the US Coast Guard. Nearly 2,000 of the $31,000 machines are in use across the country—especially where conditions are too dangerous to prohibit human divers.

via This Football-Sized Robot Sub Handles Law Enforcement’s Underwater Beat.

VEXLabs’ Robotics Kits

Grant Imahara

writes in the online BotMag

about VEX Robotics, particularly their upgradable entry-level Explorer, which lists for $199. Link to review.

Robotics – perhaps like personal computers a generation ago – are becoming cheaper and more accessible. All sorts of implications, of course, in normal circumstances. But for emergency functions – particularly gathering information with lessened risk – robots cheap enough for local non-profit groups and simple enough to be set up, and repurposed, easily.

DARPA “Urban Challenge” – autonomous ground vehicle competition

DARPA’s Urban Challenge – the third – was held last weekend; what’s DARPA’s Urban Challenge?

The DARPA Urban Challenge is an autonomous vehicle research and development program with the goal of developing technology that will keep warfighters off the battlefield and out of harm’s way. The Urban Challenge features autonomous ground vehicles maneuvering in a mock city environment, executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles.

The program is conducted as a series of qualification steps leading to a competitive final event, scheduled to take place on November 3, 2007, in Victorville, California. DARPA is offering $2M for the fastest qualifying vehicle, and $1M and $500,000 for second and third place.

– snip –

What is an autonomous ground vehicle?

An autonomous ground vehicle is a vehicle that navigates and drives entirely on its own with no human driver and no remote control. Through the use of various sensors and positioning systems, the vehicle determines all the characteristics of its environment required to enable it to carry out the task it has been assigned.

Why develop autonomous vehicles?

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, Public Law 106-398, Congress mandated in Section 220 that “It shall be a goal of the Armed Forces to achieve the fielding of unmanned, remotely controlled technology such that… by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles are unmanned.” DARPA conducts the Urban Challenge program in support of this Congressional mandate. Every “dull, dirty, or dangerous” task that can be carried out using a machine instead of a human protects our warfighters and allows valuable human resources to be used more effectively.

Who are the teams?

The Urban Challenge teams come from across the United States and around the world, and share a passion for the advancement of robotic technology and machine intelligence. This diverse group includes teams from both academia and the robotics, automotive, and defense industries.

(It should be noted that at least some of these machines probably drive better than a substantial number of people who live in Brooklyn).

I’m sure that lots of good stuff will come out this DARPA project. But it’s interesting to watch Congress asserting itself with a demanding deadline in this project – we’re not hearing about Representatives and Senators banging their hands on hearing-room tables – demanding 100 mpg vehicles, better insulating materials, or field-deployable energy systems that will reduce the horrible risks associated with sending convoys out to pick up a truckload diesel.

The Urban Challenge main page;

John Markoff’s excellent piece in yesterday’sTimes. Markoff has been covering this process since at least 1984. In my less-than-methodical view of my hometown paper, Markoff’s byline means it’s going to be interesting – and often well ahead of the pack.

Here’s a Times

page with links to all of his recent work.

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/teamlist.asp.

Streetwriter – from the Institute for Applied Autonomy

:

swx_webgraphic.gif

Apparently the Streetwriter has had more than one incarnation – first built into the body of a van – the more recent and advanced model being towable. From the IAA website:

The system consists of a custom built, computer controlled industrial spray painting unit that is built into an extended-body cargo van. The vehicle prints text messages onto the pavement in a manner much like a dot-matrix printer. The expanded width of StreetWriter allows for messages and simple graphics that are legible from tall buildings and low flying aircraft and is capable of rendering messages that are several hundred feet in length.

New! A radical redesign of StreetWriter has taken place. The new machine, tentatively called SWX, recently infiltrated the finish line festivities of the DARPA Grand Challenge. The earlier version of StreetWriter has been officially decomissioned [sic

].

Text and other images here.

We’d like to propose an additional use for this technology – when government signage fails in emergencies – viz. certain of New York City’s “Flood Evacuation Route” – which may be signs leading to the flood, rather than away – these machines might be put to use correcting government misinformation. Which may, we think, have been the artists’ original intent. If anyone amongst the Popular Logistics  readership has a connection to IAA – an exclusive group, from what we hear – we’d like an introduction.