Archive-name: robotics-faq/part1
Last-modified: Tue Dec 13 12:10:57 1994

This is part 1 of 5 of the comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ) list. This FAQ addresses commonly asked questions relating to
robotics.
____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright Notice

This FAQ was compiled and written by Kevin Dowling with numerous
contributions by readers of comp.robotics. Acknowledgements are listed
at the end of the FAQ.

This post, as a collection of information, is Copyright 1994 Kevin
Dowling. Distribution through any means other than regular Usenet
channels must be by permission. The removal of this notice is
forbidden.

This FAQ may be posted to any USENET newsgroup, on-line service, or
BBS as long as it is posted in its entirety and includes this
copyright statement. This FAQ may not be distributed for financial
gain. This FAQ may not be included in commercial collections or
compilations without express permission from the author.

Please send changes, additions, suggestions and questions to:
Kevin Dowling tel: 412.268.8830
Robotics Institute fax: 412.268.5895
Carnegie Mellon University net: nivek@cmu.edu
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

This FAQ may be referenced as:
Dowling, Kevin (1994) "Robotics: comp.robotics Frequently Asked
Questions" Usenet news.answers. Available via anonymous ftp from
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/
part1 through part5. 70+ pages.

If the Last-modified date above is more than two months old you
should obtain a new copy. See Section [0.1] Where to Find This FAQ .
___________________________________________________________________________
Part 1/5

Part 1
[0] Errata
[0.1] Where to find this FAQ and comp.robotics archives
[0.2] Related FAQ's and Mailing Lists

[1] What is Robotics?
[1.1] What is the definition of a 'robot'?
[1.2] Where did the word 'robot' come from?
[2] Where can I find robotics resources on the net?

[3] Organizations
[3.1] Robotics Related Organizations
[3.2] Robotics Associations of Many Countries
[3.3] Robotics Clubs

[4] What Periodicals and Publications are there?
[4.1] Magazines, Journals, Newsletters
[4.1.1] Robotics Publications
[4.1.2] Trade magazines
[4.1.3] Other sources

[4.2] Books, Online Information and Videos
[4.2.1] Books
[4.2.2] CDROMS
[4.2.3] Magazine Articles
[4.2.4] Online Technical Reports

Part 2
[5] Conferences and Competitions
[5.1] Conferences
[5.2] Competitions

Part 3
[6] What University Programs are there?
[6.1] Graduate Programs in Robotics
[6.2] Student Who's Who

[7] What is the State of the Robot Industry?

[8] What companies sell or build robots?
[8.1] Mobile robot companies
[8.1.1] AGV Companies
[8.1.2] Underwater robots
[8.2] Manipulator companies
[8.3] Other Organizations doing robotics
[8.4] Small Inexpensive Robots

[9] What is a Robot Architecture?

Part 4
[10] What Robotics related products are there?
[10.1] Sensors
[10.1.1] Cameras
[10.1.2] Inertial measurement devices and gyros
[10.1.3] Rangefinding devices
[10.1.4] Force/torque, accelerometers, tactile
[10.1.5] Sonar sensors
[10.1.6] Pan/tilt mechanisms
[10.1.7] Measuring robot position
[10.1.8] Measuring linear motion
[10.1.9] Interfacing sensors
[10.2] Actuators
[10.2.1] RC-Servos
[10.2.2] Shape memory materials
[10.2.3] Stepper Motor Controller
[10.3] Imaging for Robotics
[10.4] Wireless Communication
[10.4.1] RF Modems
[10.4.1] RF Video
[10.4.2] RF Ethernet
[10.5] Robot Parts: Suppliers and Sources

Part 5
[11] Whatever happened to Heathkit Hero Robots?
[12] What's available for Puma Manipulators?
[13] What kinds of Robotics Simulators are there?
[13.1] Commercial Simulators
[13.2] Shareware and Freeware Simulators
[14] What Real-Time Operating System should I use?
[15] What is NuTank?
[16] Survey of Mobile Robot Development Environments
[17] Small development platforms
[17.1] What is the Miniboard?
[17.2] What is the F1 Board?
[17.3] What is the Bot Board?
[18] What is the XXX Microcontroller?
[18.1] Motorola 68XX
[18.2] Motorola 683xx
[18.3] Intel 80C186
[18.4] Intel 8051
[18.5] Intel 8096
[18.6] Microchip PIC16/17
[18.7] Parallax BASIC Stamp
[18.8] National Semiconductor LM628/629
[18.9] Hewlett-Packard HCTL 1000, 2000
[18.10] Motor Drivers

[19] Acknowledgements

_____________________________________________________________________________

[0] Errata

This section provides details on finding the comp.robotics FAQ and
gives pointers to other FAQs related to robotics.

[0.1] Where to find this FAQ and comp.robotics archives

[0.1.1] Information for New Users of the Internet.

If you haven't done so, new users on the net should read
news:news.announce.newusers. In particular, the following posts are a good
idea:
-A Primer on How to Work With The Usenet Community
-Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Usenet
-Hints on Writing Style for Usenet

This FAQ is currently posted to comp.answers, news.answers and
comp.robotics. All posts to news.answers are archived and are
available via anonymous FTP and e-mail from the following locations:

The World Wide Web:

WorldWideWeb (W3 or WWW) is the universe of network-accessible
information, an initiative started at CERN, now with many
participants. It has a body of software, and a set of protocols and
conventions. W3 uses hypertext and multimedia techniques to make the
web easy for anyone to roam, browse, and contribute to. Future
evolution of W3 is coordinated by the W3 Organization. The W3 has
grown into an extraordinary means of finding information about
organizations, people, companies, products and many, many other
things. Many browsers have been developed to search the net. Some of
the most popular are Mosaic, MacWeb and Netscape.

If you are not using the Web or browsers: Learn! The WWW is already a
main source of information on the net and it is very easy to use with
the browsing and surfing tools now available. Within the robotics
community it is already providing robotic tools, images, videos,
teleoperation and observation.

The following is a general introduction to the WWW:
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

If you have electronic mail, then it possible (though slow!) to get W3
information by mail. try sending a mail to listserv@info.cern.ch with
a line in it saying just HELP to get back instructions. Your mail
system must have a mail gateway onto internet mail, but that is quite
likely. You might have to take the internet address above and ask your
friendly system manager how to convert it into the equivalent mail
address on the system you are using.

Ways to get the FAQ:

HTML:
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a description language for
the Webpages on the net. It provides links and pointers to
other Web pages as well as formatting the documents.

Jason Almeter at Indiana Univ has converted the c.r. FAQ
to html format. Go to the Table of Contents at:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/robotics/FAQ/copy.html

OSU has a very useful site for all the usenet FAQs:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/FAQ-List.html

FTP:
FTP is a way of copying file between networked computers. If
you need help in using or getting started with FTP, send
e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
send usenet/news.answers/ftp-list/faq
as the body of the message.

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq
part1, part2, part3, part4, part5
Internet address: 18.181.0.24

ftp://ftp.uu.net/archive/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq
part1.Z, part2.Z [use uncompress]
Internet address: 137.39.1.9

ftp://nic.switch.ch/info_service/Usenet/periodic-postings
[Check info_service/Usenet/00index for filenames]
Internet address: 130.59.1.40

ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/nivek/ftp/robotics-faq
part1, part2, part3, part4, part5
128.2.206.173

E-mail:
Send email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu containing these lines:
send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part1
send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part2
send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part3
send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part4
send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part5

Archives:
There are a number of sites in the US, Europe and Japan
that store the FAQ and archives for comp.robotics. You can
find these by using the Internet search programs, Archie,
Gopher or Wais.

Archives of comp.robotics and many AI-related newsgroups
can now be found in appropriate subdirectories of
ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/pubs/news/
or more directly for comp.robotics at:
ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/ai/pubs/news/comp.robotics/0.html
Each of these newsgroups is being automatically archived on a
weekly basis. For example, the gzipped tar file 94_10_08.tgz
in the comp.lang.lisp/ subdirectory contains all articles that
appeared in the comp.lang.lisp newsgroup during the previous
week. Links to these archives also exist in many of the
topical directories of the CMU AI Repository (e.g.,
/user/ai/lang/lisp/news/ contains links to Lisp-related
newsgroups). The archives for most of the newsgroups start
with articles appearing on 23-JUL-94. Comments and suggestions
should be sent to ai+news-archives@cs.cmu.edu.

The following site,
ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/users/claird/news.lists/newsgroup_archives.html
indexes not only the CMU AI archives of newsgroups, but over a
hundred other publicly-accessible sites.

Another location is:
ftp://wilma.cs.brown.edu/pub/comp.robotics/

In addition to the FTP archive maintained at
wilma.cs.brown.edu, there are a couple of other mechanisms
available:
- The comp.robotics archive at wilma is also available as a WAIS
source (called "comp.robotics.src"), and hence it is also
available to WWW browsers, via the appropriate WAIS gateway.
- Moises Lejter maintains a mailing list of individuals who
would rather receive comp.robotics via Email as a daily digest
of all messages posted to comp.robotics in each 24-hour
period. Anyone interested should send email directly to
. It's a LOT of mail though...

____________________________________________________________________________
[0.2] Related FAQ's and Mailing Lists

There are a number of newsgroups with topics related to
robotics. These include:

comp.ai.*
comp.realtime
sci.electronics
sci.virtual worlds,
rec.metalworking (fabrication)

In a number of the sections of this faq are locations of related
materials on the net.

Most regularly posted FAQ's can be found at rtfm.mit.edu (rtfm is an
acronym for Read The #$%*! Manual)

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/
where is the name of a given newsgroup.

Or on the www:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/FAQ-List.html

See the Microcontroller section for several other FAQs related to a
variety of microcontrollers.

------------------------------
Mailing Lists

av-mcm (Autonomous Vehicle - Mine Counter Measure) mailing list.

This mailing list was created to provide a professional forum for exchange of
information about R & D in connection with the use of autonomous vehicles
and associated work packages and control concepts in the tasks of mine
(or hazardous materials) clearance on land, in the sea, or from the air
and space.

We wish to include individuals from the armed services, industry, federal
sponsors of research, and the academic community. Subscribers from the
international community are welcome.

To subscribe to the mailing list send a message to
av-mcm-request@stl.nps.navy.mil
without a subject line. In the message body type
subscribe av-mcm your-email-address
This is an open, unmoderated mailing list. Once subscribed, you
may send messages directly to the list (there is no active moderator
who screens messages before they are posted). To post a message to
the list (which will be delivered to all members) use the address
av-mcm@stl.nps.navy.mil
To send a message to the list manager only use the address
av-mcm-request@stl.nps.navy.mil
To find out more about this mailing list such as where old messages
are archived, and who subscribes to the list send a message to
av-mcm-request@stl.nps.navy.mil
leave the subject line blank and then type
Help in the first line of text. You should receive an email
response soon.

------------------------------
nanomech-l mailing list

nanomech-l: A new list for discussing the extension of
micromechanical technology to nanometer precision
(1 micron and below), high frequency agile manufacturing and
robotics using high-precision parts, and techniques for the
assembly of micro- and nanomechanical devices. Possible topics include:

* actuation & control mechanisms (piezo, acoustic, etc.)
* parts and subsystems (electrostatic bearings, springs, ratchets, etc.)
* contact-free, high-frequency, high-DOF electromagnetic
and electrostatic actuators
* nanometer precision parts testing, sorting, and
selection systems
* nanometer precision assembly operations & mechanical
designs for assembly machines
* high-precision registration (peg & hole, STM & atomic ruler, etc.)
* nanometer precision lithographic techniques (SAMS, high proximity
e-beam, tip arrays, high precision 3D lithography, etc.)
* materials for nanolithography (silicon, diamond, monodisperse
nanophase, Langmuir-Blodgett films, self-assembling molecular
structures, etc.)
* nanometer precision machining and finishing techniques (e-beam,
AFM, "sanding", etc.)

The nanomech-l list is run automatically off majordomo.
To subscribe send mail to listserv@netcom.com with the
first line "subscribe nanomech-l".

____________________________________________________________________________
[1] What is robotics?
In this section we define the words 'robot' and 'robotics' and
look a little at the history of robots.

------------------------------
[1.1] What is the definition of a 'robot'?
A reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move
material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various
programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks"

Robot Institute of America, 1979

Obviously, this was a committee-written definition. It's rather dry and
uninspiring. Better ones for 'robotics' might include:

Force through intelligence.
Where AI meet the real world.

Webster says:
An automatic device that performs functions normally ascribed
to humans or a machine in the form of a human.

------------------------------
[1.2] Where did the word 'robot' come from?

The word 'robot' was coined by the Czech playwright Karel Capek
(pronounced "chop'ek") from the Czech word for forced labor or serf.
Capek was reportedly several times a candidate for the Nobel prize for
his works and very influential and prolific as a writer and
playwright. Mercifully, he died before the Gestapo got to him for his
anti-Nazi sympathies in 1938.

The use of the word Robot was introduced into his play R.U.R.
(Rossum's Universal Robots) which opened in Prague in January 1921.
The play was an enormous success and productions soon opened
throughout Europe and the US. R.U.R's theme, in part, was the
dehumanization of man in a technological civilization. You may find it
surprising that the robots were not mechanical in nature but were
created through chemical means. In fact, in an essay written in 1935,
Capek strongly fought that this idea was at all possible and, writing
in the third person, said:

"It is with horror, frankly, that he rejects all
responsibility for the idea that metal contraptions could ever
replace human beings, and that by means of wires they could
awaken something like life, love, or rebellion. He would deem
this dark prospect to be either an overestimation of machines,
or a grave offence against life."

[The Author of Robots Defends Himself - Karl Capek, Lidove
noviny, June 9, 1935, translation: Bean Comrada]

There is some evidence that the word robot was actually coined by
Karl's brother Josef, a writer in his own right. In a short letter,
Capek writes that he asked Josef what he should call the artifical
workers in his new play. Karel suggests Labori, which he thinks too
'bookish' and his brother mutters "then call them Robots" and turns
back to his work, and so from a curt response we have the word robot.

R.U.R is found in most libraries. The most common English translation
is that of P. Selver from the 1920's which is not completely faithful
to the original. A more recent and accurate translation is in a
collection of Capek's writings called Towards the Radical Center
published by Catbird Press in North Haven, CT. tel: 203.230.2391

The term 'robotics' refers to the study and use of robots. The term
was coined and first used by the Russian-born American scientist and
writer Isaac Asimov (born Jan. 2, 1920, died Apr. 6, 1992). Asimov
wrote prodigiously on a wide variety of subjects. He was best known
for his many works of science fiction. The most famous include I
Robot (1950), The Foundation Trilogy (1951-52), Foundation's Edge
(1982), and The Gods Themselves (1972), which won both the Hugo and
Nebula awards.

The word 'robotics' was first used in Runaround, a short story published in
1942. I, Robot, a collection of several of these stories, was
published in 1950.

Asimov also proposed his three "Laws of Robotics", and he later added
a 'zeroth law'.

-Law Zero: A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction,
allow humanity to come to harm.

-Law One: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction,
allow a human being to come to harm, unless this would
violate a higher order law.

-Law Two: (a) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings,
except where such orders would conflict with a higher order
law.

-Law Three: A robot mus protect its own existence
as long as such protection does not conflict with a higher
order law.

An interesting article on this subject:

Clarke, Roger, "Asimov's Laws for Robotics: Implications for
Information Technology", Part 1 and Part 2, Computer, December
1993, pp. 53-61 and Computer, January 1994, pp.57-65.

The article is an interesting discussion of his Laws and how they came
to be in his books, and the implications for technology today and in
the future.

------------------------------
[1.3] When did robots, as we know them today, come into existence?

The first industrial modern robots were the Unimates developed by
George Devol and Joe Engleberger in the late 50's and early 60's. The
first patents were by Devol for parts transfer machines. Engleberger
formed Unimation and was the first to market robots. As a result,
Engleberger has been called the 'father of robotics.'

Modern industrial arms have increased in capability and performance
through controller and language development, improved mechanisms,
sensing, and drive systems. In the early to mid 80's the robot
industry grew very fast primarily due to large investments by the
automotive industry. The quick leap into the factory of the future
turned into a plunge when the integration and economic viability of
these efforts proved disastrous. The robot industry has only recently
recovered to mid-80's revenue levels. In the mean time there has been
an enormous shakeout in the robot industry. In the US, for example,
only one US company, Adept, remains in the production industrial robot
arm business. Most of the rest went under, consolidated, or were sold
to European and Japanese companies.

In the research community the first automata were probably Grey
Walter's machina (1940's) and the John's Hopkins beast. Teleoperated
or remote controlled devices had been built even earlier with at least
the first radio controlled vehicles built by Nikola Tesla in the
1890's. Tesla is better known as the inventor of the induction motor,
AC power transmission, and numerous other electrical devices. Tesla
had also envisioned smart mechanisms that were as capable as humans.
An excellent biography of Tesla is Margaret Cheney's Tesla, man out of
time, Published by Prentice-Hall, c1981.

SRI's Shakey navigated highly structured indoor environments in the
late 60's and Moravec's Stanford Cart was the first to attempt natural
outdoor scenes in the late 70's. From that time there has been a
proliferation of work in autonomous driving machines that cruise at
highway speeds and navigate outdoor terrains in commercial
applications.

Articles on the history of personal robots:

What ever happened to ... Personal Robots? by Stan Veit
The Computer Shopper, Nov 1992 v12 n11 p794(2)

What ever happened to ... Personal Robots? (part 2) by Stan Veit
Computer Shopper, April 1993 v13 n4 p702(2)

I have the text to these online but am trying to find out if I can
include these as part of the FAQ or as separate files that are
ftpable.

____________________________________________________________________________
[2] Where can I find robotics resources on the net?

Within this FAQ are a wide variety of URL's and pointers to ftp sites
for robotics resources. There are a few URL's that go beyond this and
some of those are presented here:

------------------------------
Robotics Internet Resource Page:

This is an excellent source of pointers to a wide variety of Robotics
related work on the Internet. This includes files, video, images,
teleoperation etc etc. - Use your favorite browser (Mosaic, Netscape,
MacWeb etc. to check it out)
http://piglet.cs.umass.edu:4321/robotics.html

------------------------------
European Robotics Archive:

Eurobots is an archive dedicated to storage of robotics related
information. It can be accessed via WWW at
http://cswww.essex.ac.uk/Eurobots
or ftp://ftp.essex.ac.uk/pub/robots.

In addition to holding a collection of general information, the WWW
version has "Hot Links" to useful documents (such as this FAQ!) and
pointers to other mobile robot sites. There is also a dedicated
section for those working in Europe. This archive is intended to
provide a service to all mobile robot developers, so check it out and
send us material that others might find useful, or give us your
suggestions for improvement.

------------------------------
Virtual Reality (VR) related:

For sci.virtual-worlds:
ftp://milton.u.washington.edu/public/virtual-worlds
cheap-vr

Also see: ftp://ftp.ipa.fhg.de//pub/VIRTUAL_REALITY/WWW/hmepage.html
There are papers, productsheets, publications and information.

------------------------------
Tutorial and Overview of Estimation and Navigation work at Notre-Dame
[I highly recommend this - it is an excellent use of the www and a
well-done overview of the work. - nivek]

http://www.nd.edu/NDInfo/Research/sskaar/Home.html

Part I: Camera Space Manipulation
Part I relates to the positioning of a rigid body in three-dimensional
space relative to a specific, second body accomplished with either a
holonomic system, such as a typical industrial robot, or a
nonholonomic system, such as a forklift.

Part II: Estimation Based Navigation
Relates to the navigation of a vehicle relative to a known environment
such as a home, office, or warehouse.

____________________________________________________________________________
[3] Robotics Organizations
There are a number of organizations and societies related to
robotics. Some are related specifically to industry, several to
academia and a number of hobbyist groups. In addition, a number of the
groups, such as the ASME or IEEE, (see below) are very large
organizations and robotics is one of many sub-disciplines in their
respective fields. Many of these organizations also have periodicals
associated with robotics.

[3.1] Robotics Related Organizations
[3.2] Robotics Associations of Many Countries
[3.3] Robotics Clubs

------------------------------
[3.1] Robotics Related Organizations

Advanced Robot Technology Research Association (Japan)
Kikai-shinko Bldg
3-5-8 Shiba-Kohen, Minato-ku, Tokyo
tel: (03) 434-0532
fax: (03) 434-0217
Has joint research programs with member companies.
Members are 20 or so Japanese companies including:
Ishikawajima-Harima, Oki Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industry, Kobe
Steel, Komatsu, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Toshiba, JGC, NEC,
Hitachi, Fanuc, Fujitsu, Fuji, Matshushita Research Institute, Mitsui,
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Electric, Yaskawa

American Society of Mechanical Engineers, (ASME)
345 E. 47th Street
New York, NY 10017
Mechanical Engineering magazine, like the IEEE's Spectrum, is
an excellent general publication on aspects of mechanical engineering.
There are often publications on robotics and the ASME sponsors a
number of other publications and conferences that are relevant to
robotics. The ASME also has a BBS service, MechEng, with an email
server. send email to with 'send info' in
the body.

Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (AUVS)
1735 North Lynn Street
Suite 950
Arlington, VA 22209-2022
tel: 703.524.6646
fax: 703.524.2303
Promoting worldwide advancement of unmanned vehicle systems.
Membership includes subscription to Unmanned Systems magazine, AUVS
News Bulletin, regional seminars, annual symposium and trade show, and
other opportunities. AUVS also sponsors an annual aerial Robotics
Competition. See Conference announcements for more details.
or see:
http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/robotics/other/auvsarc/auvsarc.html
and ftp://usc.edu/pub/nn_robotics/other/auvsarc/

Also auvsarc-request@robotics.usc.edu

Student membership: $15/year
Educational Institutions/Libraries $100/year
Individual: $40/year
Corporate memberships also available.

Center for Autonomous and Man-controlled Robotic and Sensing Systems
Charles Jacobus, CAMRSS director
ERIM
PO Box 8618
Ann Arbor, MI 48107
tel: 313.994.1200 X2457
Member companies include: Ball Aerospace, Coulter Electronics, ERIM,
Fairchild, Ford Aerospace, Geospectra, Grumman, Industrial Technology
Institute, KMS Fusion, Michigan State, UofM.

American Insitute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
370 L'Enfant Promenade, SW
Washington, DC 20024
tel: 202.646.7400
tel: 212.247.6500 (Technical Information Service)
Conferences and publications, several cover automation technologies
for servicing on the ground and in space as well as exploration.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Service Center
445 Hoes Lane
Piscataway, NJ 08854-4150
tel: 201.981.0060
tel: 800.678.IEEE
net: ftp://ftp.ieee.org/
A large organization with hundreds of publications including journals,
transactions, Spectrum, sponsoring conferences, workshops and meetings.
IEEE membership is $95 regular ($23 students)
For membership in the IEEE Computer Society, add $22.
$20 for IEEE Expert (Intelligent Systems and their Applications)
$12 for Transactions on Neural Networks
$12 for Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
$15 for Transactions on Robotics and Automation
$19 for Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering
$24 for Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine IntelligenceIEEE

The International Society for Optical Engineering, (SPIE)
P.O.Box 10
Bellingham, Washington 98227-0010.
tel: 206.676.3290 (PST)
fax: 206.647.1445
tlx: 46-7053
net: spie@mom.spie.org
ftp://mom.spie.org/
SPIE has publications, meetings and conferences in the field
of intelligent robots, mobile robots, teleoperation, machine vision,
etc.
SPIE is a nonprofit society dedicated to advancing engineering
and scientific applications of optical, electro-optical, and
optoelectronic instrumentation, systems and technology. Its members
are scientists, engineers, and users interested in the reduction to
practice of these technologies. SPIE provides the means for
communicating new developments and applications to the scientific,
engineering, and user communities through its publications, symposia,
and short courses.

SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering, has started
up four new listservers, covering robotics, fiber optics, optical
computing and processing, and optomechanical engineering/instrument
design. This brings the total to eight (see list below).

SPIE maintains several e-mail Listserver Groups dedicated to various
technical specialties. These groups are a way for colleagues to share
information, solve problems, and discuss issues related to their
interests. While the topics are tied to the various International
Technical Working Groups of SPIE, membership is not required to join a
listserver group.

Currently available e-mail listservers maintained by SPIE:
Listname Group
-------- -----
info-bios BiOS (Biomedical Optics Society)
info-ei Electronic Imaging
info-holo Holography
info-adopt Adaptive Optics
info-fibers Fiber Optics
info-opcom Optical Computing and Processing
info-robo Robotics
info-optomech Optomechanical and Instrument Design

To subscribe to one of these groups, send an e-mail message to
info-optolink-request@mom.spie.org
and include the words: subscribe info-listname
in the message body area, where listname matches one of the names
listed above. For a complete set of instructions, send a message to
info-optolink-request@mom.spie.org with the word HELP in the message
body. For an up-to-date list of SPIE listserver groups at any time,
send the word LISTS to the same address.

The Material Handling Institute
8720 Red Oak Blvd, Suite 201
Charlotte, NC 28217
Primary robotics focus is on AGV's.

National Service Robots Association (NSRA)
900 Victors Way
PO Box 3724
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
tel: 313.994.6088
An organization devoted to robots other than on the factory floor.

Robotics Industry Association (RIA)
(same address as NSRA)

Society of Manufacturing Engineers, (SME)
One SME Drive
PO Box 930
Dearborn, MI 48121
tel: 313.271.1500

Utility/Manufacturer Robot Users group (UMRUG)
Contact: Harry T. Roman
MC: 16-H
Public Service Electric and Gas Company
80 Park Plaza
PO Box 570
Newark, NJ 07101
tel: 201.430.6646

------------------------------
[3.2] Robotics Associations of Many Countries

Compilied from a list provided by the British Robot Association.
Alphabatized by English spelling of country.

Australian Robot Association Inc
G.P.O. Box 1527
SYDNEY 2001
New South Wales
Australia
Contact: Mr Michael Kassler
tel: +61-2-959-32-39
fax: +61-2-959-46-32

Osterreichisches Forschungszentrum
Seibersdorf GmbH
Hauptabteilung Fertigungstechnik und Automation
A-2444 SEIBERSDORF
Austria
Contact: Mr Erwin Fugger
tel: +43-2254-80-22-13
fax: +43-2254-80-21-18

SOBRACON - Sociedade Brasileira de Comando
Numerico, Automazacao e Computacao Grafica
Rua General Jardim, 645-7 andar, cjto.72
01223 011 - Sao Paulo, SP
Brazil
Contact: Mr. Arnaldo Pereira Ribeiro
tel: +55-11-256-1192 / 258 3320
fax: +55-11-256-94-96

British Robot Association (BRA)
BRA Aston Science Park
Love Lane
Birmingham B7 4BJ
England
tel: +44 (0)21-628 1745
fax: +44 (0)21-628 1746
Meetings, newsletters, information, contacts, sponsor of several
events in the UK. Individual and Student rate is 60 pounds UK.

"Robot" Interindustry Research and Production Association
(MNTK "Robot")
Izmailovskaya sq.,7
MOSCOW - Russia
CIS
Contact: Mr. Vladimir P Stepanov
tel: +7-095-367-85-36
fax: +7-095-367-88-81

China Society of Industrial
Automation & Automated Industries
8, 7F, Tun Hwa N. Rd.
TAIPEI - China
Contact: Mr. Chen, Chen-Chang
tel: +886-2-751-34-68
fax: +886-2-781-77-90

Danish Industrial Robot Association (DIRA)
Teknologiparken
DK-8000 AARHUS C
Denmark
Contact: Mr. John Nielsen
tel: +45-86-14-24-00
fax: +45-86-14-43-55

Robotics Society in Finland
c/o Suomen Automaation Tuki Oy
Asemapaallikonk. 12 C
FIN-00520 HELSINKI
Finland
tel: +358-0-146-1644
fax: +358-0-146-1650
Contact: Mr. Hannu Lehtinen
e-mail: Hannu.Lehtinen@vtt.fi

Fachgemeinschaft MHI im VDMA
P.O. Box 71 08 64
D-6000 FRANKFURT (MAIN) 71
Germany
Contact: Mr. Berndt Knoerr
tel: +49-69-66-03-466
fax: +49-69-66-03-459

IPA
Nobelstrasse 12
D-7000 STUTTGART 80
Germany
Contact: Mr Rolf D Schraft
tel:+49-711-970-12-00
fax: +49-711-970-13-99

Association Francaise de Robotique
Industrielle (AFRI)
Tour 66
4, Place Jussieu
F-75252 PARIS CEDEX 05
France
Contact: Mr. Arnauld Laffaille
tel: +33-1-44-27-62-12
fax: +33-1-44-27-62-14

Hungarian Robotics Association
c/o Tungsram T.H. Co.Ltd.
Centre of Robotics and Automation
H-1340 Budapest
IV., Vaci ut 77
Hungary
Contact: Dr. Jozsef K. Tar
tel: +36-1-169-6144
fax: +36-1-169-6144

Government of India
Ministry of Science & Technology
Dept. of Science & Technology
Technology Bhavan
New Mehrauli Road
New Delhi-110 016
India
Contact: Mr. A.N.N. Murthy, Director
tel: +91-11-662-260, 654-793
fax: +91-11-616-2418

SIRI - Associazione Italiana di Robotica
c/o ETAS Periodici
Via Mecenate 91
I-20138 MILANO
Italy
Contact: Mr Daniele Fabrizi
tel: +39-2-580-842-24
fax: +39-2-554-003-88

Japan Industrial Robot Association
c/o Kikaishinko Bldg
3-5-8, Shibakoen, Minato-Ku
TOKYO
Japan
Contact: Mr Kanji Yonemoto
tel: +81-3-3434-2919
fax: +81-3-3578-1404

KIST - Korea Institute of Science and Technology
P.O. Box 131, Cheongryang
Seoul
Korea
Contact: Mr. Chun Sik-lee
tel: +82-2-967-3505, 963-4497
fax: +82-2-969-1763

Meininger Automation bv
P.O. Box 743
NL-2280 AS RIJSWIJK
Netherlands
Contact: Mr Jack B Eijlers
tel: +31-70-340-17-80
fax: +31-70-340-1602

Federation of Norwegian Engineering Industries (TBL)
Box 7072 - H
N-0306 OSLO 3
Norway
Contact: Mr Johan Ulleland
tel: +47-2-46-58-20
fax: +47-2-46-18-38

Polish Federation of Engineering Associations (NOT)
Czackiego Str 3/5
PL-00950 WARSZAWA
Poland
Contact: Mr. Kazimierz Wawrzyniak
tel: +48-22-26-87-31
fax: +48-22-27-29-49

Singapore Industrial Automation Association (SIAA)
151 Chin Swee Road
#03-13 Manhattan House
SINGAPORE 0316
Singapore
Contact: Mr Stephen Teng
tel: +65-734-69-11
fax: +65-235-57-21

MVVZ Robot
Nam. Legionarov 3
CZ-080 01 PRESOV
Slovakia
Contact: Mr Vladimir Cop
tel: +42-91-235-77
fax: +42-91-231-95

"J. Stefan" Institute
Jamova 39
61000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
Contact: Mr Jadran Lenarcic
tel: +38-61-159-199
fax: +38-61-161-029, 273-677

Asociacion Espanola de Robotica
Rambla de Catalunya 70, 3r 2a
E-08007 BARCELONA
Spain
Contact: Mr Luis Basanez
tel: +34-3-215-57-60
fax: +34-3-215-23-07

Swedish Industrial Robot Association (SWIRA)
Box 5506
S-114 85 STOCKHOLM
Sweden
Contact: Mr Thomas Hardenby
tel: +46-8-783-80-00
fax: +46-8-660-33-78

Schweizerische Gesellschaft fur
Automatik, Arbeitsgruppe Robotik
Postgasse 17
CH-3011 BERN
Switzerland
Contact: Mr Charles Giroud
tel: +41-31-21-22-51
fax: +41-31-21-12-50

British Robot Association (BRA)
Aston Science Park, Love Lane
Aston Triangle
BIRMINGHAM B7 4BJ
United Kingdom
Contact: Mr. Donald Pitt
tel: +44-21-628-17-45
fax: +44-21-628-17-46

Robotic Industries Assoc (RIA)
P.O. Box 3724
ANN ARBOR, MI 48106
USA
Contact: Mr. Donald A. Vincent
tel: 1-313-994-6088
fax: 1-313-994-3338

Secretariat of IFR
c/o Sveriges Verkstadsindustrier
Box 5506
S-114 85 STOCKHOLM
Swden
Contact: Mr Lennart Djupmark
Mrs Kerstin Teglof Delgado
tel: +46-8-783-80-00 or
+46-8-783-82-08
fax: +46-8-660-33-78

------------------------------
[3.3] Robotics Clubs

The original computer club in Silicon Valley was the Homebrew computer
club, out of which evolved a major portion of the personal computer
industry. In that spirit, if not the hope for history repeating
itself, a number of robotics societies and clubs have sprung up.

Maintainer of this list:

Ed Severinghaus
listserver: send message "get society" to info@sfrsa.com listserver
or "help" for list of other options

Atlanta Hobby Robotics Association
P.O. Box 2050
Stone Mountain, GA 30086
tel: 404.972.7082
fax: 404.979.3660,,,11
net:
bbs: Robots R4U 404.978.7300 - 300-14400 - 8N1 - 24hrs - 7days
Supporting Hobby Robot activity in Atlanta and more. Source of "Robot
Hobby; The Complete Manual, for Individuals and Clubs" See Books Section.

The Robot Group
PO Box 164334
Austin, TX 78716
tel: 512.794.9105
net:
gopher://gopher.cs.utexas.edu/Other Interesting Gophers/Robogopher

Connecticut Robotics Society
c/o Jake Mendelssohn Jake.Mendelssohn@circellar.com
190 Mohegan Drive
West Hartford, CT 06117
tel: 203.233.2379

The Dallas Personal Robotics Group
Dallas Personal Robotics Group
c/o Eric Yundt - President
5112 Hardaway Circle
The Colony, TX 75056
Voice #: 214-625-4454
Fax #: 214-612-2035
Email: eric@sssi.com garap@utdallas.edu srainwater@ncc.com
BBS: The Interociter BBS 214-258-1832

LA Area Robotics and Automation Group

Los Angeles, CA
If you wish to subscribe to the mailing list,
please send a message to:
listproc@cad.ucla.edu
with a blank Subject: line and the body of the message reading:
subscribe la-ragroup
[David Lee e-mail: dlee@cs.ucla.edu]

Palo Alto Homebrew Robotics Club
c/o Richard Prather
91 Roosevelt Circle
Palo Alto, CA 94306

Portland Area Robotics Society (PARTS)
821 SW 14th
Troutdale, OR 97060
tel: 503.666.5907.
net: marvin@agora.rdrop.com
contact: Marvin Green
The purpose of the Portland Area Robotics Society is to
support and promote the development of personal robotics, and to
facilitate the exchange of information between robot enthusiasts.
P.A.R.T.S will help provide practical and technical assistance to its
members, by promoting experimentation, construction, discussions,
seminars, exhibitions, and contests, in the field of hobby robotics.
Membership to P.A.R.T.S shall be open to all persons, who are
interested in learning more about robotics, and furthering the
objectives of the club. To get the most from P.A.R.T.S, active
participation is wholeheartedly encouraged. After all, you only get
out of it what you put into it. Membership is $20 a year and includes
the PARTS newsletter.
PARTS also has a newsletter that focuses on robotics for the
hobbyist. Each issue contains valuable information on electronics,
microcontrollers, sensors, hardware construction and software for
robotics. You can obtain a set of twelve newsletters for only $9.95.
This includes shipping and handling.

The Robot Group - Alex Iles, President
POB 164334
Austin, TX 78716
tel: 512.288.9135
net: robot-group@cs.utexas.edu
net: gopher://gopher.cs.utexas.edu/Other Interesting Gophers/Robogopher

Robotics Society of Southern California
c/o Jerry Burton, President
10471 S. Brookhurst
Anaheim, CA 92804
714-535-8161
Robotics Society BBS at (714) 538-0614
jbpir2@aol.com

Robotics Club of Maryland
Computer Science Dept.
A.V. Williams Bldg. (115)
University of Maryland
College Park, Md. 20742-3255
contact: Stephen Klueter, President
net:

robotics group
President/founder: Franco Arteseros
13702 East Lehigh Ave, unit E.
Aurora, CO 80014
tel: 303.680.9324

The Robotics Society of America
PO Box 1205
Danville, CA 94526-1205
tel:415.550.0588
fax: 415.550.0411
bbs: 415.648.6427 (supports 14.4Kb)
net:
Subscription to SFRSA "Magazine" The normal subscription rate
will be $25 for 12 monthly issues.

Rochester Institue of Technology
Brace Peters, President robotics@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
RIT Robotics Club An RIT recognized club.
1502 Grace Watson Hall
Rochester, New York 14623
meetings are held every Sunday,
7:00 pm in building 09, room 2139 (Gleason building)

San Francisco Robotics Society of America
Brad Smallridge, Director bsmall@sfrsa.com
P.O.Box 1205
Danvile, CA 94526-1205
415-550-0588
BBS 415-648-6427, 14.4K N81

Seattle Robotics Society
c/o Jeff Sandys
P.O.Box 30668
Seattle, WA 98103-0668
206-782-5989 (8AM-9PM PST, ask for Bob)

Triangle Amateur Robotics Club
P.O. Box 17523
Raleigh, NC 27619
tel: 919.782.8703
net: sasrer@unx.sas.com (Rodney Radford)
tel: 919.677.8001 x7703
hme: 919.469.9359
Meets first Monday of every month at 7:30pm on NCSU campus (110 Clark Lab)

Twin Cities Robotics/AI Group
St Paul, Minnesota
Contact: Alan Kilian, (612)683-5499
tcrobots@cray.com
kilian@cray.com
via Mosaic: http://lenti.med.umn.edu/~mwd/robot.html

University of North Carolina Asheville Robotics Club
contact: Paul Schuh
Home phone: (704) 645-6165 schuh@phys.unca.edu

A related group:
MicroMechanics Information Clearinghouse
Requests to join list are sent to:
FTP site:
ftp://mems.isi.edu/
directories: /pub/prm, /pub/prospero, /pub/mems, /pub/papers
WWW-URL: http://mems.isi.edu/mems

-----
Robot related performance art:

Survival Research Laboratories
1458-C San Bruno Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94110
tel/fax: 415.641.8065
contact: SRL director Mark Pauline
net:
Survival Research Laboratories is a not-for-profit machine-
performance art group conceived of and founded by Mark Pauline in
November 1978. Since its inception SRL has operated as an
organization of creative technicians dedicated to re-directing the
techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military
away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or
warfare. Since 1979, SRL has staged over 45 mechanized presentations
in the United States and Europe. Each performance consists of a
unique set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots, and
special effects devices, employed in developing themes of
socio-political satire. Humans are present only as audience or
operators.

Survival Research Laboratories is now available for email and
time-restricted Gopher and anonymous FTP access from 0000-0600 PST
daily. [NOTE TIME RESTRICTION!]: ftp://srl.org/pub/SRLImageBank and
ftp://srl.org/pub/SRLInfo The directory holds scanned-in photographs
and video images of SRL shows in GIF format; SRLInfo has news. Image
file sizes range from 70 to 250 Kbytes, but our link speed is only
9600 baud; please be patient. Always select BINARY mode before FTP
file transfers. Filenames can be specified in upper or lower case.
Comments or questions to support@srl.org.

Joel Plutchak has a WWW mirror site for SRL at:
http://lager.geo.brown.edu:8080/pub/srl/
ftp://lager.geo.brown.edu

There are two SRL tapes carried by Media Magic - a company that has all
sorts of great books, programs, CD-ROMs, laser disks, videos, etc dealing
with computers in science and art. The tapes are:

#v112a The Pleasures Of Unihibited Excess ($30) and
#v112b The Will To Provoke ($25)

Media Magic
P.O. Box 598
Nicasio, CA 94946
tel: 415.662.2426 or orders
tel: 800.882.8284

__________________________________________________________________________
[4] What Robotics Related Periodicals and Publications are there?

[4.1] Magazines, Journals, Newsletters
[4.1.1] Robotics Publications
[4.1.2] Trade magazines
[4.1.3] Other sources

[4.2] Books, Online Information and Videos
[4.2.1] Books
[4.2.2] CDROMS
[4.2.3] Magazine Articles
[4.2.4] Online Technical Reports

------------------------------
[4.1] Magazines, Journals, Newsletters
There are a number of academic journals and trade magazines
devoted to robotics. There are no magazines currently devoted to the
hobbyist or designer of robotic mechanisms. In the 1980's Robotics
Engineering (nee Robotics Age) lasted for 7-8 years but folded. The
one difficulty I noted as a subscriber was that the magazine attempted
to address the hobbyist, the curious and those whose work was devoted
to robotics without successfully catering to all groups.

-----
[4.1.1] Robotics Publications

This list of periodical covers the academic journals, the trade
magazines devoted to both robotics and relevant sub-areas, and the
lone newsletter for hobbyists.

Advanced Robotics (in English)
The International Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan.
ISSN 0169-1864
Editor-in-Chief, Robotics Society of Japan, 6FL. Bunkyo-Shogaku Bldg.,
1-15-4, Hongu, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan.
Subscriptions and orders:
VSP, PO. Box 346, 3700 AH Zeist, The Netherlands.
Bimonthly, DM525 (1993 price).

Automation in Construction
Publisher: Elsevier Science Publisher B. V., Amsterdam.
Desk Editor: Erik de Vries
The Editor of the journal is
Dr. T. Michael Knasel
10324 Lake Avenue
Cleveland, OH 441102-1239.
fax: 216.651.5136.

Autonomous Robots
ISSN 0929-5593
Kluwer Academic Publishers
Journal Dept
PO Box 358, Accord Station
Hingham, MA 02018-0358
tel: 617.871.6600
fax: 617.871.6528
subscription: $50/individual
Vol 1, 1994 (2 issues)
Editor-in-chief
George Bekey

Industrial Robot
ISSN 0143-991X
Quarterly, $145/year
MCB University Press Ltd.
62 Toller Lane
Bradford, West Yorkshire
England, BD8 9BY
tel: (44) 274 499821,
fax: (44) 274 547143
--in the US
MCB University Press Ltd.
PO Box 10812
Birmingham, AL 35201-0812
tel: 1-800-633-4931 (1-205-995-1567),
fax: 1-205-995-1588

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
The IEEE has a formidable array of journals, transactions and
magazines. Here are a few that are relevant to robotics work:
IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
IEEE Control Systems Magazine
IEEE Computer Magazine
IEEN Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics
Cost: Have to join IEEE and then subscribe. Student rates are
much less expensive than non-student rates.

International Journal of Robotics and Automation
Published 4 times annually. ISSN 0826-8185
ACTA Press, PO Box 354, CH-8053, Zurich, Switzerland or ACTA
Press, PO Box 2481, Anaheim, CA 92814.
Subscriptions: $165 US or 313.50 SFr. ($12 US or 22.80 SFr postage and
handling). A special rate is available to members of IASTED.

International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)
MIT Press
28 Carleton Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
Cost: $50/year to individuals

Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems
Three issues per volume, $58.50 per volume (individual)
Kluwer Academic Publishers Group
PO Box 322,
3300 AH Dordrecht,
The Netherlands
--in the US:
PO Box 358
Accord Station,
Hingham, MA 02018-0358

Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan
Robotics Society of Japan
6Fl. Bunkyo Shogaku Bldg.,
1-15-4 Hongo Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan
tel: (03)3812-7594
fax: (03)3812-4628.
The table of contents (TOC) are posted to comp.research.japan
and comp.robotics as they are available, although there is
some delay. All of the TOC for this and other
Japanese CS journals are archived for anonymous FTP at
ftp://cs.arizona.edu/japan/table.contents/robotics.TOC/jrsj.TOC

Journal of Robotic Systems
G. Beni and S. Hackwood, editors
College of Engineering
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0425
Publisher:
Interscience Division
Professional, Reference, and Trade Group
John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
605 Third Ave.
New York, NY 10158

Mechatronics (Mechanics, Electronics, Control)
Editors-in-Chief:
Dr. R. W. Daniel
Department of Engineering Science,
University of Oxford,
Parks Road,
Oxford, OX1-3PJ
United Kingdom:
tel: +44-865-273153
fax: +44-865-273153

Professor J. R. Hewit
Engineering Design Institute
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Technology, Loughborough
Leicestershire, LE11 3TU
UNITED KINGDOM
tel: +44-509-222936
fax: +44-509-268103)

Published by Pergamon Press Ltd, Headington Hill Hall, Oxford
OX3 0BW UK. 1993 subscription rates: 193 pounds Sterling (US
$312) Personal subscription rates for those whose library
subscribes at a regular rate are available on request.
Subscription rates for Japan are available on request.

Robot (Japanese)
Industrial Robots and Application Systems
published bimonthly
Japan Industrial Robot Association (JIRA)
Kikai-Shinko Building
3-5-8, Shiba-Kohen,
Mina To-ku
Tokyo, Japan
tel: (03) 3434-2919
fax: (03) 3578-1404

Robot Explorer
'The newsletter of motile systems'
ISSN: 1060-4375
Appropriate Solutions
145 Grove Street
PO Box 458
Peterborough, NH 03458-0458
tel: 603.924.6079
fax: 603.924.9441
net: apsol@world.std.com
$14.95/year in the US, $29.95 to the rest of the world.

Robotica
International Journal of Information, Education and Research
in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
Quarterly publication, US $179 per year!
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building
Shaftesbury Road,
Cambridge CB2 2RU (UK)
in the US:
Cambridge University Press
Journals Department
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011-4211

Robotics and Autonomous Systems
-- In Europe --
Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.
Journals Department
PO Box 211, 100 AE Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Editors in Chief:
Prof. F.C.A. Groen
University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Mathematics and CS
Dept. of Computer Systems
Kruislaan 403
1098 SJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
net:

-- In the US and Canada --
Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc.
Journal Information Center
655 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10010
Editor in Chief
Prof. T.C. Henderson
University of Utah
Dept. of Computer Science
3160 Merrill Engineering Bldg.
Salt Lake City, UT 84112 USA
net:

Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing
Pergamon Press, ISSN 0736-5845
Editorial Office: Dr. Andre Sharon, Associate Editor, damien@mit.edu
Subscriptions and orders:
Elsevier Science Inc, 660 White Plains Road, Tarrytown,
NY 10591-5153, USA
or Elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane,
Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK.

Robotics Today
Published by:
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
One SME Drive
PO Box 930
Dearborn, MI 48121
tel: 313.271.1500

Robotics World
"The end-user's magazine of flexible automation"
Published quarterly
Communication Channels
6255 Barfield Road
Atlanta, GA 30328
tel: 404.256.9800
They also publish the Robotics World Directory $49.95

-----
InterLingua Retrieval Service

InterLingua, an information retrieval and translation company, will be
making available (starting January, 1995) at no cost the
tables-of-contents of selected Japanese publications every month.
This is part of a larger project in the science / technology arena
that we are engaged in, so it is possible for us to make this
information available at no obligation.

T-O-Cs of Japanese publications in the computer/electronics cateogry
will be posted on the Usenet group (comp.research.japan). However,
other T-O-Cs can be delivered via e-mail to you if you contact us with
your address and category preferences at the e-mail address below.
(Sorry, we are unable to deliver via post office or fax).

Below is a list of categories in which we are currently translating
T-O-Cs and making them available at no cost. Should you have any other
suggestions, please let us know. If there is sufficient interest in
other categories, we will consider making arrangements with Japanese
publishers.

Tables-of-contents from Japanese magazines will be available in the
following categories:

1. General engineering (robotics, materials, inventions & patents)
2. Mechanical engineering
3. Transportation engineering
4. Metal engineering
5. Chemistry and chemical engineering
6. Energy engineering
7. Nuclear engineering
8. Electrical engineering
9. Electronics and communication technology
10. Information science (software & hardware)

Again, these are the subject areas in which InterLingua is currently
engaged in translations and information retrieval. Any additional
suggestions are more than welcome.

To subscribe to our e-mail delivery service contact us by e-mail at:
japanese@aol.com

------------------------------
[4.1.2] Trade Magazines

Usually free, mostly ads or industry news. Many articles
written by advertisers. Great sources of product information. Our lab
at CMU receives 50-60 trade magazines and journals per month and while
no one reads all of the articles, pointers are passed on to people
around the lab. This keeps the group abreast of new products and
developments.

Advanced Imaging
445 Broad Hollow Rd.
Melville, NY 11747
tel: 516.845.2700
fax: 516.845.2797
Subscription free to qualified professionals, $50/yr otherwise.

ComputerCraft
CQ Communications
76 N. Broadway
Hicksville, NY 11801
tel: 516.681.2922
fax: 516.681.2926
cost: $18.97/yr
ISSN: 1055-5072

Computer Applications Journal
Circuit Cellar Inc.
4 Park St. Suite 20
Vernon, CT 06066
Subscriptions: P.O. Box 7694
Riverton, NJ 08077
tel: 203.875.2751
cost: $21.95/yr
ISSN: 0896-8985
Excellent for those building hardware, programming
microcontrollers, etc. Also a very good source for companies
who have products in these areas.

Design News
Cahners Publishing Co.
275 Washington Street
Newton, MA. 02158
News and Applications for design engineers.
Cost: Free to qualified recipients; otherwise - ?

EE Times
CMP Publications, Inc.
600 Community Drive
Manhasset, NY 11030
Cost: Free to qualified recipients (in the U.S.); otherwise -
$159/yr (U.S. & Foreign)

Electronic Design
Penton Publishing Inc
1100 Superior Ave
Cleveland, OH 44114-2543
611 Route #46 West
Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604
tel: 201.393.6060
fax: 201.393.0204
cost: $95.00/yr (free if qualified)
ISSN: 0013-4872

Electronics Now (formerly Radio Electronics)
Gernsback Publications Inc
Subscription Dept
Box 55115
Boulder, CO 80321-5115
500-B Bi-County Boulevard
Farmingdale, NY 11735
tel: 516.293.3000
cost: $19.97/yr
ISSN: 0033-7862

Embedded Systems Programming
Miller Freeman
600 Harrison St.
San Francisco, CA 94107
tel: 800.829.5537 (customer service)
tel: 415.905.2200
bbs: 415.905.2689.
$49.95 for 12 issues

Laser Focus World
10 Tara Blvd., Fifth Floor (Editorial Office)
Nashua, NH 03062
tel: 603.891.0123
fax: 603.891.0574
internet: lfworld@pinet.aip.org
Subscription Inquiries: 918.831.9424

Machine Design
Penton Publishing Inc.
1100 Superior Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44114-2543
tel: 216.696.7000
fax: 216.621.8469
Cost: Free to qualified recipients in the U.S.; otherwise -
$100.00/yr in U.S.; $140/yr in Canada; $160/yr - all other
Foreign

Midnight Engineering 'Journal of Personal Product Development'
Published by William E Gates, [No, not him...]
111 E. Drake Road
Suite 7041
Fort Collins, CO 80525
tel: 303.225.1410
fax: 303.225.1075
One-year (6 issues) $24, canada and mexico $29, other foreign
$49 (airmail) Perhaps marginal for this list but focus is on
"resources and insight for the entrepreneurial engineer"
Issues and articles on developing hardware, software,
micro-controllers, product development, marketing, patenting
issues, startups, etc etc. Excellent if you need this info.

Modern Materials Handling
44 Cook Street
Denver, CO 80206-5800
tel: 303.388.4511
Trade magazine covering productivity solutions for
manufacturing, warehousing and distribution. Typically
includes articles on factory automation, etc. Cost: Free to
qualified recipients; otherwise - $75 for US subscribers.

Motion Control
Tower Media Corp.
800 Roosevelt Rd.
Bldg. C, Suite 206
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137
Trade magazine for Motion Control applications and Technology.
Cost: Free to qualified recipients in the U.S.; otherwise -
$50/yr in U.S. $90/yr foreign subscriptions.

NASA Tech Briefs
Associated Business Publications Co., Ltd.
41 E. 42nd St.
New York, NY 10017-5391
Contains useful technology transfer information which very
often includes robotics research performed at various NASA
centers. Cost: Free to qualified recipients; otherwise -
$75.00/yr in the U.S., $150.00/yr for Foreign subscriptions

Nuts and Volts
430 Princeland Court
Corona, CA 91719
tel: 800.783.4624
net: 74262.3664@compuserve.com
Electronics classifieds and ads. Lots of devices and products
relevant for robot builders. Often features articles on robot
building as well by Karl Lunt.

Sensors
Helmers Publishing
174 Concord Street
PO Box 874
Peterborough, NH 03458-0874
tel: 603.924.9631
Trade magazine devoted to sensing devices. Publishes directory.
Cost: Free to qualified subscribers, $55/yr otherwise

[To add]
GPS World (Global Positioning System related)
RF Design
Sea Technology
Laser Focus
POB (surveying profession)
Broadcast Engineering (TV and radio engineering)

------------------------------
[4.1.3] Other sources:

Thomas Register
Thomas Publishing Company
One Penn Plaza
New York, NY 10117-0139
tel: 212.695.0500
fax: 212.290.7362
About $250 for a 20-odd volume encyclopedia of US industry.
Concentration on heavier industries - but still an amazing source for
information. No company or lab building products should be without
one. Available on CD-ROM for about $300.

EEM - The 'Thomas Register' for Electrical engineers.
[Address to add]

------------------------------
[4.2] Books, Online Information and Videos

[4.2.1] Books
[4.2.2] CDROMS
[4.2.3] Magazine Articles
[4.2.4] Online Technical Reports

The readership of this group ranges from the beginner to experienced
robot designers and users. Accordingly, this list covers the gamut as
well. I would like to include net resources as well such as papers or
tech reports so send me your sites!

-----
[4.2.1] Books
Some of these books may be out of print. Check with your local
bookseller or try a used bookstore that provides a search service.

Advanced Robot Systems
Mark J. Robillard
Howard Sams & Co. 1984

Autonomous Robot Vehicles
I.J. Cox and G.T. Wilfong (eds)
New York, Springer-Verlag, 1990
Collection of seminal papers on autonmous robot vehicles.

Build Your Own Universal Computer Interface
Bruce Chubb
TAB Books

Control System Design Guide
George Ellis
ISBN 0-12-237470-3
Covers hardware,software and theory of ordinary PID control.

Directed Sonar Sensing for Mobile Robot Navigation
by John J. Leonard & Hugh F. Durant-Whyte
Kluwer Academic Press
Boston (1992) ISBN 0-7923-9242-6
An expansion on John's thesis work, which he did at Oxford.

Industrial Robots: Computer Interfacing and Control, Wesley E. Snyder
Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1985.
LOC # TS191.8.S67
Fair amount of detail on inductrial robot controllers and connecting
to them.

Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics and the Coming Robotopia
Frederik L. Schodt
Kodansha International
New York, NY 1988
Lots of interesting views of robots in Japan and Japan's fascination
with robots.

Interfacing Test Circuits With Single-Board Computers
Robert H. Luetzow
TAB Books

Machines That Walk
Shin-Min Song and Kenneth J Waldron
ISBN 0-262-19274-8
Like it says: legged locomotion. Focus is on the OSU Adaptive
Suspension Vehicle.

A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation
R. M. Murray, Z. Li, and S. S. Sastry
CRC Press, 1994
For more information, see http://avalon.caltech.edu/~murray/mls

Microprocessor Based Robotics
Mark J. Robillard
Howard Sams & Co. 1983

Microcontroller Technology: The 68HC11
Peter Spasov
Regents/Prentice Hall, 1993, ISBN 0-13-583568-2
Aimed at the 68HC11 family, good reference.

Minimalist Mobile Robotics
Jonathan H Connel
ISBN 0-12-185230-X
Brooks subsumption architecture robots. Shows complex behaviors are
possible with little of the massive architectures done in other
programs.

Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implementation.
Joseph L. Jones and Anita Flynn,
This book grew out of the Mobot Lab at MIT and covers many aspects
of mobile robots including design and the mechanics and electronics of
construction as well as robot programming. Good for the beginner and
experienced robot builder. A Mobile Robot kit is also available. See
the Rug Warrior in the section on Small, Inexpensive Robots.
Klaus Peters
President and Publisher
AK PETERS, LTD.
289 Linden Street
Wellesley, MA 02181
tel: 617.235.2210
fax: 617.235.2404
net:

The Robot Book
Richard Pawson
Windward, 1985, 192 pages.
Utilizes Lego kits.

The Robot Builder's Bonanza: 99 Inexpensive Robotics Projects
Gordon McComb
TAB Books

Robot Evolution: the Development of Anthropomorphics
Rosheim, Mark E.
1994, John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 0-471-02622-0

Robot Hobby: The Complete Manual, for Individuals and Clubs
John W. Gutmann, Foreword by Joe Engelberger
ISBN 0-9634272-4-5
Soft cover $29.95
Hard Cover $36.95
Machine Press Publishing
P.O. Box 870210
Stone Mountain, GA 30087-0006

Robotic Technology: Principles and Practice.
Werner G. Holzbock
Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, 1986, ISBN 0-442-23154-7

Robotics
edited by Marvin Minsky
Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1985
ISBN: 0385194145, LCCN: 84024390

Robot Motion: Planning and Control
Brady, Hollerbach, Johnson, Lozano-Perez, and Mason.
Cambridge, MA, MIT Press 1982)
Collection of excellent papers on the topic of robot motion.

Robots
Peter Marsh
Crescent (Crown) Publishers, NY 1985
Marsh edited the volume and the book is made up of several
contributions from robotics researchers. A very well illustrated book
that covers the general topic of robots. Excellent source materials
and graphics.

Safety, Reliability, and Human Factors in Robotic Systems.
Edited by James H. Graham.
Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1991.
ISBN 0-442-00280-7
Laws/rules/regulations are governing industrial robot installations
in the U.S.

------------------------------
[4.2.2] CDROMS

Isaac Asimov's The Ultimate Robot.
It is an excellent intro and retrospective on robotics.
Includes movie clips from several cinema robots, robotic terminology
defined and illustrated (linkages, kinmatics, arm types etc),
vignettes of many historically important robots including Moshers work
>from the 60's, many teleoperated devices, several mobile machines
including the ASV and many others. There is also a fun part where you
get to select parts, build a robot and animate it. (Design by Ralph
MacQuarrie who was production designer on Star Wars)
There are video interviews with Asimov and all of his robot
stories and essays as well Published by Microsoft. Available from a
number of CDROM vendors.

AICDROM

Network Cybernetics Corporation is now shipping the second
annual revision of their popular AI CD-ROM, an ISO-9660 format CD-ROM
containing a wide assortment of information on AI, Robotics, and other
advanced machine technologies. The AI CD-ROM contains thousands of
programs, source code collections, tutorials, research papers,
Internet journals, and other resources. The topics covered include
artificial intelligence, artificial life, robotics, virtual reality,
and many related fields. Programs for OS/2, DOS, Macintosh, UNIX,
Amiga, and other platforms can be found on the disc. The files have
been collected from civilian and government research centers,
universities, Internet archive sites, BBS systems and other
sources. The CD-ROM is updated annually to keep it current with the
latest trends and developments in advanced machine technologies such
as AI. The AI CD-ROM Rev. 1 was a CD-ROM PROFESSIONAL CONSUMER DISK
PRODUCT OF THE YEAR AWARD finalist and has received good reviews in
many magazines including Byte (Jerry Pournelle, March '93) and IEEE
Computer (J. Zalewski, July '93), CD-ROM Professional and others.
The new revision of the AI CD-ROM is now shipping. The price
of Revision 2 will remain the same as the Revision 1 CD: $129 + $5
(US) / $10 (foreign) for shipping & processing. If you currently own
the revision 1 AI CD-ROM, you can "upgrade" to the Rev.2 CD for $79 +
shipping. Email or fax us to get an upgrade form.

~From: Network Cybernetics Corporation
4201 Wingren Road, Suite 202
Irving, Texas 75062-2763
tel: 214.650.2002
fax: 214.650.1929

------------------------------
[4.2.3] Magazine Articles

Initial List Provided by Dave Hrynkiw]

Best source for most general articles and journal articles is
your library - check online sources too!

Discover Magazine, March 1991, Pg 43
An excellent 6 page article of the goings-on in the MIT Artificial-
Intelligence lab.

"Mathematical Recreations - Insectoids Invade a Field of Robots"
Scientific American Magazine, July 1991
Another excellent 4 page article about MIT's work in the field of mobile
robotics.

"Gearing Down"
Science News, Vol. 139 No. 2, January 12 1991, Pg 26-27
I haven't seen a copy of this article yet. If you find it, PLEASE
fax/send me a copy. Referenced from Scientific American Magazine,
July 1991 ("Mathematical Recreations" column)

"Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control"
Research News, May 1990, Pg 959-961
One of the better MIT Lab articles. Worth hunting down.

"Working the bugs out of a new breed of 'insect' robots"
Smithsonian Magazine, June 1991, pgs 63-73.
Another excellent & more technical article on MIT's robot research.

"The Iconoclast - Life in the Anthropomorphic Lane"
Macworld magazine, May 1991, Pg 43-47
Another basic, but decent review of MIT's AI Robot labs.

"People - A Mind of Their Own"
Connoisseur Magazine, May 1991, Pg 42-46
A more personal look at Rodney Brook.

"Robot Insects"
Popular Science, March 1991, Pg 52-55,86
Popular Science does it's regular quality article. Some detail, but not
to technical. Good, basic read.

"New Approaches to Robotics"
Science Magazine, Vol.253, September 1991, Pg 1227-1232
Very complete & technical document by Rodney Brooks. Has a very
complete reference & notes section.

"Artificial Intelligence - Building a Better Mouse"
Omni Magazine, ??, Pg 22,126
Interesting Article about Dave Otten, the micro-mouse champ. Short,
but interesting read.

"Tech Update - Transformer Robots Crawl Up Stairs"
Popular Mechanics, March 1993, Pg 17
Not much to say, but look at the pictures - what innovation!

"Mighty Mouse"
MIT Reporter, July 1991, Pg 12
A short piece about Dave Otten's micromice.

"The OMNI Photovore - How to build a robot that thinks like a roach"
Omni Magazine, October 1988, Pg 201-210,212
MIT developed this basic robot for the magazine. A really interesting
read, with good technical. Haven't built mine yet, but I have all the
parts... (Excellent article)

"Annual Report of Microbot Technology, Inc."
Omni Magazine, ??? Pg 68,70,76
Omni's interesting futuristic look of the possibilities with micro robots.

"Tech Update - Mechanical Caterpillar"
Popular Mechanics, June 1992, Pg 24
Another neat idea to look at.

"Tech Update - Silicon Ants Could Prove Tireless Workers"
Popular Mechanics, May 1992, Pg 21
Interesting little bit on the future of solar powered microbots. Neat
graphic.

"Trends - Let's Get Small"
Technology Review, Aug/Sept 1992, pg 18-19
Article on JPL/IS Robotics small robots. Decent article

"Go Robots, Go!"
Popular Science, December 1992, Pg 97-102,138,140
Interesting overview of the AAAI Mobile Robotics Competition held in
San Jose.

"New Trends - Legs win over wheels for moon work"
Machine Design Magazine, February 11 1988
A dated article on Georgia Tech's "Skitter". Short, but has
photograph.

"Light Elements - RoboHockey"
Discover magazine, May 1990, pg 82
Interesting bit about MIT's Mech Eng 2.70 competition.

"Society - Technology - For the Love of Robotics"
Newsweek magazine, March 9 1992, Pg 68-69
Public-robot fodder. Nothing new here but some interesting pictures.
Covers the Austin area Robot Group

"Robots Go Buggy"
Science News Magazine, Vol 140, November 30 1991, Pg 361-3
Very good article about the comparison between "simple" robotics and
biologics (bugs)

"Build This Robot Bug"
Radio-Electronics Magazine, June 1992, Pg 33-38
_Very_ basic robot. Not a bad place to start tho...

Science Digest, April 1983 p68
"The Rise of the Robot" by Tom Parrett. Article includes photos of the
"Atlanta Robotics Special Interest Group" founded by John W. Gutmann
with the support of Bill Dodd, owner of Hobby Robot CO. The first
meeting was held on April 21st of 1981.

-----------------------
[4.2.4] Online Technical Reports

There are emerging sources on the net for tech reports and papers. If
you know of additional ones please send me email. Thanks.

-----
The Kahaner Reports

This directory archives reports written about computing in Japan by
Dr. David Kahaner, a numerical analyst current on assignment with the
Office of Naval Research Asia (ONR Asia). The file INDEX contains a
short description of each report in alphabetical order. The file
INDEX.bydate contains the same descriptions ordered by the date the
report was written.

ftp://cs.arizona.edu/japan/www/japan.html

ftp://cs.arizona.edu/japan/table.contents/robotics.TOC

Some relevant files:

robots (Feb 28, 1991)
Overview of trends in robot manufacturing, use, and sales in Japan.
ftp://cs.arizona.edu/japan/kahaner.reports/robots

robots.93 (Dec 10, 1993)
Summary of the 24th International Symposium on Industrial
Robots (ISIR), the 1993 International Conference on Advanced Robotics
(ICAR), and the 1993 International Industrial Robot Exhibition, all held
in Tokyo 1-5 Nov 1993.
ftp://cs.arizona.edu/japan/kahaner.reports/robots.93

-----
The 6.270 Robot Builder's Guide (See also the Miniboard section in this FAQ)
by Fred Martin
ftp://cherupakha.media.mit.edu/pub/6270/docs/
filenames: *.PS.Z
This directory contains "The 6.270 Robot Builder's Guide", the
course notes to the 1992 MIT LEGO Robot Design Competition.
Hardcopy also available for $15 from:
E&L Memo Requests
MIT Media Laboratory
20 Ames Street Room E15-309
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Check made out to 'MIT Epistemology and Learning'
Contact: Fred Martin at fredm@media-lab.media.mit.edu

-----
Cambridge University
Tech report on 3D object model acquisition and recognition:
ftp://svr-ftp.eng.cam.ac.uk/reports/

-----
Carnegie Mellon University SCS Technical Reports
1) The machine reports@cs.cmu.edu is the offical SCS machine for
ftping SCS technical reports. Directories containing .ps files
(compressed and uncompressed, dependent on size) are stored for
ease of access. You can use the instructions below to browse the
directories.

2) The reports appearing in our ftpable directories are also automatically
transferred into MOSAIC. Authors retain the right to decide whether
their report(s) should or should not appear in the public ftp
directories/MOSAIC.

3) A third mechanism for storing and making reports available is
MERCURY--the scanned image, full text, online database (part of the
LIS system). Whether the report is scanned into the system is again
left up to invidivual author choice. The CMU community is able to
view text for the reports, as they appear, at their desks using
Mercury. This system, supported by ARPA and CNRI, will open soon
to MIT, Stanford, Cornell, and Berkeley...so we can all share online
text of reports. Down the road, it is anticipated that more and
more universities will become a part of this service. We scan
original copies of reports into the system,

DIRECTIONS FOR ANONYMOUS FTP:
URL: ftp://reports.adm.cs.cmu.edu/ or

The reports are in postscript format (.ps). The index file
is called README.mss. The reports are listed in the directory
by their NUMBER.ps...for example, CMU-CS-92-100.ps, CMU-CS-92-101.ps
and so on. The majority of the files are not compressed, although
any compressed files will be listed as NUMBER.ps.Z . A very few
reports have been broken down into multiple postscript files. They
will appear as NUMBERA.ps, NUMBERB.ps, etc. The README.mss will
indicate the reports that have multiple .ps files.

-----
MIT AI Laboratory
net: publications@ai.mit.edu
tel: 617.253.6773
fax: 617.253.5060
MIT bibliography, general info about the lab and most recent
research publications is choice of ascii or .ps files
ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/bibliography
ftp://publications/ai-publications/general-pubs

-----
NASA Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL)
ftp://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/gat/
filenames: bc4pe.rtf, aaai92.rtf, nats.rtf
Note that all files are in Microsoft Word RTF format.
Contact if you don't have access
to a Mac.

-----
New York University
file://cs.nyu.edu/pub/tech-reports/tr669.ps.Z

Abstract:
Recent experimental and analytical evidence indicates that direct drive
robots become very practical and economical at miniature and
microscopic scales, so it is interesting to understand quantitatively
the properties of direct drive robots under scaling transformations. This
leads to a study of how screws and their dual co-screws behave under the group
of similarity transforms. This group is the group of isometries
together with dilations. Several different representations are found
on the space of screws and complementary representations are found on
the dual space of co-screws. From the electromagnetic theory
of the force and torque on a magnet in a magnetic field, we derive the
scaling properties of the electromagnetic wrench. Hence, these
results can be directly applied to the scaling of direct drive motors.
We conclude by proposing a scale-invariant measure for direct drive
actuator performance.

-----
LIFIA/INRIA
ftp://imag.fr/pub/LIFIA (129.88.32.1)
filenames: [several compressed PS files]
-----
University of Massachusetts:
ftp://rabbit.cs.umass.edu/pub/papers
filenames: [The files are compressed postscript, topics include
path planning, neuroscience, and control.]
-----
University of Kaiserslautern FTP-Server is :
ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/reports_uni-kl/computer_science/mobile_robots/
subdirectories: 1993/papers, 1994/papers, etc

-----
SPIE abstracts:
ftp://mom.spie.org/abstracts/1800/
filenames: 1831.txt [From Mobile Robots VII 1992]
SPIE bookorders can be made through bookorders@mom.spie.org

-----
JTEC report on Japanese Space Robotics
Available from NTIS (see below)
A summary of the Japanese Technology Evaluation Center (JTEC)
panel's report on the state of the art of Japanese robot technology.
Lots of pictures of wierd and wonderful robots -- elephant trunk,
caterpillar, space tentacle, wall builder, Komatsu's walking undersea
rubble-leveler, humanoid two-armed assembly robot, 4-legged stair
climber. Also tells where to write for videotapes of these machines
in action. Here's the info (two years old, remember) ... Tape with
narration by William "Red" Whittaker:
cost: $37.50
University Video Communications
Box 20006
Stanford, CA USA 94309
tel: 415.327.0131
Shorter tape of highlights from many Japanese labs:
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA USA 22161
tel: 703.457.4650
Article: "Japan robotics aim for unmanned space exploration"
William L. Whittaker, Takeo Kanade. IEEE Spectrum, December 1990

------------------------------
[4.2.4] Videos
(new section - looking for additional material)

MIT Press has a number of companion videos - Legged Robots That
Balance and others. See Publications for address etc.

-----
Video Proceedings from the 8th International Symposium on Unmanned
Untethered Submersible Technology (UUST 93) September 27-29, 1993
Marine Systems Engineering Lab, University of New Hampshire, Durham,
New Hampshire USA
The video proceedings are now available for $35 US for VHS (NTSC)
format and $50 US for PAL format. The video is being made publicly
available on a non-profit basis. Printed abstracts and points of
contacts are included in a pamphlet with each video. The program is
available eclectronically via anonymous ftp to
file://taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil/pub/auv/uust93_video_proceedings.ps.Z
After AUgust 1 1994, you may order this video (or printed conference
proceedings) by sending a check or money order to:
Autonomous Undersea Systems Institute (AUSI)
8 Earle Drive
Lee, New Hampshire 03824 USA
(603) 862-4600
postscript copy: ftp://taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil/pub/auv/uust93.ps.Z
Video Contents:
01:20 AUVs for Scientific Research
in Hazardous Conditions
07:15 A Versatile Testbed: The "Twin-Burger"
13:55 ARPA/Navy Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV)
31:30 Summary of MBARI/Stanford ARL Joint Underwater Robotics
Research Program
43:05 Development of an Aquatic Walking Robot for Underwater
Inspection: "AQUAROBOT"
47:30 Naval Postgraduate School Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
50:15 The Rational Behavior Model (RBM) Software Architecture
57:25 Mobile Undersea Systems Test (MUST) Laboratory
1:02:10 The Advanced Unmanned Search System (AUSS)
1:11:20 credits

________________________________________________________________
End of Part 1--

This is part 2 of 5 of the comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ) list. This FAQ addresses commonly asked questions relating to
robotics.
____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright Notice

Part 2/5

[5] Conference and Competitions
[5.1] Conferences
[5.2] Competitions

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[5] Conferences and Competitions
There are dozens of international conferences in the areas of
robotics, artificial intelligence, control and related areas. This is
a compilation of many of these.

------------------------------
[5.1] Conferences

There are a wide variety and number of conferences related to robotics
and automation. Some are focused on industrial applications, many are
researchy in nature and most are a mixture of both. Proceedings should
be available in most good libraries or by interlibrary loan. The
conference announcements are listed chronologically. Most conferences
now also have ftp: and web locations from more information. Also see
news:news.announce.conferences for many postings on conferences.

A WWW page for Robotics, AI and Control related conferences,
is also at http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~acc/conf-list.html.

-----
Summary list of conferences:

MVA'94: IAPR Workshop on Machine Vision Applications
Kawasaki, Japan
December 13-15, 1994
ANS 6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems
Monterey, California
February 5-10, 1995
AAAI Spring Symposium
Stanford, Ca
March 27-29, 1995
CVRMed'95 First International Conference on
Computer Vision, Virtual Reality and Robotics in Medicine,
Nice, FRANCE
April 3-5, 1995
Symposium on Autonomous Systems in Mine Countermeasures
U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
April 4-7, 1995
1995 Florida Conference on Recent Advances in Robotics
University of Central Florida
Arpil 26-27, 1995
IASTED International Conferencem, MODELLING AND SIMULATION
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
April 27-29, 1995
RTAS'94 IEEE Real-Time Technology and Application Symposium
Chicago, Illinois
May 15-17, 1995
ICRA 1995 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION
Nagoya, Japan
May 21-27, 1995
6th International Scientific and Technical Conference
ROBOTICS FOR EXTRAORDINARY CONDITIONS
St.Petersburg.
June 6-8, 1995
Third IASTED International Conference on ROBOTICS AND MANUFACTURING
Sheraton Hotel, Cancun, Mexico
June 14-17, 1995
ML95 Twelfth International Conference on Machine Learning
Tahoe City, California
July 9-12, 1995
SIRS'95, Third International Symposium on Intelligent Robotics Systems
Pisa, Italy
10-14 July 1995
ISATP'95, 1995 IEEE International Symposium on Assembly and Task Planning
To be held in conjunction with IROS'95
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
August 10-11, 1995,
AI-ED 95, 7TH World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education
Washington DC, USA
August 16-19, 1995
IJCAI-95
Palais de Congres, Montreal
August 20-25 1995.
10th IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INTELLIGENT CONTROL
Monterey Marriot Hotel, Monterey, CA
August 27 - 29, 1995
Workshop on Computational Kinematics
INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, France
September 4-6, 1995
DARS '95 Human-Oriented Design of Advanced Robotics Systems
Vienna, Austria
September 19-20, 1995
ASI-AA-95 Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents
ASI-AA-95, Centro Stefano Franscini Monte Verita, Ticino,
Switzerland
September 23 - October 1, 1995
EPIA'95 Applications of AI to Robotics and Vision Systems Workshop
Seventh Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal
October 3-6, 1995
ISIR, 26th International Symposium on Industrial Robots
Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Center
4-6 October 1995
ICRA 1996 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
Minneapolis Hilton and Towers, Minneapolis, Minnesota
April 22-28, 1996
MFI'96: 1996 IEEE/SICE/RSJ International Conference on Multisensor
Fusion and Integration for Intelligent Systems
October 1996

Conference Descriptions
=-------------------------------------------------------------------------

MVA'94: IAPR Workshop on Machine Vision Applications
December 13-15, 1994
Kawasaki, Japan

The International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) announces
the 4th IAPR International Workshop on Machine Vision Applications to
be held in Kawasaki on December 13-15, 1994.

The workshop is sponsored by the IAPR Technical Committees 6, 8, and
10. The purpose of the workshop is to bring together researchers and
practitioners from both academia and industry, and to exchange their
knowledge and stimulate each other through intensive discussions on
the following research topics:

Main Topic: Machine Vision and its Applications
Machine Vision Algorithms
Feature extraction, Range data / 3D shapes, Motion / Image
sequence analysis, Neural network applications, Color image
analysis, AI-based vision, Human interface, and related
technologies.

Special Purpose Architectures
Intelligent sensors, VLSI image processor chips, Massively
parallel processing, Architectures for 3D and/or motion
processing, Image processing systems, Software environment
for image processor, and related technologies.

Industrial Applications
Factory automation, Disaster prevention and rescue, Security
control, Navigation, Mobile robots, Civil and construction
engineering, Agriculture/Forestry/Fishery, Other
applications, and related technologies.

Document, Map and Line Drawing Processing
Document image processing, Drawing recognition, Multimedia
database, Map and engineering drawing database, Map
processing and map-based systems, 3D reconstruction from
maps or drawings, and related technologies.

The workshop will include several invited talks and about 100
papers for oral and poster presentations on the above topics. All
presentations will be in English. Those who wish to present a paper
are requested to submit four copies of a 500-1000 word extended
abstract with at least one main figure by June 15, 1994 to:
Prof. Mikio Takagi
Institute of Industrial Science
University of Tokyo
7-22-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106, Japan
FAX: +81-3-3402-6226

The abstract should contain the following in its first page.
1) Title of the paper
2) Author name(s) and his/her(their) affiliation(s)
3) A person's name and address to be contacted,
also, phone and fax numbers, Email address if available
4) Answers to the following questions:
a) What is the original contribution of this work?
b) Why should this contribution be considered important?

Authors of papers that are accepted will be notified by August 1,
1994. Final camera-ready papers are due by October 1, 1994.

Notice: International Technical Exhibition on Image Technology and
Equipment will be held in Tokyo, near the workshop site, on December
7-9, 1994. All participants for the workshop are encouraged to visit
the exhibition.

For further information, please contact:
Prof. Mikio Takagi
Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo
7-22-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106, JAPAN
PHONE: +81-3-3479-0289 FAX: +81-3-3402-6226
EMAIL: takagi@tkl.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

=----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call for Abstracts & Call for Exhibitors
ANS 6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and
Remote Systems

February 5-10, 1995
Monterey, California USA

Sponsored by:
AMERICAN NUCLEAR SOCIETY
Robotics and Remote Systems Division
and the Northern California Section

Cosponsored by
o Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
o Electric Power Research Institute
o The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
o British Nuclear Energy Society

You are invited to submit extended abstracts for review and
consideration for the ANS Sixth Topical Meeting on Robots and Remote
Systems. The theme of this Topical is "Robots in the Environment,"
and emphasis will be placed on robot technology and applications in a
variety of remote environments, including nuclear, environmental
remediation, underwater and space. Sessions are arranged in four
primary interest areas or "tracks" so that no two papers in a track
are presented concurrently. The tracks and topics of interest for
this abstract solicitation are listed below.

APPLICATIONS
Nuclear power and fuel cycle
Environmental Restoration
Waste Management
Remote Manufacturing and Processing
Laboratory Automation
Manipulator Applications
Medical Application

HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS
Hardening and Survivability Technologies
Undersea
Space
Law Enforcement
Emergency Response and HazMat Handling
Military

CONTROL SYSTEMS
Control Systems and Architectures
Virtual Reality Application to Remote Systems
Sensors and Machine Vision
Human Factors and the Human/Machine Interface
Artificial Intelligence and Smart Systems
Remote Viewing and Telepresence

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Autonomous Systems and Mobility
Mechanical Design and Special Tooling
Manipulator R&D
Remote Engineering

The ANS 6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems Symposium,
sponsored by the American Nuclear Society, will be held at the Hyatt
Regency Monterey in Monterey, California, just minutes from the
beautiful California central coast.
Updates in the various technology areas will be featured as well as
several new special interest sessions which have proven popular in
recent years. Both oral and poster papers will be presented, and
submissions of your original work are requested. We encourage
papers/presentations from European and Pacific Rim countries.

Technical Sessions
Both oral presentations and poster sessions will be featured for the four-day
conference

Send Abstracts on new and innovative work to:

Program Chairman
Scott A. Couture
ANS 6th Topical on Robotics and
Remote Systems
P.O. Box 10333
Pleasanton, CA 94588
Phone: (510) 423-7970/FAX (510) 423-4606

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ABSTRACT PREPARATION AND MAILING
Abstracts of new and innovative work are solicited. Submission format is an
extended typed abstract of at least 500-900 words. Please send the original
and three copies to the program chairman.

ABSTRACT DEADLINE - APRIL 1, 1993 - SEND TO:
6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems
Attn: Scott Couture, Technical Program Chair
P.O. Box 10333 Pleasanton, CA 94588

Acceptance Categories:
Papers may be accepted for:
1. Oral presentations for a specified time (20-35 minutes, nominal)
2. Poster presentation with the author expected to be in attendance to explain
his or her paper and to answer questions.
All papers accepted for the ANS 6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote
Systems are eligible for publication in the ANS Transactions issue for the
Symposium subject to formal review and acceptance procedures.

Return this information sheet

Sixth Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems
February 5-10, 1995, Monterey, California
___ I am interest edin attending this Topical Meeting. Please send additional
information as it becomes available.
___ I am interested in presenting a paper at this Topical Meeting.

Tentative title of paper:
___ I am interested in presenting a poster session
___ I am interested in Exhibit Space for this Topical Meeting.

Name:
Affiliation:
Address:
City/State/Zip

=---------------------------------------------------------------------------

1995 AAAI Spring Symposium
~Date: March 27-29, 1995
Place: Stanford, CA
Deadline for submission: October 28, 1994
URL: http://tommy.jsc.nasa.gov/er/er6/mrl/symposium.html

Lessons Learned from Implemented Software Architectures for Physical Agents
===========================================================================

We are interested in organizational concepts for artificial agents
that function in the everyday world of manufacturing floors, office
buildings, and houses or in the specialized worlds of space or nuclear
reactors.

In recent years, a sufficient number of researchers have put forth
software frameworks for organizing intelligence in agents beyond the
original first few who began such investigations [e.g., SOAR and
NASREM] that a symposium to discuss the issues outlined below is
warranted. We are seeing architectures with as few as three and as
many as five layers of cognition or control, for single agents or
multiple agents, designed to accommodate hard real-time constraints or
involved user interfaces, handling purely reactive or a combination of
deliberate and reactive control, which are subsumptive or
supervenient, and most of which are designed to function as part of a
physical agent.

The goal of this workshop is to shed light into reasons for
architectural decisions in building artificial agents. Many important
questions affect architectural decisions. For this workshop, we ask
the following questions only with respect to architectural decisions.

Coordination-- How should the agent arbitrate/coordinate/cooperate its
behaviors and actions? Is there a need for central behavior
coordination?

Interfaces-- How can human expertise be easily brought into an agent's
decisions? Will the agent need to translate natural language
internally before it can interact with the world? How should an agent
capture mission intentions or integrate various levels of autonomy or
shared control? Can restricted vocabularies be learned and shared by
agents operating in the same environment?

Representation-- How much internal representation of knowledge and
skills is needed? How should the agent organize and represent its
internal knowledge and skills? Is more than one representational
formalism needed?

Structural-- How should the computational capabilities of an agent be
divided, structured, and interconnected? What is the best
decomposition/granularity of architectural components? What is gained
by using a monolithic architecture versus a multi-level, distributed,
or massively parallel architecture? Are embodied semantics important
and how should they be implemented? How much does each level/component
of an agent architecture have to know about the other
levels/components?

Performance-- What types of performance goals and metrics can
realistically be used for agents operating in dynamic, uncertain, and
even actively hostile environments? How can an architecture make
guarantees about its performance with respect to the time-critical
aspect of the agent's physical environment? What are the performance
criteria for deciding what activities take place in each
level/component of the architecture?

Psychology-- Why should we build agents that mimic anthropomorphic
functionalities? How far can/should we draw metaphoric similarities
to human/animal psychology? How much should memory organization
depend on human/animal psychology?

Simulation-- What, if any, role can advanced simulation technology
play in developing and verifying modules and/or systems? Can we have
standard virtual components/test environments that everybody trusts
and can play a role in comparing systems to each other? How far can
development of modules profitably proceed before they should be
grounded in a working system? How is the architecture affected by its
expected environment and its actual embodiment?

Learning-- How can a given architecture support learning? How can
knowledge and skills be moved between different layers of an agent
architecture?

We invite researchers in intelligent mobile robots, robot
manipulators, autonomous creatures (animats), and neuroscience as
applied to autonomous agents to join us in discussing these questions.

To allow for a more practical discussion of the issues, all
submissions should focus on an agent or agents performing a specific
task, such as keeping a house clean, maintaining the space station, or
delivering parts on a factory floor. Be very specific about how your
agent(s) organize(s) its knowledge and skills in order to perform this
task and what mechanisms your agent(s) use(s) to invoke the correct
knowledge or skill at the appropriate time. Please include the design
decisions you made in organizing your agent's architecture for the
task. Then, through this specific example, show how your agent's
architecture addresses some of the questions listed above.

The symposium will consist of presentations, invited talks, and task
groups. Based on submissions, we will divide the workshop into
specific task groups and, after discussions, come together for
synthesis. We are tentatively proposing that the group produce as a
minimum a set of answers for a portion of the discussion areas listed
above.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

Potential attendees should submit either an extended abstract or a
full paper, neither of which should exceed 20 pages. If you are
submitting a paper, we prefer that it not have been published
elsewhere. If you are sending a paper that has already been
published, tell us where it appeared.

We encourage everyone to submit their papers or abstracts
electronically, PostScript or ASCII only. Submission can be made by
e-mailing the entire document, e-mailing an anonymous ftp address, or
placing the document in the ftp site we give below.

E-mail submissions should be sent to:
hexmoor@cs.buffalo.edu
Anonymous FTP submission:
ftp ftp.cs.buffalo.edu
and put your submission in users/hexmoor directory

If e-mail submission is not possible, please send three copies of
the paper or abstract to:

Henry Hexmoor
Co-chair, AAAI Spring Symposium
226 Bell Hall
Dept of Computer Science
SUNY at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Ron Arkin
Peter Bonasso
Henry Hexmoor (co-chair)
David Kortenkamp (co-chair)
David Musliner

GUEST SPEAKERS
James Albus
George Bekey
Mike Brady

=----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1995 FLORIDA CONFERENCE ON
RECENT ADVANCES IN ROBOTICS

APRIL 26-27, 1995
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
CALL FOR PAPERS
CONFERENCE TOPICS

The Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering will host the 1995 Florida Conference
on Recent Advances in Robotics. This conference will provide a forum for
State of Florida researchers and practitioners in robotics, intelligent
machines, manufacturing and automation to present and exchange new ideas,
recommend research directions while enhancing their professional network
and helping them to establish collaborative ventures within the Sunshine
State.

Topics will include, but not be limited to:

Intelligent Machines:
Autonomous vehicles, swarm robots, robot learning.
Robotic Applications:
In industry, medicine, agriculture, construction, and hazardous
environments.
Robot Sensing:
Vision, touch, ranging, multiple sensory perception, sensor fusion.
Multi-chain Robot Structures:
Hands, legs, arms, parallel manipulators.
Automation and Manufacturing:
Scheduling, workcell design and control.
Robot Theory: Kinematics, dynamics, calibration, design.
Telerobotics
Micro-Mechanics
CONFERENCE FEES

There will be no conference registration fee for attendees, however, a $30
filing fee must accompany each submitted abstract. Make checks payable to
University of Central Florida. The co-authors of each accepted paper will
receive one group copy of the proceedings. Additional copies of the
Proceedings may be purchased in advance for $30 or at the conference for
$50.

ABSTRACT

Acceptance to this conference will be based on a submitted abstract. The
abstract is limited to one page and only one copy is required. Abstracts
are due by January 27, 1995 and must be accompanied by the $30 filing fee
for consideration. You will be notified of your acceptance by February
11, 1995. The filing fee will be returned for abstracts not accepted.

All authors should furnish their name, paper title, address, phone and FAX
numbers, E-Mail address, and research interests, on a separate sheet of
paper. We plan to communicate mostly by E-Mail, so it is important that
you provide an E-Mail address.

SUBMISSIONS

All submissions should be sent to

Dr. Robert M. Byers
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
University of Central Florida
Box 162450
Orlando, FL 32816-2450
Phone:(407) 823-0135
Fax:(407) 823-0208
E-Mail: rmbyers@wizard.engr.ucf.edu
PAPER FORMAT

This flyer is in proper format, except for title fonts. Two copies of
each paper should be submitted in final form with a 2-column format on 8.5
by 11 inch sheets. Each column is limited to 3 1/4 inch in width and 8
7/8 inch in length with a 3/8 inch gutter between columns. The margins are
13/16 inch on the sides, 1 1/16 inch on the top and bottom. Text is to be
typed single-space in 10 point Times-Roman (or a face closely resembling
this type), with minimum 12 point interline spacing. The first page of the
paper, centered on the top below the top margin, should include the paper
title, the authors and the authors' affiliation. Eight pages are allowed
for each paper. Illustrations, photographs, appendices, references, in
short, all page occupancies are counted in the page count. Additional
pages will be permitted for a page charge of $10 for each additional page.

IMPORTANT DATES

Abstract Due Date: January 27, 1995
Acceptance Date: February 10, 1995
Paper Due Date: March 17, 1995

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For more information contact

Dr. Robert M. Byers, Co-Chair
Phone: (407) 823-0135
Fax:(407) 823-0135
email:rmbyers@wizard.engr.ucf.edu

Dr. Harley R. Myler, Co-Chair
Phone:(407) 823-5098
Fax:(407) 823-5835
email: hrm@engr.ucf.edu

Formatted versions of this announcement are
available at ftp://ftp.engr.ucf.edu/pub/RAR95

=----------------------------------------------------------------------------

IASTED International Conference
MODELLING AND SIMULATION
April 27-29, 1995

LOCATION: Sheraton Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

SPONSORS: The International Association of Science and Technology for
Development (IASTED)
- Technical Committee on Modelling and Simulation
The International Society for Mini and Microcomputers (ISMM)

SCOPE:
* Modelling * Animation * Simulation
* Visualization * Hardware * Multimedia
* Languages * Bond graphs * Numerical methods
* Petri nets * Analysis * Stochastic processes
* Neural networks * Parallel processing * Design
* Distributed processing

APPLICATIONS:
* Aerospace * Economics * Biotechnology
* Control * Reliability * Nuclear reactors
* Computers * Quality control * VLSI
* Networks * Robotics * Heat transfer
* Biomedical systems * Manufacturing * Biomechanics
* Healthcare * Circuits and systems * Fluid flow
* Chemical engineering * Signal processing * Flight simulators
* Civil engineering * Transportation * Airports
* Energy systems * Education * Harbours
* Power systems * Risk and decision * Others
* Environmental systems * Operations research

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE:
M. Alam USA C. Doumanidis USA
R.W. Eyerly USA M.H. Hamza Canada
C. Hou USA J. Ishii Japan
D.O. Koval Canada M. Lotfalian USA
M.H. Mickle USA L.C. Monticone USA
N.M. Namazi USA S. Popovich Canada
K.R. Sliwa Mexico A. Sloley USA
S. Szpakowicz Canada S. Vemuru USA
D. Wang USA T. Wu P.R. China
D. Yoon USA

SUBMISSION OF PAPERS:
Three copies of the full manuscripts, having a maximum of 12 pages, are to be
received by the IASTED Secretary Anaheim not later than November 15, 1994.
The papers that may be submitted should not have been previously published,
nor should they be presently under review for publication in a journal or for
a conference. Papers accepted by the International Program Committee will be
categorized as regular or short papers.

Please supply four keywords to indicate the area of the paper and provide
the name, address, affiliation, telephone and fax numbers of the main author
and of the author expected to present the paper.

Persons wishing to organize a session or to present half-day tutorials should
submit a proposal to the Secretary by November 15, 1994.

The preregistration fee is expected to be approximately $US 400. This covers
the registration, dinner on April 28, 1995, refreshments and one volume of
the proceedings.

Authors will be requested to preregister.

****** IMPORTANT DEADLINES ******

November 15, 1994 - Submission of papers
February 1, 1995 - Notification of acceptance
March 15, 1995 - Camera ready manuscripts due

ADDRESS:
IASTED Secretariat - MS'95
1811 West Katella Avenue, Suite 101
Anaheim, California 92804
USA
Tel: 1-800-995-2161
Fax: (714) 778-5463
Email: iasted@orion.oac.uci.edu

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1995 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION

Co-sponsored by
The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
Science Council of Japan
The Robotics Society of Japan
The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers

May 21-27, 1995
Nagoya Congress Center
Nagoya, Japan

Advisory Chair: Fumio Harashima, University of Tokyo, Japan
Organizing Chair: Fumio Harashima, University of Tokyo, Japan
General Chair: Toshio Fukuda, Nagoya University, Japan
Program Chair: Suguru Arimoto, University of Tokyo, Japan
Program Vice Co-chairs: Shin'ichi Yuta, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Gerhard Hirzinger, German Aerospace
Research Establishment, Germany
Thomas C. Henderson, University of
Utah, U.S.A

Local Arrangements Chair: Yoshikazu Suematsu, Nagoya University, Japan
Treasurer and Coordinator: Steve Hsia, University of California, Davis, U.S.A
Koji Ito, Toyohashi University of
Technology, Japan

CALL FOR PAPERS

The theme of the 1995 Conference is "Robotics and Automation in Exploring
New Engineering Disciplines." This year, the Conference celebrates its
12th anniversary and for the first time takes place in the Orient.
Therefore, it will be a good time to look into the future with a renewed
sense of purpose, enterpreunership, and dedication to the advancement of
science and technology. A paradigm shift is emerging in factories, from
mass production to customized manufacturing which is based firmly on using
flexible automation to manufacture a high variety of items. It inevitably
generates a wide range of challenging research problems that impact
productivity and quality control in manufacturing sectors. Robotics
research is needed to Jprovide greater intelligence and higher versatility f
or robotic tasks under the ever-changing constraints of the environment.
Applications of advanced robotics research and automation technology have
become a key competitive factor in the global economy. The 1995 Conference
will bring together researchers and practitioners to present the latest
accomplishments, and explore future directions. Special emphasis will be
placed on industrial case studies and their scientific background to help
identify new "driving forces" for research in the 21st century. Technical
papers presented in oral and poster sessions will appear in the bound
proceedings. Topics include but are not limited to:

Robot sensing and sensor data fusion
Reasoning and planning
Multirobot coordination
Dexterous and redundant manipulation
Robot dynamics and control
Telerobotics and shared control
Autonomous systems
Micro electromechanical and micro robotic systems
Advanced actuators
Mechatronic design issues
Learning and adaptive systems
Distributed intelligence and self-organizing systems
Robot systems in unstructured and hazardous environments
Dynamic vision
Virtual reality and environments
Industrial inspection
Design automation and rapid prototyping
Computer integrated and agile manufacturing
Modeling and performance evaluation of discrete event systems
Automated materials processing

For any general information about the conference, please contact to the
General Chair:

Prof. Toshio Fukuda
c/o Inter Group Corp.
4-2-7, Sakae, Naka-ku
Nagoya 460, Japan
Phone: +81-52-263-6261
Fax: +81-52-263-6298
E-mail: ra95@mein.nagoya-u.ac.jp

ORGANIZED SESSIONS
Organized sessions are intended to provide a cohesive focus for the
introduction of new research topics, or for the discussion of successful
applications and case studies. Proposals for organized sessions should be
submitted by October 1, 1994 to the Program Chair. Each organized session
consists of four papers, which will be reviewed through the normal process.
The proposal should be submitted by the session organizer, and include a
brief statement of the purpose in addition to six copies of each paper. In
case paper is not accepted, it will be replaced by a relevant contributed
paper.

POSTER SESSIONS
We are going to introduce poster sessions in this conference. The posters
of the selected papers should be prepared by their authors. Papers will be
presented with posters prepared by their authors. In the poster sessions,
(1) the authors will be notified about the type of their presentation by
the Program Committee,
(2) the authors and attendees may actively exchange their ideas at the
session.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Panel discussions are intended to promote an active and informal discussion
of current issues that are of interest to the Robotics and Automation
community. Proposals should include a brief statement of purpose, the
general topic of discussion, specific issues to be addressed, and a list of
participants. They should be sent to the ICRA'95 Secretary Office no later
than September 15, 1994.

TUTORIALS AND WORKSHOPS
Half day and full day tutorials and workshops will be held on Monday, May
22, 1995. Proposals should include: (1) statement of objectives and
background expected of intended audience, (2) a complete list of speakers
and their affiliations, (3) a detailed list of topics. Two copies of each
proposal should be submitted by September 15, 1994 to the ICRA'95 Secretary
Office.
Organizers are strongly encouraged to write or send e-mail to the Secretary
office to obtain the exact proposal format. Proposals not in the proper
format may not be evaluated.

INDUSTRY FORUM
Industry forum will be held on Tuesday, May 23, 1995. Speakers will include
representatives from industry, government, and academia. The aim of the
forum is to allow attendees to understand more fully possible industrial
applications of robotics and automation, discuss problems that have arisen
in industrial applications, and to delineate new areas of research and
development of robotics and automation applications.

PUBLIC LECTURE
Public lectures will be held on Saturday, May 27, 1995. The aim of the
lectures is to help the public to understand the latest technologies in
robotics and automation. The topics of the lectures include Robotics
General, Brains for Robotics and Automation, Real World Robotics and
Automation, Human Friendly Interface etc. Simultaneous translation both in
English and Japanese is available.

ANTON PHILIPS BEST STUDENT PAPER AWARD
A $1,000 Prize will be awarded for the best student paper. The student must
(1) be a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, (2) be the
first author and primary developer of the ideas, and (3) have done the work
as part of an academic degree program. The paper must be submitted no later
than one year after the award of the degree for which the work was done.
Nine copies of the paper along with a nominating letter from the faculty
advisor should be sent by October 1, 1994 to the ICRA'95 Secretary Office.

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES FELLOWSHIPS
Travel assistance of up to $500 and a waiver of the registration fees will
be granted to a limited number of student applicants from developing
countries. Preference will be given to university students. Applications
should include: (1) the name, postal address, telephone and fax numbers,
and e-mail address (if applicable), (2)professional affiliation, position
and nature of work, and (3)a brief statement about how attendance at the
conference will enhance the applicant's career. Applications should be
submitted by October 1, 1994 toJthe ICRA'95 Secretary Office.

BEST CONFERENCE PAPER AWARD
A $1,000 prize will be awarded to the best conference paper.

EXHIBITS
There will be exhibits of state-of-the-art hardware and software products
at the conference. Reservations for the space and further information may
be obtained from the ICRA'95 Secretary Office.

LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS
The climate in Nagoya in late May is usually agreeable and stable, with
average temperature of 16-23C (60-74 F).
With an abundance of urban sightseeing attractions such as
excellent urban planning and sightseeing routes, and industrial tours,
you can find many of the nation's outstanding sightseeing spots in the
city's environs. Nagoya castle, famed for its golden "dolphins", Ise
Shima, Mikawa Bay, the Hida region, the Kiso River, and the Chubu
mountain range are just a few examples.JAlso, Kyoto, the old capital
in Japan, is within one hour away by bullet train. In addition, large
number of Karakuri dolls, created during the Edo period, can still be
found in Nagoya. It was the technology of wooden automated puppets
which laid the foundation for the development of the clock industry,
the automated weaving machine, the automobile and robot industries in
Naogya.

Additional information may be obtained from the ICRA'95 Secretary Office.

GENERAL INFORMATION
For other general information about the conference, contact the ICRA'95
Secretary Office.

ICRA'95 Secretary Office
c/o Inter Group Corp.
4-2-7, Sakae, Naka-ku
Nagoya 460, Japan
Phone: +81-52-263-6261
Fax: +81-52-263-6298
E-mail: ra95@mein.nagoya-u.ac.jp

CALL FOR VIDEOS

As a conference tradition , a video tape session on new and significant
experimental results and demonstrations including industrial case studies,
will be organized. Accepted contributions will be included in the
conference video proceedings, which will be shown during the conference,
and also made available to the attendees. This program is intended to
enhance and complement the results presented in the regular proceedings. A
$1,000 prize will be awarded for the best video.

REQUIREMENTS FOR VIDEOS

A good video should be dynamic and contain information that cannot be easi
ly conveyed in a paper.

Length should not exceed 2 to 3 minutes. Showing flow charts, block diagr
ams, circuit boards, computers, or motors is discouraged. Operators are
fine if they are central element to the concept being illustrated (e.g. in
teleoperated systems).

Narration is important. Ideas should be expressed without jargon. Music
and background noise generally interfere with the presentation. Music
should be avoided unless it is generated professionally.

The purpose of the video proceedings is to disseminate technical informati
on, not for commercial promotion. For example, the obvious display of
company logos must be avoided.

SUBMISSION
Submissions consist of a 2 to 3 minute video segment (preferred formats are
3/4", Betacam or super VHS) and an information sheet including: the title
of the presentation, the names, affiliations, and authors (please identify
the corresponding author), and a 200 word abstract. They should be
submitted by October 1, 1994. Submit to Program Vice Co-chair:

Prof. Shin'ichi Yuta
Institute of Information Science and Electronics
University of Tsukuba
Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan
Phone: +81-298-53-5509
Fax: +81-298-53-5206
E-mail: yuta@is.tsukuba.ac.jp

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IEEE Real-Time Technology and Application Symposium
===================================================

May 15-17, 1995
Chicago, Illinois

RTAS'94 is the successor to the 11th Workshop on Real-Time
Operating Systems and Software.

Since the early 80's, we have witnessed an increased interest in
real-time technology because of the need for scientific solutions
for time-constrained information processing in various
applications such as avionics, multimedia, robotics, automated
process control, and manufacturing. Founded in 1983, the IEEE
Workshop on Real-Time Operating Systems and Software (RTOSS) has
been an important annual forum for exchanging information of
emerging principles and practices underlying real-time technology.
Consequently, we are seeing a substantial number of new
researchers tackling the many challenging problems that
remain. Due to the interest shown in, and the success of, the
RTOSS, the IEEE technical committee on real-time systems has
decided to convert RTOSS into a full symposium, the real-Time
Technology and Applications Symposium.

The purpose of this symposium is to bring together developers and
researchers from universities, industry, and government to advance
real-time technology and its applications. Papers on all aspects
of real-time computing are sought, including operating systems and
scheduling, fault-tolerance, databases, programming languages,
tools, communication networks, architectures, performance
modeling, formal methods, case studies, and applications. Of
particular interest are papers detailing experiments and
implementations. This year we are planning special sessions in the
areas such as Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems and
Multimedia. Papers on these topics are especially encouraged.

Manuscripts should be limited to 20 double spaced pages. Papers
submitted to the Symposium should not be submitted elsewhere. Six
copies of the paper should reach the program chair no later than
January 7, 1995. Authors will be notified of acceptance by Feb 28,
1995. Final camera-ready manuscripts will be due by March 31,
1995. Proposals for two-hour tutorials in technical areas of the
conference are also solicited. Tutorial proposals should be
submitted to the program chair by January 7, 1995.

Important Dates
===============
Paper submission: Jan 7, 1995
Tutorial proposal submission: Jan 7, 1995
Acceptance notification: Feb 28, 1995
Final camera-ready manuscript: Mar 31, 1995

ORGANIZING AND PROGRAM COMMITTEES

General Chair:
Ted Baker
Department of Computer Science (4019)
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4019
phone: 904 644-5452
email: baker@cs.fsu.edu

Program Chair:
Wei Zhao
Department of Computer Science
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-3112
phone: 409 845-5098
email: zhao@cs.tamu.edu

Treasurer:
Ted Giering, Florida State University

Publicity Chair:
Raj Rajkumar, Software Engineering Institute, CMU

Local Arrangements Co-Chairs:
Jeffrey Tsai, University of Illinois at Chicago
Chengwen Liu, DePaul University

Ex-Officio: (RTS-TC Chairs)
John Stankovic, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Al Mok, University of Texas at Austin

Program Committee:

Yahya Y. Al-Salqan West Virginia University
Sadler Bridge Texas Transportation Institute/TAMU
Alan Burns University of York
Richard Gerber University of Maryland
Prabha Gopinath Honeywell Inc

Steve Howell Navy Surface Warfare Center
Jiandong Huang Honeywell Inc
Arkady Kanevsky Mitre Corporation
Doug Locke Loral Federal Systems
David Luginbuhl AFOSR

Jane Liu University of Illinois at Urbana
Steve Liu Texas A&M University
Al Mok University of Texas at Austin
Kelvin Nilsen Iowa State University
Krithi Ramamritham University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Lui Sha Software Engineering Institute/CMU
Kang Shin University of Michigan
John Stankovic University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Alexander D. Stoyenko NJ Institute of Technology
Lonnie R. Welch NJ Institute of Technology

Victor Wolfe University of Rhode Island
Hui Zhang Carnegie Mellon University

RTAS'95 is sponsored by the IEEE Technical Committee on Real-Time
Systems, in cooperation with the Office of Naval Research.

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6th International Scientific and Technical Conference

"ROBOTICS FOR EXTRAORDINARY CONDITIONS"

Ministry of Science and Technical Policy of Russian Federation
State Committee of Russian Federation for Higher Education
State Scientific Center of Russia - Central R&D Institute of
Robotics and Technical Cybernetics

Information and invitation

Dear colleagues!

Herewith we inform you about the holding of the International
Scientific and Technical Conference "ROBOTICS FOR EXTRAORDINARY
CONDITIONS".

The Conference will take place during June 6-8 ,1995 in St.Petersburg.

The Conference subjects are as follows:

-conceptual problems of robotics development for extraordinary
conditions;

-robotic system applications in extraordinary conditions in the
national economy, armed forces, outer space, underwater and
emergency situations;

-theory, calculation and design methods of robotic systems for
extraordinary conditions;

-control of robotic systems for extraordinary conditions, software;

-components of robots for extraordinary conditions (sensors,
drives , mechanical systems of manipualtors and vehicles).

Chairman of the Program Committee - E. Yurevich, Professor ,
Doctor of Technical Scieces .

Round-table discussions will be held at the Conference, concerning
the questions of coordination of research -and- development activities
preparation of proposals on the formation of projects and
scientific-and-research programs, on the educational questions in this
field.
Participation at the Conference means establishment and development
of scientific and business contacts, extension of knowledge about the
results of new theoretical achievements and their practical
applications in the advanced foreign and domestic enterprises. It also
means that you will visit St.Petersburg during the best season -
period of White Nights.
The Conference organizers invite you to take part in the formation
of the Conference program. Please, inform us about your participation
in the Conference and about the title of your paper before January 1,
1995. Abstrasts up to 3 pages in volume ( A4 format, 1.5 line space )
should be submitted to the Oganizing Committee before March 1 , 1995.

Organizating Committee address :
Russia, 194064 , St. Petersburg , Tikhoretsky pr. , 21
Central R&D Institute of Robotics and Technical Cybernetics
A.Kochkarev , Deputy Director
Fax :(812) 552-46-72
E-mail : kocha@rtk.spb.su
Contact telephones : (812) 552-40-73
(812) 552-41-62.

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALL FOR PAPERS
Third IASTED International Conference
ROBOTICS AND MANUFACTURING

DATE: June 14-17, 1995

LOCATION: Sheraton Hotel, Cancun, Mexico

SPONSORS: The International Association of Science and Technology for
Development - IASTED
In cooperation with: ITESM (Inst. Tech. y de Estudios Sup. de
Monterrey, Mexico)

SCOPE: Topics to be covered include:
* Adaptive Control * Modelling
* AI Techniques * Motion Planning
* Architecture * Multirobot Systems
* Autonomous Systems * Neural Networks
* Bionics/Biomechanics * Process Control
* Design Automation * Reliability/Safety/Stability
* Expert Systems * Robot Dynamics
* Flexible Manufacturing Systems * Robot Control
* Fuzzy Control * Robot Kinematics
* Human/Machine Interface * Robot Mechanisms
* Industrial Automation * Robust Control
* Industrial Robots * Scheduling
* Intelligent Systems * Sensors
* Knowledge-Based Systems * Sensor Data Fusion
* Learning/Reasoning Systems * Simulation
* Manufacturing Systems * Space Robotics
* Mechatronics * Teleoperation
* Microrobotics * Virtual Reality
* Mobile Robots * Applications - All areas

General Chair: T.C. (Steve) Hsia, University of California, Davis, USA
Program Chair: Rene V. Mayorga, University of Waterloo, Canada
Regional Program Chairs: Francisco Cantu-Ortiz, ITESM, Monterrey
Juan Frausto-Solis, ITESM, Morelos

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE

S. Arimoto Univ. of Tokyo, Japan
E. Bayo Univ. of Calif., Santa Barbara, USA
P. Dario Univ. of Pisa, Italy
C. Doumanidis Tufts Univ., USA
A. Desrochers Renselaer Polytechnic, USA
R.V. Dubey Univ. of Tennessee, USA
W.H. ElMaraghy Univ. of Windsor, Canada
B. Espiau INRIA, France
T. Fukuda Nagoya Univ., Japan
H. Furuta Japan
A. Goldenberg Univ. of Toronto, Canada
E. Gomes EPUSP, Brazil
W.A. Gruver Simon Fraser Univ., Canada
H. Inoue Univ. of Tokyo, Japan
S. Kalaycioglu Canada Space Agency, Canada
O. Khatib Stanford University, USA
H.N. Koivo Tampere Univ., Finland
K. Kosuge Univ. of Nagoya, Japan
F. Lobo-Pereira Porto Univ., Portugal
A. Maciejewski Purdue Univ., USA
H. Miura Univ. of Tokyo, Japan
Y. Nakamura Univ. of Tokyo, Japan
G. Saridis Rensselaer Polytechnic, USA
H. Seraji JPL, USA
Y. Shirai Osaka Univ., Japan
J.E. Slotine MIT, USA
A.C. Sanderson Rensselaer Poly., USA
B. Siciliano Univ. of Naples, Italy
P.M. Taylor Univ. of Hull, UK
S. Tsuji Osaka Univ., Japan
A.K.C. Wong Univ. of Waterloo, Canada

REGIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE

J.L. Gordillo ITESM, Monterrey F. Ramos ITESM, Morelos
R. Kelly CICESE, Ensenada G. Rodriguez IEE, Cuenavaca
J.M. Ibarra CINESTAV J.M. Sanchez ITESM, Monterrey
H. Martinez ITESM R. Soto ITESM, Monterrey
A. Ramirez CINESTAV L.E. Sucar-Succar ITESM, Morelos
A. Pamanes Laguna Tec., Torreon M. Valenzuela ITESM, Monterrey

Three copies of the papers (maximum 12 double-spaced pages, including figures,
for regular papers; and maximum six double spaced pages for short papers)
should be received by FEBRUARY 15, 1995 by Rene V. Mayorga, Dept. of Systems
Design Eng., University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1 Canada. Please
include four keywords to indicate the area of the paper. Also, include a
statement in your cover letter confirming that if the paper is accepted, one of
the authors will attend the conference to present it. Please give the full
name, affiliation, full address, telephone, and fax numbers, and email address
if available.

Notification of acceptance and author kits will be mailed by March 15, 1995.
The final manuscripts and registration payment are due prior to May 1, 1995.
Registration fees not received by that date may result in the paper being
excluded from the proceedings.

Expanded papers to be considered for publication in the International Journal
of Robotics and Automation are to be sent directly to the Editor: Dr. Richard
Colbaugh, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Box 30001 - Dept. 3450, New Mexico
State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003-0001 USA.

IMPORTANT DATES

FEBRUARY 15, 1995 - Three copies of the papers due. Please send the papers
to: Rene V. Mayorga
Dept. of Systems Design Eng.
Univ. of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada N2L 3G1
Tel: 519-885-1211 ext: 2604
Fax: 519-746-4791
email: rmayorga@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca

MARCH 15, 1995 - Paper acceptance letters mailed to authors.

MAY 1, 1995 - Final manuscripts and registration payments due.

To be placed on the mailing list write to:
IASTED Secretariat RM'95
1811 W. Katella Avenue #101
Anaheim, CA
USA 90804
Tel: 800-995-2161 or 714-778-3230
Fax: 714-778-5463
Email: iasted@orion.oac.uci.edu

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS
Twelfth International Conference on Machine Learning

Tahoe City, California
July 9-12, 1995

The Twelfth International Conference on Machine Learning (ML95)
will be held at the Granlibakken Resort in Tahoe City, California
during July 9-12, 1995, with informal workshops on July 9. We invite
paper submissions from researchers in all areas of machine learning.
The conference will include presentations of refereed papers and
invited talks.

REVIEW CRITERIA

Each submitted paper will be reviewed by at least two members of
the program committee and will be judged on significance, originality,
and clarity. Papers submitted simultaneously to other conferences must
clearly state so on the title page.

PAPER FORMAT

Submissions must be clearly legible, with good quality print.
Papers are limited to a total of twelve (12) pages, EXCLUDING title
page and bibliography, but INCLUDING all tables and figures. Papers
must be printed on 8-1/2 x 11 inch paper or A4 paper using 12 point
type (10 characters per inch) with no more than 38 lines per page and
75 characters per line (e.g., LaTeX 12 point article style). The
title page must include an abstract and email and postal addresses of
all authors. Papers without this format will not be reviewed. To save
paper and postage costs please use DOUBLE-SIDED printing.

REQUIREMENTS FOR SUBMISSION

Send four (4) copies of each submitted paper to one of the
conference co-chairs. Papers must be received by
FEBRUARY 7, 1995 .
Electronic or FAX submissions are not acceptable. Notification of
acceptance or rejection will be mailed to the first (or designated)
author by March 22, 1995. Camera-ready accepted papers are due on
April 25, 1995.

INFORMAL WORKSHOPS
Proposals for informal workshops are invited in all areas of
machine learning. Send a two (2) page description of the proposed
workshop, its objectives, organizer(s), and expected number of
attendees to the workshop chair. Proposals must be received by
DECEMBER 1, 1994.

Conference Co-Chairs
Armand Prieditis
Department of Computer Science
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
priediti@cs.ucdavis.edu

Stuart Russell
Computer Science Division
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
russell@cs.berkeley.edu

Program Committee
(To Be Announced).

Workshop Chair
Sridhar Mahadevan
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Southern Florida
4202 East Fowler Avenue, EBG 118
Tampa, Florida 33620
mahadeva@csee.usf.edu

Publicity Chair
Jeff Schlimmer
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-2752
schlimme@eecs.wsu.edu
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~schlimme

Local Arrangements
Debbie Chadwick
Department of Computer Science
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
chadwick@cs.ucdavis.edu

GENERAL INQUIRIES

Please send general inquiries to ml95@cs.ucdavis.edu .

To receive future conference announcements please send a note to
the publicity chair. Current conference information available online
on the World-Wide Web as http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~schlimme/ml95.html .

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
on
INTELLIGENT ROBOTIC SYSTEMS '95

Pisa, Italy, 10-14 July 1995

CALL FOR PAPERS

Advanced Robotics Technology and Systems Laboratory,
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy

Institute of Informatics and Applied Mathematics
of Grenoble, Grenoble, France

EC-DGXII Euroconferences

THEME AND TOPICS

The theme for this years symposium will be "architec-
tures and technologies for functioning autonomous sys-
tems." The workshop will combine invited lectures by es-
tablished researchers with original presentations by junior
scientists about research in progress. Topics included:

o Mobile and Autonomous Robots,
o Intelligent Control Architectures,
o Active and Reactive Computer Vision,
o Technologies for Autonomous Systems,
o Surveillance Systems and Robots.

ORGANISERS

General Chairman James L. Crowley, LIFIA IMAG, France,
46 av. Fe'lix Viallet, 38031 Grenoble Cedex,
Tel.:(33) 76574655 fax:(33) 76574602,
E-mail: Jim.Crowley@imag.fr

Chairman Paolo Dario, ARTS Lab, Italy,
of the Programme Via Carducci 40, 56127 Pisa
Committee Tel.:(39-50) 883207 fax:(39-50) 883215,
E-mail: Dario@arts.sssup.it

SIRS'95 Carlo Colombo, ARTS Lab, Italy,
Secretariat Via Carducci 40, 56127 Pisa
Tel.:(39-50) 883207 fax:(39-50) 883215,
E-mail: Columbus@shamash.sssup.it

Patrick Reignier, LIFIA - IMAG, France,
46 av. Fe'lix Viallet, 38031 Grenoble Cedex,
Tel.:(33) 76574609 fax:(33) 76574602,
E-mail: Patrick.Reignier@imag.fr

The symposium is organised in cooperation with the EC
Human Capital and Mobility Network SMART. SIRS'95
is also partially sponsored by the EC-DGXII Eurocon-
ferences programme. A limited number of Euroconfer-
ence travel grants are available for young (<36) post-
graduate researchers who are citizens of the European
Union. To apply for Euroconferences support---travel and
registration---please contact Prof. J.L. Crowley (address
given above).

LOCATION

The event will take place in Pisa, one of the most en-
chanting art cities of Tuscany. A convenient way to reach
Pisa is either by car or by airplane_Pisa airport serves
both national and international connections. Direct train
connections from Rome or Turin are also available.

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

A. Borkowski IPPT PAN, Poland
H. Christensen Institute of Electronic Systems, Denmark
P. Cosoli Tecnopolis Csata Novus Ortus, Italy
J.L. Crowley LIFIA - IMAG, France
P. Dario Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy
A. Dubrawski IPPT PAN, Poland
F. Ferrari AITEK Srl, Italy
R. Fisher University of Edinburgh, Scotland
J. Goncalves CEC Joint Research Center, Italy
E. Grant Turing Institute, Scotland
V. Hlavac Czech Technical University, Czech Republic
D. Hogg University of Leeds, England
A. Kasi'nski Technical University of Pozna'n, Poland
A. Maslowski PIAP-ZUM, Poland
G. Sandini Universita' di Genova, Italy
J. Sentiero Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica, Portugal
F. Solina University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
G. Sullivan University of Reading, England
F. Wallner University of Karlsruhe, Germany
A. Wo'zniak Technical University of Pozna'n, Poland

SUBMISSION

An extented abstract of four pages should be sent to the
programme chairman (Prof. P. Dario, address given above).

TIMETABLE

Extended abstracts must be received by the programme
chairman by February 15 1995.

Notification of acceptance will be sent before April 15 1995.

Full papers (8 pages) must be received before May 15 1995. All
accepted papers will be published in the Proceedings of the Symposium.
Detailed information regarding programme, conference fee, accomodation
will be given in the second announcement issued in March 1995.

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALL FOR PAPERS
===============

1995 IEEE International Symposium on Assembly and Task Planning

(ISATP'95)

- Towards Flexible and Agile Manufacturing -

August 10-11, 1995, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Sponsored by the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society
To be held in conjunction with IROS'95

Assembly and task planning plays a key role for integrating design and
manufacturing. This field has the potential to produce automated and
interactive tools which significantly impact the development of
advanced manufacturing as well as concurrent engineering environments.
The broad theme for this symposium is "Toward Flexible and
Agile Manufacturing", recognizing the need for developing
manufacturing environments geared to meet the future demands of the
industry. The symposium will provide an international forum which
draws together researchers working on different aspects of the problem
of assembly and task planning in the robotics and manufacturing
context. Papers are solicited for all aspect of theories,
applications, and case studies related to assembly and task planning
as applied to robotics and manufacturing.

Topics include but are not limited to:

- Design for Assembly - Assembly Representations
- Assembly Sequence Planning - Tolerance Accumulation in Assembly
- Assembly Cost Evaluation - Assembly Stability and Fixtures
- Part Feeding and Reorientation - Workcell Planning
- Action Planning - Fine Motion Planning
- Gross Motion Planning - Sensor Planning
- Distributed Planning - Profuction Planning
- Manufacturing Process Planning - Scheduling
- Planning under Uncertainty - On-line Planning and Reaction
- Plan Monitoring - Error Detection and Recovery
- Applications

General Chair
-------------
Art Sanderson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Program Chair
-------------
Sukhan Lee, JPL/CalTech and University of Southern California

Organizing Committee
--------------------
Damian Lyons, Philips Laboratories (Chair)
Sukhan Lee, JPL/CalTech and University of Southern California
Carlos Ramos, ISEP-IPP and University of Porto, Portugal
Ulrich Borgolte, FernUniversitaet Hagen, Germany
Rajeev Sharma, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Local Arrangements
------------------
Yangsheng Xu, Carnegie Mellon University

International Liaisons
----------------------
Europe:
Ulrich Borgolte, FernUniversitaet Hagen, Germany
Carlos Ramos, ISEP-IPP and University of Porto, Portugal
Asia:
Takenori Shibata, MEL/MITI, Japan
Myung-Jin Chung}, KAIST, Korea

PAPER SUBMISSION
----------------

Submit by February 1, 1995 four copies of completed paper in
either single column or double column format to the address given
below for peer review. Upon acceptance, authors will be requested
to prepare a camera-ready manuscript in IEEE format (limited to
6 pages).

Submit papers to:

Prof. Sukhan Lee, Program Chair
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0781
Phone: (213) 740-7230 / Fax: (213)740-7285
Email: shlee@pollux.usc.edu

For general information:
------------------------

Dr. Damian Lyons
Philips Laboratories
Philips Electronics N. America Corporation
Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510
Phone: (914) 945-6444 / FAX: (914) 945-6141
Email: dml@philabs.philips.com

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A I - E D 9 5
7TH WORLD CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN EDUCATION *
16th - 19th August 1995
Washington DC, USA

The 7th World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education
(AI-ED 95) is one of a series of international conferences designed
to report the best research in the field of AI in Education and to
provide opportunities for the cross-fertilisation of information and
ideas on research and applications in this field.

The conference is sponsored by the AI-ED Society of the Association
for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) and supported
by the leading organizations in the field.

You are invited to submit proposals for papers, posters, tutorials,
workshops, and panels. All proposals are reviewed for inclusion
in the technical program.

Scope
-----
The technical program focuses on research activities linking Artificial
Intelligence theories and techniques with Educational theory and practice.
Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

Intelligent tutoring systems
Learning environments and microworlds
Visual and graphical interfaces
Human factors and interface design
Non-standard and innovative interfaces
Intelligent multimedia systems
Authoring systems and tutoring shells
Collaboration tools
Principles/tools for instructional design
Natural language interfaces
Knowledge representation for instruction
Knowledge and skill acquisition
Conceptual change/Metacognition
Teaching higher-order thinking skills
Social and cultural aspects of learning
Cognitive development and errors
Student modeling, cognitive diagnosis
Theories of teaching/Motivation
Reading and writing
Educational robotics
Computer-assisted language learning
Evaluation of instructional systems
Assessment of learning outcomes

Information for Presenters
--------------------------
Details of presentation formats are given below.
The general principles applying to all are:
o All communication will be with the principal presenter who is
responsible for communicating with co-presenters of that session.
o The conference will attempt to secure all equipment needed for
presenters. However, where special equipment is needed, presenters may
need to provide their own.
o All presenters must pay the registration fee.

Proceedings
-----------
Accepted papers will be published by AACE in the AI-ED 95 Proceedings.
In addition, selected papers will be invited for publication
in the Journal of AI in Education.

Exhibition
----------
Exhibits are expected to be an integral part of the AI-ED 95 conference.
Companies or institutions offering to exhibit AI-ED products are
invited to complete and return the Request for Information form below.

Invited Speakers
----------------
There will be invited presentations from leading researchers in the field.

Conference Background
---------------------
The biennial AI-ED conference series is the major international forum
for AI-ED research and development. AI-ED 95 is the 7th conference
in the series, previous conferences having been held in Exeter (1983, 1985),
Pittsburgh (1987), Amsterdam (1989), Chicago (1991) and Edinburgh (1993).
It is the second such conference to be organised by the AI-ED Society.

----------------
AI-ED COMMITTEES
----------------

AI-ED 95 Organizing Committee
-----------------------------
Sharon Derry (University of Wisconsin, USA)
Jim Greer (University of Saskatchewan, CANADA)
Alan Lesgold (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Matthew Lewis (RAND Corporation, USA)
Gary Marks (AACE, USA)
John Self (Lancaster University, UK)
Valerie Shute (Brooks Air Force Base, USA)

Program Committee
-----------------
Chair: Jim Greer (University of Saskatchewan, CANADA)
Michael Baker (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, FRANCE)
Paul Brna (Lancaster University, UK)
Tak-Wai Chan (National Central University, TAIWAN)
Susanne Lajoie (McGill University, CANADA)
Alan Lesgold (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Riichiro Mizoguchi (Osaka University, JAPAN)
Claus Moebus (University of Oldenburg, GERMANY)
Valery Petrushin (Glushgov Institute of Cybernetics, UKRAINE)
Jacobijn Sandberg (University of Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS)
Valerie Shute (Brooks Air Force Base, USA)
Elliot Soloway (University of Michigan, USA)

Local Organizing Committee
--------------------------
Chair: Christopher Dede (George Mason University)
Henry Hamburger (George Mason University)
Greg Kearsley (George Washington University)
Andrea Luddell (Research Development Corporation)
Karen McGraw (RWD Technology)

AI-ED Society Executive Committee
--------------------------------
Chair: John Self (Lancaster University, UK)
Joost Breuker (University of Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS)
Peter Brusilovsky, (Int'l. Ctr. of Scientific and Tech. Info., RUSSIA)
Alex Bykat (University of Tennessee, USA)
William Clancey (Institute for Research on Learning, USA)
Geoff Cumming (La Trobe University, AUSTRALIA)
Christopher Dede (George Mason University, USA)
Pierre Dillenbourg (Universite de Geneve, SWITZERLAND)
Peter Goodyear (Lancaster University, UK)
Monique Grandbastien (Universite de Nancy, FRANCE)
Jim Greer (University of Saskatchewan, CANADA)
Lewis Johnson (University of Southern California, USA)
Alan Lesgold (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Zhongmin Li (Utah State University, USA)
Gordon McCalla (University of Saskatchewan, CANADA)
Susan Mengel (University of Arkansas, USA)
Vittorio Midoro (Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche, ITALY)
Riichiro Mizoguchi (Osaka University, JAPAN)
Claus Moebus (University of Oldenburg, GERMANY)
Jean-Francois Nicaud (Universite de Paris, FRANCE)
Rachel Or-Bach (Technion, ISRAEL)
Helen Pain (University of Edinburgh, SCOTLAND)
Julita Vassileva (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, BULGARIA)
Martial Vivet (Universite du Maine, FRANCE)
Philip Winne (Simon Fraser University, CANADA)

-----------------
TECHNICAL PROGRAM
-----------------
Papers
------
Papers should describe original and unpublished results of research
work. All accepted papers will be published in the AI-ED 95 Proceedings
and will be candidates for Best Paper Awards. Awarded papers
will be invited for publication in the Journal of Artificial
Intelligence in Education, the official journal of the AI-ED Society.

Submissions: Submissions should be no longer than 8 pages, including
all tables, figures, and references but excluding the cover page. Fonts
should be at no smaller than 10 point (12 point pica for typewriters).
Margins should be at least 1 inch all around.

Each submission must include 1 cover page and 6 paper copies of the
complete manuscript. The cover page should include: the title of the
paper with an abstract of no more than 500 words; keywords giving a
clear indication of topic and subtopic; author names with affiliations,
addresses, and phone numbers; and the E-mail address of the principal
author. Authors are also requested to send an electronic (text) copy
of this cover page to the program chair at aied@cs.usask.ca
Electronic or fax submissions of complete manuscripts WILL NOT be accepted.

Posters
-------
Authors are encouraged to submit reports on work in progress to the
poster sessions, which provide an informal forum for introducing work
in its early stages. Poster sessions enable researchers to discuss
their latest results in order to gain feedback and to establish
contact with similar projects. Poster sessions do not involve a formal
presentation.

Submissions: Poster proposals should include an approximately 3-page
written description of the planned poster and should emphasize the
problem; what was done; and why the work is important. The cover page
should include the title of the session with presenter names,
affiliations, complete addresses, phone numbers, and E-mail address of
the principal presenter.

Panels
------
A panel offers an opportunity for 3-5 people to present their views or
results on a common theme, issue, or question. Panels should cover
timely topics related to the conference areas of interest. Panel
selection will be based on the importance, originality, focus, and
timeliness of the topic, as well as the potential for informative (and
even controversial) discussion.

Submissions: Panel proposals should include:
- A description of the panel topic, including why this topic is
important to the AI-ED Conference attendees; no more than 1 page.
- A brief position statement of each panelist; no more than 1 page
each.

A cover sheet should include the panel title, panelists' names and
affiliations, and the panel organizer's name, affiliation, address, E-
mail address and phone number.

Tutorials and Workshops
-----------------------
Tutorials are offered on basic and advanced topics. Tutorials are
intended to provide an overview of a field; they should be based on
generally accepted and balanced information. Workshops provide
participants the opportunity to meet and discuss selected technical
topics in an informal atmosphere which encourages the active exchange
of ideas among researchers and practitioners. Tutorials/Workshops are
usually a half day in length.

Submissions: Proposals should include a clear description of the
tutorial/workshop objectives, the intended audience, the length in
hours, a 200-word abstract, a 1-page topical outline of the content,
and a description of the proposer's qualifications related to the
tutorial/workshop topic.

***** Submit all PAPERS, POSTERS and PROPOSALS to: *****

AI-ED 95
AACE
P.O. Box 2966
Charlottesville, VA 22902 USA

AI-ED Society
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The overall aim of the Artificial Intelligence in Education (AI-ED)
Society is to advance knowledge and promote research and development
in the field of AI in Education. It aims to help members keep
up-to-date in the field through supporting Journals, Newsletters,
Conferences, and other activities of interest to members.
The AI-ED Society is an international society (its 25 member Executive
Committee represents 13 countries), and it seeks to support AI in
Education developments throughout the international community. The
AI-ED Society is a society of the AACE.

Benefits of AI-ED Society Membership:
- Conference discounts, e.g. for AI-ED 95
- Subscription to the quarterly Journal of AI in Education
- Discounts on other AACE journals/books
- Newsletters
- Opportunity to participate in the development of this important
field, by initiating or supporting activities on topics of concern
to members.

Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)
----------------------------------------------------------------
AACE (established in 1981) is a non-profit, international organization
whose purpose is to advance the knowledge and quality of learning and
teaching at all levels through the encouragement of scholarly inquiry
related to information technology and education and the dissemination of
research results and their applications through publications and
conferences for its members.

AACE publishes five journals:
Journal of:
- Artificial Intelligence in Education
- Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching
- Computing in Childhood Education
- Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia in Education
- Technology and Teacher Education
Plus beginning in 1995:
- International Journal of Educational Telecommunications

AACE Conferences include:
SITE--Society for Information Technology and Teacher Ed.
International Conference (San Antonio, TX, USA; March 22-25, 1995)
ED-MEDIA--World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia
(Graz, Austria; June 18-21, 1995)
AI-ED--World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education
(Washington, DC, USA; August 16-19, 1995)
ICCE--International Conference on Computers in Education
(AACE Asia-Pacific Chapter) (Singapore; December 5-8, 1995)

International Headquarters for the AI-ED Society and AACE:
AACE, P.O. Box 2966, Charlottesville, VA 22902 USA
E-mail: AACE@virginia.edu, (804) 973-3987, FAX: (804) 978-7449

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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: IJCAI-95

IJCAI-95 will take place at the Palais de Congres, Montreal, August 20-25
1995.

The biennial IJCAI conferences are the major forums for the international
scientific exchange and presentation of AI research. The Conference Technical
Program will include workshops, tutorials, panels and invited talks, as well
as tracks for paper and videotape presentations.

PAPER TRACK: SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDELINES

Topics of Interest

Submissions are invited on substantial, original, and previously unpublished
research in all aspects of AI, including, but not limited to:

* Architectures and languages for AI (e.g. parallel hardware and software for
building AI systems)
* Artistic, entertainment and multimedia applications.
* Automated reasoning (e.g. theorem proving, abduction, automatic
programming, search, context management and truth maintenance systems,
constraint satisfaction, satisfiability checking)
* Cognitive modeling (e.g. user models, memory models)
* Connectionist and PDP models
* Distributed AI, autonomous agents, multi-agent systems and real-time
issues.
* Intelligent teaching systems
* Knowledge Engineering and Principles of AI applications (e.g. for design,
manufacturing control, grand challenge applications)
* Knowledge representation (e.g. logics for knowledge, action, belief and
intention, nonmonotonic formalisms, complexity analysis, languages
and systems for representing knowledge)
* Learning, knowledge acquisition and case-based reasoning
* Logic programming (e.g. semantics, deductive databases, relationships to
AI knowledge representation)
* Natural language (e.g. syntax, semantics, discourse, speech recognition
and understanding, natural language front ends, generation systems,
information extraction and retrieval)
* Philosophical foundations
* Planning and reasoning about action (including the relation between
planning and control)
* Qualitative reasoning and naive physics (e.g. temporal and spatial
reasoning, model-based reasoning, diagnosis)
* Reasoning under uncertainty (including fuzzy logic and fuzzy control)
* Robotic and artificial life systems (e.g. unmanned vehicles,
vision/manipulation systems)
* Social, economic and legal implications
* Vision (e.g. color, shape, stereo, motion, object recognition, active
vision, model-based vision, vision architectures and hardware, biological
modeling).

Timetable

Submissions must be received by 6th January 1995. Submissions received after
that date will be returned unopened. Authors should note that ordinary mail
can sometimes be considerably delayed, especially over the new year period,
and should take this into account when timing their submissions. Notification
of receipt will be mailed to the first author (or designated author) soon
after receipt.

Notification of acceptance or rejection: successful authors will be notified
on or before 20th March 1995. Unsuccessful authors will be notified by 27th
March 1995. Notification will be sent to the first author (or designated
author).

Camera ready copies of the final versions of accepted papers must be received
by the publisher in the USA by 24th April 1995.

Note that at least one author of each accepted paper is required to attend
the conference to present the work.

General

Authors should submit six (6) copies of their papers in hard copy form. All
paper submissions should be to the following address. Electronic or fax
submissions cannot be accepted.

IJCAI-95 Paper Submissions,
American Association for Artificial Intelligence,
445, Burgess Drive,
Menlo Park, CA. 94025, USA.
(telephone (415) 328-3123, email ijcai@aaai.org).

Appearance and Length

Papers should be printed on 8.5'' x 11'' or A4 sized paper. They must be a
maximum of 15 pages long, each page having no more than 43 lines, lines being
at most 140mm long and with 12 point type. Title, abstract, figures and
references must be included within this length limit. Papers breaking these
rules will not be considered for presentation at the conference.

Letter quality print is required. (Normally, dot-matrix printout will be
unacceptable unless truly of letter quality. Exceptions will be made for
submissions from countries where high quality printers are not widely
available.)

Title Page

Each copy of the paper must include a title page, separate from the body of
the paper. This should contain:

* Title of the paper
* Full names, postal addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers and email
addresses (where these exist) of all authors. The first postal address
should be one that is suitable for delivery of items by courier service
* An abstract of 100-200 words
* A set of keywords giving the area/subarea of the paper and describing the
topic of the paper. This information, together with the title of the paper,
will be the main information used in allocating reviewers.
* The following declaration:
``This paper has not already been accepted by and is not currently under
review for a journal or another conference. Nor will it be submitted
for such during IJCAI's review period.''

Policy on Multiple Submissions

IJCAI will not accept any paper which, at the time of submission, is
under review for a journal or another conference. Authors are also
expected not to submit their papers elsewhere during IJCAI's review
period. These restrictions apply only to journals and conferences,
not to workshops and similar specialized presentations with a limited
audience.

Review Criteria

Papers will be subject to peer review, but this review will not be
``blind'' (that is, the reviewers will be aware of the names of the
authors). Selection criteria include accuracy and originality of
ideas, clarity and significance of results and the quality of the
presentation. The decision of the Program Committee, taking into
consideration the individual reviews, will be final and cannot be
appealed. Papers selected will be scheduled for presentation and will
be printed in the proceedings. Authors of accepted papers, or their
representatives, are expected to present their papers at the
conference.

Distinguished Paper Awards

The Program Committee will distinguish one or more papers of exceptional
quality for special awards. This decision will in no way depend on whether
the authors choose to enhance their paper with a video presentation.

Other Calls

Calls for tutorial and workshop proposals and video presentations for
IJCAI-95 will be issued shortly.

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Call for Papers

10th IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INTELLIGENT CONTROL

August 27 - 29, 1995
MONTEREY MARRIOTT HOTEL
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA 93940 USA

SCOPE

The central theme of the tenth IEEE / ISIC will be threefold:
Hybrid Systems, Integrated Control and Diagnostics, and,
Non-conventional Robotic Applications. Recent advances in
technology and the ever increasing system complexity requires
new innovative approaches to systems modeling, analysis,
synthesis, and control. Hybrid systems, containing both
continuous and discrete state systems interacting with each
other, are essential for designing autonomous control systems.
Integrated control and diagnostics is required for real-time,
on-line failure detection, identification and recovery of
complex systems, and requires information fusion from a
diverse set of sources, i.e., sensors, controllers, databases,
etc. Robotics and automation has matured to the point that
robotics based applications are expanding to non-conventional
fields including applications in the textiles / apparel
industry, composites and the medical field. Virtual Reality
and Multi-media are playing an increasing role in telerobotics
(telemanipulation, teleoperation), virtual manufacturing and
prototyping. Thus, the Symposium objectives are to discuss and
present the most recent advances in the field. This year,
emphasis will be given to enhance the European participation
and encourage scientists and researchers from Europe to submit
contributed papers and / or proposals for invited sessions and
tutorials.

TOPICS

Symposium topics include, but are not limited to:
adaptive control, applications / implementations (aircraft /
spacecraft, automotive systems / IVHS, composites, consumer
products, manufacturing systems, process control, robotics,
textiles / apparel industry, underwater / land vehicles),
architectures for intelligent control, autonomous control
systems, CIM and FMS systems, computer control, design
techniques for intelligent controllers, discrete event systems,
distributed intelligent control, failure detection and
identification, fuzzy systems / fuzzy control, hierarchical
intelligent control, hybrid systems, knowledge-based and expert
systems, linear and nonlinear systems, machine learning /
adaptive systems, man-machine systems, mathematical analysis of
intelligent systems, modeling of intelligent systems,
multi-sensor fusion / integration, neural networks / neural
control, numerical methods, planning and scheduling systems,
quality control, real-time software, reconfigurable control,
telerobotics, virtual prototyping, and virtual reality
applications.

INVITED SESSIONS / TUTORIALS

Four copies of proposals for: invited sessions including all
full papers and a cover letter indicating the scope of the
proposed session, or, tutorials including a detailed outline of
the proposed topic, must be submitted to the Invited Sessions /
Tutorials Chair by MARCH 15, 1995. Invited sessions may include
survey papers and possibly a panel discussion.

IMPORTANT DATES

March 15, 1995: Full Papers, Proposals, Due
April 30, 1995: Notification of Acceptance / Rejection
May 31, 1995: Final, Camera Ready Papers, Due

PAPER SUBMISSION

FIVE copies of the full paper in final form must be received
for peer review by the Program Chair or Program Co-chair by
MARCH 15, 1995. Papers should be submitted in final format with
a 2-column format on 8.5 by 11 inch sheets. Each column is
limited to 3 1/4 inch in width and 8 7/8 inch in length with a
3/8 inch gutter between columns. The margins are 13/16 inch on
the sides, 1 1/16 inch on the top and bottom. Text is to be
typed single spaced in 10 point Times Roman (or a font closely
resembling this type), with 12 point inter-line spacing. The
first page of the paper, centered on the top below the top
margin, should include the paper title, the authors' names, and
their affiliations. Six pages are allowed for each paper. Up to
two additional pages will be permitted for a charge of $100 for
each additional page. Illustrations are included in the page
count. Papers will be reviewed by the International Program
Committee. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection
by APRIL 30, 1995. The final, camera ready papers must be
mailed no later than MAY 31, 1995.

General Chair:
Kimon P. Valavanis
Robotics and Automation Laboratory
Apparel-CIM Center & The Center for Advanced Computer Studies
The University of Southwestern Louisiana
Lafayette, LA 70504, USA
e-mail: kimon@cacs.usl.edu
Fax: (318) 262-5401, Phone: (318) 482-5817

Program Chair:
Frank L. Lewis
Automation & Robotics Research Institute
The University of Texas at Arlington
7300 Jack Newell Blvd. S.
Fort Worth, TX 76118, USA
e-mail: flewis@arrirs03.uta.edu
Fax: (817) 794-5952, Phone: (817) 794-5972

Program Co-Chair:
Dr. K. Suzanne Barber
Department of ECE, ENS 240
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712, USA
e-mail: barber@emx.cc.utexas.edu
Fax: (512) 471-5532, Phone: (512) 471-6152

Local Arrangements Chair:
Dr. Michael J. Lee
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Pacific Grove, CA 93950, USA
e-mail: lemi@mbari.org
Fax: (408) 633-4580, Phone: (408) 633-7005

European Liaison:
Dr. Kostas Kyriakopoulos
Department of Mechanical Engineering
National Technical University of Athens
Athens, Greece
e-mail: kkyria@leon.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr

Publications Chair:
Dr. Chaouki Abdallah
Department of ECE
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
e-mail: chaouki@jemez.eece.unm.edu
Phone: (505) 277-0298

Publicity Chair:
Dr. Denis Gracanin
Apparel-CIM Center
The University of Southwestern Louisiana
Lafayette, LA 70504, USA
e-mail: dg@acim.usl.edu
Fax: (318) 262-5401, Phone: (318) 482-5817

Invited Sessions / Tutorials Chair
Dr. Nick Papanikolopoulos
Department of Computer Science
The University of Minnesota
200 Union St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
e-mail: npapas@cs.umn.edu
Fax: (612) 625-0572, Phone: (612) 625-0163

Registration / Finance Chair:
Ms. Cathy Pomier, Administrative Assistant
The Center for Advanced Computer Studies
The University of Southwestern Louisiana
Lafayette, LA 70504, USA
e-mail: cathy@cacs.usl.edu
Fax: (318) 482-5791, Phone: (318) 482-6147

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE

L. Acar, NIST, USA
J. Albus, NIST, USA
P. Antsaklis, Notre Dame University, USA
H. Berenji, NASA Ames, USA
D. Bhanu, University of California, Riverside, USA
P. Bonissone, General Electric CR & D, USA
A. De Luca, Politecnico di Torino, I
T. Fukuda, Nagoya University, J
M. Gini, University of Minnesota, USA
G. Giralt, LAAS, F
A. Grammatikos, University of Patras, GR
M. Leahy, U.S. Air Force, USA
S. Lee, JPL, USA
A. Levis, George Mason University, USA
P. Lima, Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica, P
I. Lovrek, University of Zagreb, HR
A. Meystel, Drexel University, USA
K. Passino, Ohio State University, USA
F.L. Pereira, Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica, P
M. Polycarpou, University of Cincinnati, USA
S. Ramaswamy, University of Texas, Austin, USA
S. Smith, University of Southwestern Louisiana, USA
T. Sobh, University of Utah, USA
J. Sztipanovits, Vanderbilt University, USA
A. Tzes, Polytechnic University, USA
P. M. Taylor, University of Hull, UK
M. Vajta, University of Twente, NL
A. Villa, Politecnico di Torino, I
J. Wen, RPI, USA
T. Williams, University of Southwestern Louisiana, USA

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SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS

Workshop on Computational Kinematics

INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, France
September 4-6, 1995

The aim of this workshop is to provide an account of the state of
the art in Computational Kinematics. We understand here under this
term that branch of kinematics research involving intensive computation not
only of the numerical type, but also of a symbolic or geometric nature.
The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers in the field
of kinematics, mathematical computation and computer science to discuss
research results and exchange ideas in this newly emerging field.
This meeting will be held at INRIA, the french national research institute
on computer science which is located on the French Riviera, near Nice.
For people planning to attend the IFToMM World Congress on the Theory of
Machine and Mechanisms (August 30-September 2) note that
Nice and Milan are close. The organizers intend that there will be
very reduced fee for this workshop. The maximum number of attendee will
be around 70.

Scientific Committee

Chairs

J-P. Merlet INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, France
B. Ravani University of California at Davis, USA

Members

J. Angeles McGill University, Canada
J. Canny Berkeley University, USA
C. Gosselin Universit\'e Laval, Canada
C. Hofmann Purdue University, USA
G. Hommel Technische Universit\"at Berlin, Germany
M. Husty Montanuniversit\"at Loeben, Austria
C. Innocenti Universit\`a di Bologna, Italy
D. Lazard LITP, Institut Blaise Pascal, France
J. Lenarcic Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
N. Maizi Ecole des Mines de Paris, France
B. Roth Stanford University, USA
M. Wagner Technical University of Wienna, Austria

Deadline:

Three copies of the full paper (maximum 10 pages, preferably
written in LaTeX) should be submitted before
December 31, 1994 and should be sent to:

European papers:
J-P. Merlet E-mail: merlet@cygnusx1.inria.fr
INRIA, BP. 93 Fax: (33) 93 65 76 43
06902 Sophia-Antipolis Cedex, France
Non-European papers:
B. Ravani E-mail: bravani@ucdavis.edu
Dpt. of Mechanical Engineering Fax: (916)752-4158
University of California
Davis CA 95616-5294, USA

Acceptance of the paper after review by the scientific committee
will be notified on March 1 and the final version of
the paper will have to reach the chairmen by April, 15.

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FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT and CALL FOR PAPERS

International Federation of Automatic Control
WORKSHOP

Human-Oriented Design of Advanced Robotics Systems
(DARS '95)

September 19-20, 1995
Vienna, Austria

Institute for Handling Devices and Robotics
Technical University of Vienna

SPONSORED BY
IFAC - International Federation of Automatic Control
IFAC - TC on Social Impact of Automation (HAC)

COSPONSORED BY
IFAC - TC on Manufacturing Modelling, Management and Control (MIM)
IFAC - TC on Robotics (MIR)
IFAC - TC on Components and Instruments (MIC)
IFAC - TC on Low Cost Automation (MIL)
IFAC - TC on Advanced Manufacturing Technology (MIT)
IFAC - TC on Man-Machine Systems (SMM)
IFAC - TC on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (TVI)
IFAC - TC on Automation in Developing Countries (IDE)

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE (IPC)
Chairman: T. Martin (D)
Members:
M. Armada (E) O. Ladanyi (A) T. Borangiu (RO)
H. van der Loos (USA) D. Brandt (D) L. Mertensson (S)
C. B|hler (D) M. Nakamura(J) R. Carelli (ARG)
F. Nicolr (I) P.J. Deasley (GB) A. Ollero (E)
W. D|chting (D) R. Probst (A) F.Emspak (USA)
U. Rembold (D) G. Fagerberg (S) T.Sato (J)
J. Forslin (S) T. Sheridan (USA) G.Giralt (F)
R. Schraft (D) R. Goebl (A) H.Stassen (NL)
W. Gruver (CAN) T. Tarn (USA) A.Halme (SF)
C. Willems (NL) P. Kopacek (A) R. vander Vorst (GB)

NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (NOC)
Chairman: P. Kopacek (A)
Members: I. Nemetz (A)
W.Schachner (A)
Workshop Editor: P.Kopacek (A)

SCOPE
Novel approaches for advanced robotics systems will be applied
in the industrial production and in many other areas in the near
future. For the employees to be able to work with these systems, new
ergonomical, social and cultural aspects must be considered. At the
workshop, new aspects of design and case studies shall be overviewed
and discussed.All possible application areas and environments will be
focussed on, including those that can dispense with human work for
difficult activities in harsh, demanding or dangerous
environments. Assistance for the disabled or handicapped and new
applications in the services sector are particularly demanding.

The outlined design aspects should deal with

-) the system design, specifically of the man-machine interface, for
autonomous, semi-autonomous and tele-operated mode and for tele-existence;
-)the organizational and social aspects with respect to the environment in
which the system is embedded;
-) the cultural aspect due to different living and working traditions and
conditions of the people involved;
-) the economic aspects.Practical solutions (e.g. demonstrated with video) are
preferred to purely theoretical consideration.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Contributions to the topics mentioned are welcome. Five copies of the abstract
(approximately 400 words in English) should be received not later than April
1st, 1995

DEADLINES
Submission of abstracts: 1st April, 1995
Notification of acceptance: 15th June, 1995
Submission of full papers: 15th August, 1995

FURTHER INFORMATION
More information will be available on the information server of Vienna
Technical University via gopher. Point your client to: info.tuwien.ac.at
"International Activities"

COPYRIGHT
The material submitted for presentation at an IFAC meeting
(symposium, conferen ce, workshop) must be original, not published or
being considered elsewhere. Al l papers accepted for presentation will
appear in the Preprints of the meeting and will be distributed to the
participants. Papers duly presented will be arch ived and offered for
sale, in the form of Postprint volumes, by Elsevier Scienc e Ltd.,
Oxford, UK. The presented papers will be further screened for possible
publication in the IFAC journals Automatica and Control Engineering
Practice, o r in other, IFAC affiliated journals. The abstracts of all
presented papers wil l also appear in Control Engineering
Practice.Copyright in material presented a t an IFAC meeting is held
by IFAC. Authors will be sent a copyright transfer fo rm. Automatica,
Control Engineering Practice and, after these, IFAC affiliated
journals have priority access to all presented contributions. However,
if the a uthor is not contacted by an editor of these journals, within
three months afte r the meeting, he/she is free to re-submit the
material for publication elsewhe re. In this case, the paper must
carry a reference to the IFAC meeting wherit was originally
presented. Authors in any doubt should consult the detailed AC
Copyright conditions available from the IFAC Secretariat.

LANGUAGE
English will be the official language.

MAILING ADDRESS
Institute for Handling Devices and Robotics (E318)
Technical University of Vienna
Floragasse 7A
A-1040 Wien
Tel.: +43/1/ 504 18 35
Fax: +43/1/ 504 18 35 9
E-mail: dars@ihrt1.ihrt.tuwien.ac.at

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2nd announcement

Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents:
ASI-AA-95

23 September - 1 October 1995
Centro Stefano Franscini
Monte Verit'a, Ticino, Switzerland

(Follow-up meeting of the NATO Advanced Study Institute "The Biology
and Technology of Intelligent Autonomous Agents", which took place
Spring 1993 in Trento, Italy).

Sponsored by:

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; Computer Science Department,
University of Zurich; SGAICO (Swiss Group for Artificial Intelligence and
Cognitive Science); Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT; Applied AI
Systems, Ottawa, Canada; Nippon Signal, Japan; Uchidate, Japan.

Goal of the Advanced Study Institute "Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents"

The goal of the Advanced Study Institute (ASI) is to bring together the
world's leading experts in the field of autonomous agents (AA) for an
extended period of time in order to bring the existing research community
closer together and to extend it to younger researchers. As a result we
expect a state-of-the-art assessment of the field, including a research
agenda for the near future. We hope that many joint research endeavors
will emerge from the close collaboration in the workshops.

Current Situation: Autonomous Agents Research in 1995

Because technical skills about robot building are now widely available,
promoting these skills at an ASI is no longer the primary objective.
However, from a conceptual point of view there are still many fundamental
issues in AA design that we do not yet sufficiently understand.
Moreover, there is less need to provide complete coverage of all aspects
of the field since by now they are well-known in the research community.
For this reason the meeting will be focused on a number of core aspects
of real world autonomous agents. When the study institute will take
place, roughly 2 1/2 years will have passed since the one in Trento took
place. Therefore, it is important to evaluate what has been achieved in
the meantime.

Main topics of the Advanced Study Institute

The field of autonomous agents has significantly matured during the last
few years. We are beyond the stage where robots are designed mainly
based on intuition. It is therefore a good time to make an assessment of
the current state of the theory of autonomous agents.

Theory: What are the recent developments in the theory of autonomous
agents?

Design: How can autonomous agents be designed which show sophisticated
kinds of behavior?

Performance measures: How can the performance of the agents be
quantified?

Topic areas:

The Cog project; behavioral economics approach; evolutionary approaches;
"complete autonomous systems"; self-organization, learning, and
grounding; dynamical systems; collective behavior; industrial session.

Confirmed speakers (list to be completed):

Randy Beer, Case Western Reserve University, US;
Ren'e te Boekhorst, University of Zurich, CH;
Rodney Brooks, MIT, US;
Dave Cliff, University of Sussex, UK;
Daniel Dennett, Turfts University, USA;
Rodney Douglas, Oxford University, UK;
Philippe Gaussier, ENSEA ETIS, F;
Inman Harvey, University of Sussex, UK;
Charlotte Hemelrijk, University of Zurich, CH;
Phil Husbands, University of Sussex, UK;
Maja Mataric, MIT, US (Brandeis University, US);
David McFarland, Oxford University, UK;
Gregor Sch"oner, Marseille, F;
Tim Smithers, University of the Basque Country, SP;
Luc Steels, Free University of Brussels, B;
Takashi Gomi, Ottawa, Canada.

Workshop organizers (list to be completed):

Rodney Brooks, Jean-Daniel Nicoud, Marinus Maris,
Lynn-Andreas Stein, Luc Steels, Tim Smithers, Christian Scheier,
Matthew Marjanovic, Ren'e Schaad, Daniel Meier
Francesco Mondada, Dimitrios Lambrinos, and others.

Format:

The ASI consists of the following parts: lectures, workshops, background
lectures, poster/demo session, special robot event, panel discussions.

Lectures. The lectures will provide a state-of-the-art overview of the
field including the currently hottest research topics. They have
a tutorial and a research aspect and should be attended by
everyone.

Workshops. The afternoons and some evenings are reserved for workshops.
They are conducted in parallel and will consist of concrete case
studies with active contributions of all the participants. This
can also include presentations. The case studies will include all
three aspects of AA, namely theory, design, and performance
evaluation and will address questions like: How could the designs
of particular agents be improved? How would the agents look like
if viewed from a different design perspective? etc. Because the
participants already have experience in the field these workshops
will be a main forum for exchanging ideas. A list of the workshops
will be announced early next year.

Background lectures. To embed the topics of the workshop into a larger
framework a number of background lectures will be held in the
evenings.

Poster/Demo Sessions. The poster and demonstration sessions will give all
participants the opportunity to present their own work. This is
also a forum to facilitate communication during the ASI.

Panel discussions. Panel discussions will be organized to work out the
strengths, weaknesses, points of agreement and disagreement of the
various approaches.

Special event. A special event will be organized which should capture the
"spirit" of the ASI. Because the various workshop groups will have
their own robots to work with, the goal is having some or all of
them work together on a common task (heterogeneous collective
robots). This could not only be a lot of fun, but is also of great
theoretical interest. More details on this special event will be
announced later.

Application Procedure

Deadline for applications: April 13, 1995
Notification of acceptance: May 15, 1995

The application should include:

1. Statement of contribution. A two-page description of the
contribution participants plan to make in terms of demos,
contribution to workshops, etc.
2. Poster/Demo. Each participant is expected to contribute a poster
presentation. Demonstrations are also of great interest. An
abstract should be submitted with the application.
3. Background information. A short description of the research
background (CV) should be submitted with the application.
4. Robots and simulations.

Participants are encouraged to bring along their own robots and/or
simulation environments. It would be great to have a large variety of
different types of robots for the special event. They should all think
about the special event and prepare their own robots in a way that will
make success on a common task/game more likely. Please state if you can
bring a robot (and if yes, what kind). This is not a condition for
participation.

Fees

Registration: academic CHF 400.00, industrial CHF 600.00
Room and board: academic CHF 800.00, industrial CHF 1400.00

Note: This includes 8 nights at the hotel, 3 meals a day, and coffee
during breaks. The calculation of the costs for room and board are based
on the assumption that the participants reside in the conference hotel
(double rooms with a superb view of the Lago Maggiore and the Swiss and
Italian mountains). If you prefer a single room, there are many local
hotels available in Ascona, a nearby village which is a very popular
tourist resort.

Organization

Director:
Rolf Pfeifer, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Program Committee:

Rodney Brooks, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., USA
Jean-Daniel Nicoud, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Tim Smithers, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain
Luc Steels, Free University of Brussels, Belgium
(organizer of the previous ASI in Trento)
Takashi Gomi, Applied AI Systems, Ottawa, Canada

Local organization:

Autonomous Agents Research Group,
AI Lab, Department of Computer Science,
University of Zurich, Switzerland

Further information:

Rolf Pfeifer
AI Lab, Computer Science Department
University of Zurich E-mail: pfeifer@ifi.unizh.ch
Winterthurerstrasse 190 Fax: + 41 - 1 - 363 00 35
CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland Phone: + 41 - 1 - 257 43 20/31

WWW information:
Consult the following WWW page at URL: http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/asi-aa.html
It will always contain the most recent program, additional
information about the workshops, travel information, etc.
See also ftp://ftp.ifi.unizh.ch/pub/monteverita/ASI-AA-95.txt

--
Nikolaus Almassy, Department of Computer Science,
University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich
Tel: +41 1 257 43 47, Fax: +41 1 363 00 35, almassy@ifi.unizh.ch
http://josef.ifi.unizh.ch/groups/ailab/people/almassy.html

For more information send empty E-mail to with
"monte verita" in the subject line. It can also be accessed by World
Wide Web the the URL: http://josef.ifi.unizh.ch/asi-aa.html

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First International Conference on
Computer Vision, Virtual Reality and Robotics in Medicine
CVRMed'95
April 3-5, 1995
Nice, FRANCE

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this first international conference is to present and
publish the most innovative and promising research work in computer
vision, virtual reality and robotics applied to medical problems:
1) to help diagnosis from multidimensional and multimodal images and
2) to assist therapy, especially in video surgery, interventional
radiology, and radiotherapy.

This domain has undergone a tremendous increase over the past few
years and will be a revolution for medicine in the coming decade.

This event follows a successful preliminary AAAI symposium
organized in March 1994 at Stanford by N. Ayache (INRIA),
E. Grimson (MIT), T. Kanade (CMU), R. Kikinis and S. Wells (chair)
(both at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital).

The topics addressed by this conference will include:

Therapy planning, simulation and control:
-----------------------------------------
.virtual and augmented reality applied to therapy control
.virtual patients for surgical training
.telepresence in medicine, telesurgery
.image guided medical robotics
.image guided therapy
.using electronic anatomical atlases
.virtual reality for rehabilitation

Registration problems in medicine:
----------------------------------
.3D localization of patients or surgical tools
.on line tracking of patient or organ motion
.nonrigid matching in medical images
.registration of mono or multimodal medical images
.registration with electronic anatomical atlases

Medical image understanding:
-----------------------------
.differential geometry and multidimensional images
.motion, shape and texture analysis in medical images
.building and using physical deformable models
.segmentation of multidimensional medical images
.spectral analysis in medical images
.detecting measuring pathological evolution
.building electronic anatomical atlases
.statistical analysis of anatomical features
.representation of pictorial anatomical knowledge

PAPER SUBMISSION
------------------
Four copies of complete manuscript should be received by
Friday September 23, 1994, at the address:

Dr. Nicholas AYACHE
CVRMed'95 - INRIA
2004 Route des Lucioles - B.P.93
06902 Sophia-Antipolis Cedex - France

Papers should include:
----------------------
a) A title page including the names and addresses of the authors
(with e-mail), an abstract of up to 200 words, and one or
more categories as listed above or other keywords.

b) A single page clearly answering the following questions:
1. What is the original contribution of this work?
2. Why should this contribution be considered important?
3. What is the most closely related work by others and how
does this work differ?
4. How can other researchers make use of the results of this work?
5. If this work extends or relates closely to some other work you
have published, please state precisely how it differs from
that work?
6. If any part of this work has been submitted to other conferences
or workshops, please state where and how it is different?

c) a paper, limited to 18 double space pages (12 points) including
figures and references, with a maximum of 7000 words.

Language policy:
----------------
Papers will be written in English. The organization will provide a
French translation of the abstracts. Oral communications will be done
in English. However, follow-up questions and discussions may be held
in both languages.

CALENDAR
----------

September 23, 1994: Submission deadline for receiving papers at INRIA
November 1994: Notification to authors
January 2, 1995: Camera ready received at INRIA
April 2, 1995: Pre-registration in Nice
April 3-5, 1995: Conference in Nice
April 6, 1995: Technical tour in Sophia Antipolis

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
-------------------

Full length papers will be reviewed and selected by the program
committee of the conference:

Chairman:
---------
Nicholas AYACHE (INRIA, France)

Members:
--------
Fred BOOKSTEIN (University of Michigan, USA)
Mike BRADY (Oxford University, UK)
Grigore BURDEA (Rutgers University, USA)
Philippe CINQUIN (Grenoble Hospital, France)
Jean-Louis COATRIEUX (INSERM, Rennes, France)
Alan COLCHESTER (Guy's Hospital, London, UK)
James DUNCAN (Yale University, USA)
Henry FUCHS (University of North Carolina, USA)
Guido GERIG (ETH-Z, Zurich, Switzerland)
Erik GRANUM (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Eric GRIMSON (MIT, USA)
Karl-Heinz HOEHNE (University Hospital Eppendorf, Germany)
Thomas HUANG (University of Illinois, USA)
Takeo KANADE (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Ron KIKINIS (Harvard Medical School, USA)
Jean-Claude LATOMBE (Stanford University, USA)
Tomas LOZANO-PEREZ (MIT, USA)
Charles PELIZZARI (University of Chicago, USA)
Richard ROBB (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA)
Paul SUETENS (KULeuven, Belgium)
Richard SZELISKI (DEC, Cambridge, USA)
Russ TAYLOR (IBM, Yorktown Heights, USA)
Demetri TERZOPOULOS (University of Toronto, Canada)
Jean-Philippe THIRION (INRIA, France)
Jun-ichiro TORIWAKI (Nagoya University, Japan)
Alessandro VERRI (University of Genoa, Italy)
Max VIERGEVER (University Hospital Utrecht, The Netherlands)
William WELLS (Harvard Medical School, USA)

SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATION
-------------------------
G. MALANDAIN and Epidaure Group (INRIA, France)

PRACTICAL ORGANIZATION
------------------------
The conference will take place at Hotel Meridien in Nice, France, at
a prestigious address: 1, Promenade des Anglais (the heart of the
French Riviera, right in front of the mediterranean sea!) from April
3 to 5, 1995.

The conference will be followed, on April 6, by a technical tour in
Sophia-Antipolis, to visit the computer vision, graphics and robotics
laboratories of INRIA (120 scientists).

The meeting will be composed of a single track of oral presentations
(long and short) with a number of poster sessions.

The proceedings of the conference will be published by Springer-
Verlag in the series "Lecture Notes in Computer Science".

We plan to have a selection of the best papers to appear in a dedicated
book or a special issue of a journal.

LOCAL ORGANIZATION
--------------------
The organizing body for the conference will be INRIA (National
Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) in Sophia
Antipolis, France.

INFORMATION
-------------

INRIA
Unite de Recherche de Sophia Antipolis
Relations Exterieures
Bureau des colloques
2004, route des lucioles - BP 93
06902 SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS CEDEX
FRANCE
Tel: + 33 - 93 65 78 64
Fax: + 33 - 93 65 79 55

E-mail: Monique.Simonetti@sophia.inria.fr

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS (ABSTRACTS)

SYMPOSIUM ON AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN MINE COUNTERMEASURES

April 4-7, 1995

U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California

With sponsorship from the Office of Naval Research, and with cooperation from
agencies including ARPA, the U.S. Army Counter-Mine Program, the U.S. Marine
Corps Amphibious Warfare Technical Center, and the U.S. Navy Explosive
Ordnance Disposal Technical Center, the Naval Postgraduate School announces a
Technical Symposium to define and explore the present and potential future
prospects for autonomous systems in mine countermeasures applications. Both
military and environmental applications are considered.

This is a major technical symposium on the state-of-the-art and potential for
the use of robotics approaches to deal with the problem of mines, booby traps,
and other obstacles, toxic waste disposal, environmental monitoring and
remediation.

Intended Audience. This symposium is for mine warfare and hazardous materials
disposal specialists in each of the Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, and
Marine Corps plus the Coast Guard); the Service and DoD Acquisition Community;
personnel from mission-oriented laboratories of each of the Services;
technical specialists from the Department of Energy National Laboratories; the
Environmental Protection Agency; the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the
Intelligence, and the Academic Communities. The symposium draws upon the
research and development activities of the government laboratories, academe,
and industrial laboratories. The symposium should prove beneficial to
industrial suppliers and manufacturers who seek application of dual-use
technology and processes.

General Plan and Format of Symposium. The symposium will be held at the Naval
Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, over a 4-day period. The format
includes a series plenary sessions on systems requirements and concepts
presentations from distinguished speakers and technical sessions that address
the technologies of the major systems elements. The symposium will be
UNCLASSIFIED. A RProceedings of the SymposiumS will be prepared and furnished
to attendees. A modest registration fee will cover the overhead costs of the
symposium plus session meals and refreshments. The plan is to have a mix of
invited and submitted papers, and panel discussion sessions.

Contributions are requested and will be selected on the basis of a review of
an abstract. ABSTRACTS SHOULD BE 500 WORDS IN LENGTH and should be mailed or
faxed on or before November 1, 1994 to:

Albert M. Bottoms
Visiting Professor of Undersea Warfare (Mine Warfare)
U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (Code UW)
Monterey CA 93943.
Tel: (408) 656-2535
Fax: (408) 656-3679
E-mail: ambottom@nps.navy.mil

Prospective authors will be notified of acceptance by January 15,1994, and
full papers will be due by March 15, 1995.

Point papers or original contributions of technical subject material will be
accepted on the following topics:

A-VEHICLE SYSTEMS: Existing (tethered or semi-autonomous), Bottom
crawlers, Swimming, Amphibious/Land, Air, Space;

B-POWER PLANTS: Off-board, Air Breathing, Electrical, Chemical,
Computation of Energy Budgets;

C-SENSORS: Acoustic, Magnetic, UEP, Optical, Tactile, Nuclear,
Biological, Sensor Fusion and Image Enhancement;

D-MISSION PACKAGES: Destructive, Marking, Classification, Removal,
Systems Integration ;

E-CONTROL: Off- Board Group Navigation, Obstacle Avoidance and
Reporting, Operator Interfaces;

F-OPERATIONS RESEARCH / TACTICS: Campaign Analyses, Tactical Analysis,
Simulation and Trade-Off Methodologyies, Operational Test and Evaluation;

G-ENVIRONMENTS: Surf Zone, Estuarine and Riverine, Physical
Characterization, Chemical Characterization, Biological, Geological;

H-MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY AND DUAL-USE POSSIBILITIES : Dual-Use and
Production Economics, Sources of Manufacturing Technology, Evolutionary
Acquisition.

Product and Technology Displays. Display areas will be provided for
organizations and industrial groups to show video or put up small static
displays and provide literature, reprints of papers, etc.

Planning Horizons: Research Abstracts due in Monterey: November 1, 1994
Prospective Authors Notified: January 15, 1995
Camera Ready Copy due in Monterey: March 15, 1995

Symposium sponsors emphasize that we are deliberately looking beyond the
individuals and organizations that are usually involved on military and Navy
R&D. We are convinced that there are many investigators who are following
paths very relevant to Navy needs who do not know of those needs; nor do
government project people know of all investigators.

Users of Internet will find updated Symposium information in the comp.robotics
newsgroup and on the World Wide Web NPS Symposium Homepage at the following
URL:
ftp://ftp.nps.navy.mil/pub/usw/av_mcm.html

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EPIA'95 WORKSHOPS - CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO ROBOTICS AND
VISION SYSTEMS WORKSHOP

Seventh Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal
October 3-6, 1995

(Under the auspices of the Portuguese Association for AI)

INTRODUCTION

The Seventh Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence
(EPIA'95) will be held at Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal,
between October 3-6, 1995. As in previous cases ('89, '91,
and '93), EPIA'95 will be run as an international
conference, English being the official language. The
scientific program includes tutorials, invited lectures,
demonstrations, and paper presentations. The Conference will
include three parallel workshops on Expert Systems, Fuzzy
Logic and Neural Networks, and Applications of A.I. to
Robotics and Vision Systems. These workshops will run
simultaneously (see below) and consist of invited talks,
panels, paper presentations and poster sessions.
Applications of Artificial Intelligence to Robotics and
Vision Systems Workshop may last for either 1, 2 or 3 days,
depending on the quantity and quality of submissions.

APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO ROBOTICS AND
VISION SYSTEMS WORKSHOP

During the last few years, Artificial Intelligence
techniques have been successfully applied to a large number
of problems in robotics and computer vision.
This workshop aims to provide an overview of such
applications specially featuring real prototypes and systems
(e.g., robotic insects, autonomous mobile robots, etc.).
The availability of demonstrations (robots, vision systems,
videos and demonstration software) is highly appreciated and
will be taken into account in assessing submissions.
The workshop will be divided into two areas: paper
presentations and system exhibitions, where prototypes
related to the presentations will be demonstrated.
The organization invites you to participate in the workshop
via paper presentations and/or system demonstrations.

EXHIBITIONS

In order to illustrate and to support theoretical
presentations the organization will provide adequate
conditions (space and facilities) for exhibitions regarding
the three workshops mentioned. These exhibitions can include
software running systems (several platforms are available),
video presentations (PAL-G VHS system), robotics systems
(such as robotics insects, and autonomous robots), and
posters. On the one hand, this space will allow the
presentation of results and real-world applications of the
research developed by our community and, on the other it
will serve as a source of motivation to students and young
researchers.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Authors are asked to submit five (5) copies of their papers
to the submissions address by May 2, 95. Notification of
acceptance or rejection will be mailed to the first (or
designated) author on June 5, 95, and camera ready copies
for inclusion in the workshop proceedings will be due on
July 3, 95. Each copy of submitted papers should include a
separate title page giving the names, addresses, phone
numbers and email addresses (where available) of all
authors, and a list of keywords identifying the subject area
of the paper. Papers should be a maximum of 16 pages and
printed on A4 paper in 12 point type with a maximum of 38
lines per page and 75 characters per line ( corresponding to
LaTeX article style, 12 pt). Double sided submissions are
preferred. Electronic or faxed submissions will not be
accepted. Further inquiries should be addressed to the
inquiries address.

ATTENDANCE

Each workshop will be limited to at most fifty people. In
addition to presenters of papers and posters, there will be
space for a limited number of other participants chosen on
the basis of a one- to two-page research summary which
should include a list of relevant publications, along with
an electronic mail address if possible. A set of working
notes will be available prior to the commencement of the
workshops. Registration information will be available in
June 1995. Please write for registration information to the
inquiries address.

DEADLINES
~~~~~~~~~
Papers submission: ................. May 2, 1995
Notification of acceptance: ........ June 5, 1995
Camera Ready Copies Due: ........... July 3, 1995

PROGRAM-CHAIR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joao Paulo Costeira (CMU, USA)

ORGANIZING-CHAIR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jose Santos-Victor (IST, Portugal)

SUBMISSION AND INQUIRIES ADDRESS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EPIA'95
Aplic. of AI to Robotics & Vision Workshop
INESC, Apartado 13069
1000 Lisboa Portugal
Voice: +351 (1) 310-0325
Fax: +351 (1) 525843
Email: epia95-ARVWorkshop@inesc.pt

PLANNING TO ATTEND
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
People planning to submit a paper or/and to attend the
workshop are asked to complete and return the following form
(by fax or email) to the inquiries address standing their
intention. It will help the workshop organizer to estimate
the facilities needed and will enable all interested people
to receive updated information.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| REGISTRATION OF INTEREST |
| (Applications of AI to Robotics & Vision Workshop) |
| |
| Title . . . . . Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| Address1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| Address2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fax . . . . . . . . . . |
| Email address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| I intend to submit a paper (yes/no). . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| I intend to participate only (yes/no). . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| I will travel with ... guests |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

26th International Symposium on Industrial Robots
4-6 October 1995
Singapore Suntec City
Convention and Exhibition Centre

Please also note that 1995 is also the official 'Visit Singapore'
year, and the tourist promotion board has prepared many other
entertaining programs for our foreign visitors and guest.

CALL FOR PAPERS
===============

26th International Symposium on Industrial Robots

4-6 October 1995
Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Center
Singapore

In 1995, The 26th International Symposium on Industrial Robots (ISIR)
will take place, for the first time, in Southeast Asia. The ISIR, the
prestigious international symposium organised under the auspices of the
International Federation of Robotics (IFR) is held annually since 1970.
This symposium will focus on the economics of robotic applications as
well as present emerging technologies from leading researchers and
manufacturers. Hence the theme:

"Competitive Automation: New Frontiers, New Opportunities"

To this end, we invite papers from users on case studies of successful
applications of robotics in enhancing manufacturing competitiveness which
will encourage the diffusion of robotics in this part of the world.
Delegates to the 26th ISIR will thus be able to benefit both from the
knowledge and expertise of researchers and manufacturers, as well as
experience of users.

There are three general areas of interest for 26th ISIR:

Management/Business
- National policies and programmes
- Human resource aspects
- Business strategies

Applications
- Manufacuring
- Quality Assurance
- Services
- Medical
- Defence
- Construction
- Argriculture and mining

Technology
- Robotic systems and design
- Intelligence
- Emerging technologies
- Computer Integrated Manufacturing
- Peripherals
- Simulation
- Robot Vision

You are invited to submit abstract(s) for consideration, which should
provide sufficient information to allow the assessment of the scope and
contents of the paper, and please include:

- Title of the paper
- Author's name / Biographical data
- Speaker's name / Affiliation
- Organisation / Company and address
- Telephone / Fax and e-mail id (if available)

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 30 November 1994.
Abstracts and any enquiries can be directed to me at

Dr. K.B. Lim
Chairman, Local Technical Prgramme Committee
c/o National University of Singapore
Mechanical & Production Engineering Department
10 Kent Ridge Crescent
Singapore 0511
Republic of Singapore
Tel: (65)-772-2891 Fax: (65)-779-1459
e-mail: mpelimkb@leonis.nus.sg (internet)
mpelimkb@nusvm.bitnet (bitnet)

or at our conference secretariat

The 26th ISIR Secretariat
Expoconsult Pte Ltd
100, Beach Road, #26-00
Shaw Tower
Singapore 0718
Republic of Singapore
Tel: (65)-299-9273 Fax: (65)-299-9782

Looking forward to your support and Do come and visit our island country.
An International Showcase of Solutions
======================================

The 26th ISIR is held with ROBOTICS'95, the Asian International
Exhibition on Robotic and Vision Technology. It represents an unparallel
opportunity for manufacturers of robots and vision systems to market
their products and expertise into the vast and rapidly developing
Asian Market. Products and services appearing in this exbibition are:
Industrial Robots, Machine Vision systems, Peripherals, Automation systems
and services.

Other related exhibitions held concurrently are:

FA'95 Factory Automation machinery, equipment, tools, materials
and accessories.

MANUSOFT'95 Manufacturing solutions and process software.

TRANSFLUID'95 Power transmission pneumatics, hydraulics and fluid
control technology.

LOGISMAT'95 Material handling, storage, transportation, warehousing
and distribution.

Together with ROBOTICS'95 and the 26th ISIR, these events give a complete
platform serving as an "one-stop shop" for the industrial automation
industry.

Background of ISIR and IFR
==========================

The ISIR is organised by the International Fderation of Robotics (IFR), which,
with the membership of twenty-five member of twenty-five member countries, has
become recognised as the major representative of robotic interest throughout
the world. With its support, this symposium has made significant contributions
to the development and application of robotic technology since its inception
in 1970. The staging of this event in Singapore - the first Asian country
outside Japan to have the honour of hosting it - leads recognition to
Singapore role as the gateway to this vast and dynamic market.

SINGAPORE 1995 - "Meet in Singapore" year
=========================================

1995 is the 'Meet-in-Singapore" year and a host of exciting activities has been
planned by the government and private organisations to welcome visitors to our
garden city. We welcome all reseachers, practitioners and users of robotic
technology from all over the world to meet in Singapore for the 26th ISIR for
a fruitful exchange of ideas and enjoy the gracious hospitability and warmth
of exciting Asia.

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1996 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON
ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION

(sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society)

The 1996 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation will take
place at Minneapolis Hilton and Towers, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 22 -
28, 1996.

The General Chair is Norman Caplan from the National Science Foundation, and
the Program Chair is C. S. George Lee from Purdue University.

The Deadline for paper submission is September 15, 1995. Six copies of each
paper must be sent to:

C. S. George Lee
1285 Electrical Engineering Building
School of Electrical Engineering
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1285, U.S.A.
Fax: (317) 494-6951
Phone: (317) 494-1384
E-mail: csglee@ecn.purdue.edu

The official Call for Papers with the Program Committee members and all
conference details is forthcoming soon.

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MFI'96: 1996 IEEE/SICE/RSJ International conference on
Multisensor Fusion and Integration for Intelligent Systems
(Maybe held in Oct 1996)
Main topics: - Algorithms for sensor fusion and integration
- Sensing Architectures
- Implementation
- Applications
Further info.: Masatoshi Ishikawa
Department of Mathematical Engineering and Information Physics
University of Tokyo
Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113, Japan
TEL: 81-3-5800-6569
FAX: 81-3-5800-6969
Email: ishikawa@k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to those listed above many other annual conferences are
held. Here are a few of them:

Annual International Conference of IEEE on Robotics and Automation
(ICARA)

Annual Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

Annual Symposium on Industrial Robots

International Symposium of Robotics Research

Autonomous Intelligent Systems

International Conference on Computer Vision

British Machine Vision Conference

IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Conference

IMAC/SICE International Symposium on Robotics, Mechatronics and
Manufacturing Systems.

American Association for Artificial Intellignece (AAAI)
Probably the largest and most prestigious conference
on AI. Now sponsoring a robot competition at the annual AAAI
conference.

------------------------------
[5.2] Competitions

There are a number of robot gatherings where robot builders can bring
their creations to show and compete with others.

Competition List
AAAI Robot Competitions
AUVS International Aerial Robotics Competition
AUVS Ground Robotics Competition
BEAM Robot Olympics
Hong-Kong Robot Ping Pong Competition
IEEE Micromouse Competitions
IJCAI Robot Competition
International Festival of Science and Technology
International Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest
SAE Walking Machine Decathalon
Sumo Robot Competition
Western Candian Robot Games

Steve Rainwater also maintains a robot contests and competitions list
that is posted regularly to comp.robotics
Internet srainwater@ncc.com
Fax 214-650-1929
BBS 214-258-1832

------------------------------
AAAI Robot Competitions:
Each year, starting in 1990, at the annual meeting of the
American Association of Artificial Intelligence a robotics
competition is sponsored. Rules and locations vary from year
to year. See conference announcements for details.

------------------------------
AUVS International Aerial Robotics Competition:

The AUVS International Aerial Robotics Competitiont is a competition
sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (See above)
to encourage aspiring engineers and scientists to pursue careers in
fields allied to unmanned system technology, particularily in the more
difficult realm of unmanned aerial vehicles. It is a yearly
competition held on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology
in Atlanta, GA.

The general goal of the competition is to create autonomous flying
vehicles capable of carrying out a set of predefined tasks. The
vehicles must compete based on their ability to sense the structured
enviroment of the Competition Arena. They may be intelligent or
preprogrammed, but they must not be flown by a remote human operator.

The vehicles must start from a designated starting area within the
arena, locate a pick-up ring containing six randomly placed disks, and
transfer each disk one at a time to a drop-off ring. A three-foot high
central barrier separates the rings that are six feet in diameter and
80 feet apart. The entire arena is 60' x 120'.

The FAQ is available at:
ftp://usc.edu/pub/nn_robotics/other/auvsarc/auvsarc.FAQ.Z
or at:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/robotics/other/auvsarc/auvsarc.html
or email to auvsarc-request@robotics.usc.edu

------------------------------
AUVS Ground Robotics Competition:

The objective of this competition is to build a completely autonomous
vehicle capable of navigating itself around a grass track outlined
with white lines. There are also obstacles on the track to avoid (so
far red and white hay bales, and a sand pit last year).

Below is a copy of LAST YEAR's rules:

AUVS Competition Rules and Regulations

1994 International
Ground Robotics Competition

OBJECTIVE: To autonomously navigate around an outdoor
obstacle course in the shortest time.

PRIZE: Student team with the winning entry will receive a
$10,000 prize.

TIME & LOCATION: 20-22 May 1994
Oakland University
Rochester, Michigan 48309

General Rules:
1. Vehicles must be unmanned and autonomous. They must
compete based on their ability to sense the course
environment independent of any human operator.

2. Competition is intended for university
(graduate/undergraduate) student teams. Only student teams
can be awarded prize money.

3. Each vehicle must be equipped with both a manual and
remote emergency stop button. The Emergency stop button
must engage the vehicle brakes and stop the engine.
Vehicles judged to be unsafe will not be allowed to compete.

4. A RF data link will be provided for emergency stop only.
All other sensing and control equipment must be carried on
board the vehicle.

5. Judges will be assigned to determine compliance with all
rules. In the event of any conflict, the judges decision
will be final. Judges will stop or disqualify any vehicle
which appears to be a safety hazard.

Vehicle Entries:
The competition is designed for a small rugged outdoor
vehicle, such as an All Terrain Vehicle. Vehicle chassis
can be fabricated or commercially bought. Entries must
conform to the following measurements:

Length: Minimum length 3 feet; Maximum length 9 ft.

Width: Not to exceed 5 feet.

Height: Not to exceed 6 feet (excluding emergency stop
antenna)

------------------------------
BEAM Robot Olympics:
Contact: Mark Tilden

BEAM stands for Biology, Electronics, Art and Mechanics -- which were
the original concepts behind BEAM. Draw from biology into electronics
and mechanics and make it artful. Tilden advocates using the parts
from discarded electronics items such as Walkmans, disk drives, etc.,
to make machines that moved. He avoids the use of computers and
microcontrollers in his machines. The original SolarRunner consisted
of parts from a Walkman, a solar cell from a solar calculator, some
brass tubing, part of a printer roller, a couple of transistors, a
zener diode, a capacitor and a resistor. Most, if not all, of
Tilden's machines are solar powered and autonomous.

Articles on the BEAM Olympics:

Dewdney, A.K. Photovores: Intelligent Robots are Constructed
From Castoffs. Scientific American Sept 1992, v267, n3, p42(1)

Maylon, John. At the Robot Olympics. Whole Earth Review.
Spring 1992, pp 80-84.

Smit, Michael C., and Mark Tilden, Beam Robotics. Algorithm,
Vol. 2, No. 2, March 1991, Pg 15-19

------------------------------
Hong-Kong Robot Ping Pong Competition:
Contact: Robin Bradbeer

------------------------------
IEEE Micromouse Competitions:
In 1979 the IEEE Spectrum ran the first micromouse competition
and many hundreds of these contests are run every year. Some are
still under the auspices of the IEEE but many more are not.

Official IEEE/ABEC Rules and much more are located here:

http://www.ceas.rochester.edu:8080/ee/users/weisberg/mouse.html
ftp://ftp.ee.rochester.edu/pub/weisberg/Micro-Mouse/*

IEEE Robot Olympics and MicroMouse Competition Committee
BEAM/IEEE Robot Olympics and MicroMouse Competition Committee
BEAM/IEEE Robot Games
micro-mouse@ieee.org or mouse@sunee.uwaterloo.ca
c/o Edward Spike
E & CE Dept. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada, N2L3G1. (519)888-4567, X-3716, fax:(519)888-6197
spike@eestaff.watstar.uwaterloo.ca

This year's Australian Micromouse Championship, OZ Mouse '94,
is to be held in Sydney on Sunday 27 November, hosted by the
Universities of Queensland and Wollongong in conjunction with
the IEE and IEEE. For more details contact:
Gordon Wyeth < wyeth@elec.uq.oz.au>

A copy of rules (a bit old) may be found at
ftp://ftp.ece.ucdavis.edu/pub/umouse/admin/rules.txt.

Micromouse mazes are available at:
ftp://ftp.ece.ucdavis.edu/pub/umouse/mazes.

------------------------------
The Second annual Picnic Day Micromouse Contest at UC Davis.
Saturday, April 22, 1995
URL: http://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/ under misc.

Last year for this event, we packed a 450 person lecture hall to the
bursting point. We had closed circuit TV set up so that even the
people in the back could see at least reasonably well. It was a real
blast last year, so don't miss out on the fun this year! This contest
helps provide a trial run for new mice, so that they will be well
prepared to enter officially sanctioned IEEE contests. In our case,
the local contest will take place two weeks following Picnic Day.

This is an open contest, and anyone may participate. Last year, we
had about 8 participants, one from as far away as UC San Diego (~600
miles). The mazes, as last year, will be created by a neutral third
party, and will not be revealed until shortly before the start of the
contest.

If anyone thinks they may be interested in participating, I would
appreciate a quick reply, so that I may add you to my mailing list.
If anyone has contacts (pref. e-mail) with any school active in
micromouse, I would very much appreciate a quick note.

Last year, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) sponsored this contest and
provided a trophy for the winner. (Last year, that was University of
Nevada, Reno.) I am hopeful they will do likewise this year.

More information will be forthcoming as the time approaches. This
will include an online copy of the rules under which the contest will
be run.

Jeff Collins

--
For more information on Micromousing (rules, past mazes and
times, etc.), contact the North American Micromouse
Association (NAMA) at:
MicroMom
aka. Sue Rosenbaum
1086 Central Ave.
Plainfield, NJ 07061
tel: 908.757.6749

------------------------------
IJCAI-95 Robot Competition

Raja Chatila (raja@laas.fr) and Dave Miller (dmiller@azrael.mitre.org)
are robotic events co-organizers for IJCAI-95 in Montreal next August.
If you think you might be interested in participating in any of the
events described below, or would like some additional information,
please feel free to drop Raja or Dave a line. To get on the mailing
list for these events send email to Dave Miller,
dmiller@azrael.mitre.org

1) Robot Competition 95:
This event will be similar to the robot competition held at
AAAI-94. Research robots will compete in a set of generalized
navigation and navigation/manipulation tasks. As in the 94 contest,
the bulk of the trials will be done offline, and the finals and an
exhibition will be held during a public session for the conference.
David Kortenkamp (korten@mickey.jsc.nasa.gov) is the point of contact
for more details on this event.

2) Intelligent Wheelchair Competition:
This is another robot contest, but this time the focus is on a
particular application: robotic mobility assistants for the severly
disabled. The competition tasks will include things such as room to
room navigation, speed trials down crowded hallways and through
doorways, and docking with desks and tables. Each robot must be able
to carry a human user, and all communications with the robot must be
done by the user (no radios, etc). The contest goals are to see who
can make the most capable chair with the best user interface (if a
user could type well, or operate a joystick competently, than an
ordinary wheelchair would do!). Contact:
ijcai-wheelchair@azrael.mitre.org

To encourage participation in this new event, especially in
institutions that have not yet dealt with assistive robotics, KISS
Institute for Practical Robotics (kipr@src.umd.edu) has assembled a
low-cost intelligent wheelchair starter system and is selling it, at
cost, to schools interested in this IJCAI event. Send them some mail
for more info.

3) Robot exhibition (not-so-stupid robot tricks)
This will be a time and place for some unique robot systems to
show off their stuff. The participants in this event should have a
demonstration that is dynamic and of wide appeal. Examples might
include: bi-pedal walking robots; robot teams playing soccer
(football); robot interpretive (non-random) dance. This is not meant
to be an industrial robot show, and product demonstrations will not be
strongly discouraged. This is meant to be an intelligent and
innovative robot show.

More information on all of these events will be forthcoming, but his to get
everyone started thinking. Hope to see you all in Montral,

contact:
David P. Miller 7525 Colshire Drive
Principal Scientist MS Z421
MITRE Corporation McLean, VA 22102, USA
voice: (703) 883-7667 FAX: (703) 883-6435

------------------------------
International Festival of Science and Technology
LA FERTE BERNARD
FRANCE
ROBOT WORLD CONTEST
Introduction:
The object of the challenge is to build a robot which is
capable of carrying out a series of different movements within a
minimum amount of time. The challenge will take place from 22 to 28
May, 1995 at la Ferte Bernard, as part of the "International
Festival of Science and Technology", with the Minister for Higher
Education and Research, Mr Francois Fillon, presiding.
The challenge is restricted to students and, in order to
participate, teams must be nominated by their colleges or
universities. Teams - which will be made up of five members - will
arrive with their robots already assembled. These must then be
adapted to the circuit which will be revealed at the start of the
challenge. The challenge will take place non-stop over 24 hours in
front of an audience. The atmosphere will be very exciting and
competitive. The challenge will take place non-stop over 24 hours in
front of an audience. The atmosphere will be very exciting and
competitive.

General Specifications:

The teams will be made up of five people. Each team may
include one teacher and one past-pupil of the school or institute
which it is representing.
To ensure that the robot's design is original, there must be
evidence of a partnership agreement with either an art college or the
design department of a specialist school. The robot must be able to
move independently and recognise five red French billiards balls
placed along the course. The balls must be brought back to the
finishing area. The robot must be able to move independently and
recognise five red French billiards balls placed along the course.
The balls must be brought back to the finishing area.
The track will be laid out in a 10 x 10 m square.
The outermost axis of the track will be 66 cm from the edge of
the circuit.
The minimum radius of curvature on the track will be 100 cm,
including the walls and edges of the stage.
The track will be painted either black or white and will be
made of 3 mm thick plywood fixed to the ground.
Different prizes will be awarded for different skills. It
is planned to have a number of categories, as follows: * speed
category * design and innovation category * audience and spectator
category * industry category

We hope to see you at the next Science and Technology Festival which
will take place from 22 to 28 May 1995.

More information: uguen@world-net.sct.fr

------------------------------
International Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest

The Connecticut Robotics Society and Trinity College are again
sponsoring the international Fire-Fighting Home Robot contest on
Sunday, April 23, 1995 at the Trinity College campus in Hartford,
Ct. The contest is open to everyone and has different categories which
will enable anyone of any age, ability or experience level to compete
and possibly win.

The challenge will be to build a computer controlled Robotic device
(not radio-controlled) that can move through a model of a single floor
of a house, look for fire (a lit candle), and then extinguish it. The
model house will be eight feet by eight feet with walls, hallways and
rooms. Contestants will be given the exact layout of the house with
the official rules. The Robot that searches the house, finds the
candle, and extinguishes it in the shortest time will win. The Robots
must be less than one foot on a side and can be tethered to a personal
computer or controlled by a self-contained microprocessor. There will
be different judging criteria so that any Robot can be a winner
regardless of its simplicity, complexity or sophistication.

This all-day international event will be the culmination of months of
work and effort by Robotists of all ages and from all over. Last
year's contest generated inquiries and participants from 41 states and
27 foreign countries. The entrants ranged from MIT professors to
fourth graders.

There will be two divisions in this yearUs contest. A Junior division for those
in High School and younger and a Senior division for everyone else. There will
be a prize of $1,000 awarded to the top winner in each division with additional
prizes to other winners in those divisions. All entrants will receive an award
and there will be separate special prizes for the winners in each category.

For a copy of the rules and to be put on the official mailing list, please send
$3 (cash, check or money order) to Jake Mendelssohn, 190 Mohegan Drive, West
Hartford, CT 06117

For more information contact: jake.mendelssohn@circellar.com

------------------------------
SAE Walking Machine Decathalon

The Ninth Annual SAE National Robotic Walking Machine Decathlon
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado April 6-9, 1995

Registration deadline is December 31, 1994.

Colorado State University
Department of Mechanical Engineering
National Walking Machine Decathlon
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
tel: 303.491.6559
fax: 303.491.1055
net: walk@LANCE.ColoState.Edu

http://www.lance.colostate.edu/~chriso/walking.html
or ftp://bill.lance.colostate.edu:/pub/walking

If you do not have access to the WWW and you would like a text copy of
the brochure, send email and I'll mail you a copy. Chris Olson

Registration deadline: December 31, 1994

Decathalon: The decathlon is a national competition sponsored by SAE to involve
undergraduate engineers in the creative design of machines that walk.
The competition includes preparation and presentation of a paper,
judging of over-all design merits, and the ten walking events. Judges
are representatives >from the robotics industry. Social events, a
keynote speaker, and tours are also provided. A detailed rules and
registration packet is available.

Team Spirit: This competition emphasizes collaboration of engineering
disciplines in a teamwork environment. It encourages students to be
organized, to cooperate, and to share knowledge from their respective
fields, resulting in an experience that closely models the real-world
workplace.

What is a walking machine? A walking machine is a mobile machine
propelled by articulated mechanisms, or "legs." Each leg must have
one or more joints or hinges by which it moves relative to all other
legs or the frame, supporting the machine discontinuously. A leg may
pivot, slip, or slide on the supporting surface during walking motion,
but it cannot roll. Wheeled or tracked vehicles are excluded.
Walking machines have potential applications in space exploration,
undersea missions, mining, radioactive and other dangerous
environments, the military, and mobility for the handicapped.

Judging and Awards Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three teams
based on total points accumulated. All teams will receive recognition
awards.

History: The National Robotic Walking Machine Decathlon was initiated
in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Colorado State University
in 1986. The idea was to create a student design competition at the
cutting edge of technology with an emphasis on design. In eight years
it has gone from a competition in which none of the four machines
present were able to complete the first event, to one where there are
some very capable machines completing all ten events, and in which
there is close competition. The events themselves continue to evolve
to reflect relevant applications of robotics technology. The events
traditionally have included such tasks as stair climbing, maneuvering
through obstacles, and autonomous sensor guidance.

------------------------------
Sumo Robot Competition:
Sumo is a traditional Japanese sport in which two very large
half-naked men try to push each other out of a circle called the
Dohyou. The winner of the game is the guy who has not touched the
ground with his hand or hasn't stepped out of the circle before the
other guy did.

There is a Robot Sumo Tournament in Japan, that is held in December
every year in Tokyo. The rule of the Tournament is same as the real
Sumo except two robots fight rather than naked guys. The task of the
game is quite simple: push the opponent out of the circle.

The regulations are as follows:
1. The area of the base cannot exceed 20cmX20cm before game starts,
It is unlimited in height and can expand after the game starts.
2. The weight cannot exceed 3kg.
3. Use of internal/external combustion engine is prohibited.
4. Intention to harm the opponent or the Dohyou (playground which
includes the circle) is not allowed.
5. Contestants are free to choose control techniques, but they are
divided into 2 categories:

Radio Controlled: Contestants can use ordinary commercial R/C
equipment and remotely guide their robots.

Stand-alone: Robots cannot be controlled externally by
contestants with the exception of pushing a start button when
the contest begins.

To avoid interference with the humans who set the robots on the
Dohyou, the Stand Alone category has a special rule which says that
the game will starts exactly 5 seconds after the official signals the
start. It means that the contestant will push a start button (or
some- thing else) for the robot the same time as the offical's
signal. The robot must keep the start position for 5 seconds, and the
person who pushed the button must leave the Dohyou in that time.
Therefore, the robots in the Stand Alone category must have at a start
button and a means of timing the five seconds.

Progression in the competition consists of three game matches between
randomly selected robots. Last year [1992] 150 robots were in the
Radio Controlled category and 190 were in the Stand Alone category. If
you beat six or seven opponents, you can win the first prize of
1,000,000Yen or US$7,700. The second prize is 500,000Yen or
US$3,850. [edited from a message by Mato Hattori]

A video called "Mostly Sumo" is available from Media Magic at
415-662-2426. Their FAX is 415-662-2225.
[As of Dec 1994, the video was sold out - check again in mid-Jan 1995]

------------------------------
Western Canadian Robot Games
Fourth Annual!

New this year is the addition of 4 BEAM events (Solaroller, Photovore,
Walkers, and Aesthetics). More details will be available as soon as
the rulebook is available.

In the interest of promoting science and technology to the public
and foster enthusiasm and creativity amongst students, the
Western Canadian Robot Games committee holds an annual robotic
contest in a centralized western Canadian location.

This email message is sent to you in the hopes you may pass it on
to suitable instructors, professors, staff and students to invite
them to our next contest!

If you would like to be included on our mailing list or receive
our brochure, please provide me with an email or postal address.

*** SAIT IEEE ***
*** WESTERN CANADIAN ROBOT GAMES ***
*** Fourth Annual Competition ***
*** and Exhibition ***
*** April 8, 1995 ***

The IEEE student branch at SAIT challenge all SUMO alumni, students,
instructors, and inventive individuals to design and enter your robots
in one or more of our contests:
ROBOTIC SUMO WRESTLING / ATOMIC HOCKEY
BEAM Events

ROBOTIC SUMO WRESTLING:
The Tradition Continues

This contest matches your own creation with another robot in the
field of combat where brute strength and cat-like reflexes
combine to create the ultimate battle! The challenge is to
create a robot whose sole purpose is to push, throw, flip, drag,
or otherwise move your opponent out of a five foot diameter
circular ring within 3 minutes.

In the tradition of an ancient Japanese contest of similar name,
SUMO wrestling robots can use any trick the creator conceives to
get the job done, within the following limits:

* No robot may be used which is a physical threat to other
contestants or the audience. (i.e., Explosions, fire,
bullets, mace etc...)
* Robots must fit within a 9" x 9" square when the
competition begins, but may expand to a larger size
after battle starts. Height is unrestricted at all
times.
* Robots must be 11 pounds or less in weight.
* After the battle is over, contestants are responsible
for cleaning up any debris in the ring to the

There are two separate classes to SUMO robotic wrestling:
Autonomous and Remote-Control.

Remote Control robots may be a radio or wired-remote control and
may be operated by a biological (human, usually).

Autonomous Robots must carry on-board all power and intelligence
required to seek and conquer the enemy.

Each robot class will be awarded its own prize!
(Prizes will also be awarded for the most humorous entry)

ATOMIC HOCKEY

You have never seen the NHL like this before! A head-to-head
game of robot mayhem played out on an atomic scale as each
competitor fights for the opportunity to gather more protons than
his opponent while avoiding the ever present electrons!

Played out in a 5 foot diameter circular ring lined with a 2 inch
high wall, the robots must locate and gather Ping-Pong balls
(protons) and deposit them in their own goal (the nucleus) within
a three minute period while their opponents do the same. Each
proton carries a score of +1 point.

Unfortunately, the ring also contains an equal number of small
metal balls (electrons) worth -1 point each. Each electron in
your nucleus reduces your score by one point, so be careful to
avoid them (or at least put them in your opponent's nucleus)!

* Robots are to be a maximum of 9" x 9" square with
unlimited height and have no weight restriction.
* Robots must not pose any physical threat to biologicals
(see SUMO rules).
* Autonomous robots may put any signaling device they wish
in their nucleus to help the robot locate the goal.
* Aggressive and devious play between robots is
encouraged, so long as no damage occurs to the ring or
room.

As with Robotic SUMO Wrestling, there are two categories: Autonomous
and Remote Controlled ( Radio or Tethered ) New for 1994 is the
introduction of the BEAM Solaroller, Photovore, Walker and
BEAM-Aesthetics events - more details to follow!

For a complete rule set for both competitions and application
information, please email, phone, fax, or (gasp) write to me at:

Craig Maynard
Instructor, Electrical/Electronics Department,
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology
1301-16th Ave NW
Calgary, Alberta
T2M-0L4
Phone (403) 284-8401 Fax (403) 284-8184
Email: maynard@trantor.el.sait.ab.ca
or
Dave Hrynkiw
BEAM Coordinator
email: hrynkiwd@cuug.ab.ca

[Please send updated information and I will update these competitions.
Thanks, nivek]

___________________________________________________________________________
End of part 2

___________________________________________________________________________
Part 3/5
[6] What University Programs are there?
[6.1] Graduate Programs in Robotics
[6.2] Student Who's Who

[7] What is the State of the Robot Industry?

[9] What is a Robot Architecture?
___________________________________________________________________________
[6] What University Programs are there?

DELETED by KF

_____________________________________________________________________________
[7] What is the State of the Robot Industry?

In general, there was a significant slump in the mid to late 1980's in
industrial robotics. However in the early 1990's sales and number have
rebounded to surpass early 1980 numbers and dollars.

>From Motion Control Magazine April 1994: Robotics Industries
Association said recently Robot orders jumped 40% through June, 1993
as the industry posted its best opening half-year ever.... Net new
orders received by U.S. based robotics companies totalled 3,640 robots
valued at $306.2 million, the highest unit and dollar figures ever.

>From the New York Times, Wednesday September 7th pC1
(paraphrased) In the late 1980's a steep decline in robot orders drove
most US companies out of the business. In the first half of 1994 4,335
robots with a total value of $383.5 million. Fanuc is the leader with
about $360M in sales this year. Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) is second with
sales estimated at $120M. The next several are Japanese: Motoman,
Panasonic, Sony and Nachi.

The only major US producer to have survived is Adept Technology with
about $50M in sales in a $700M market.

Interpreted from a graph in the article:
Net new orders in US:
Year # of robots $US
1984 5800 $480M
1985 6200 $380M
1986 5400 $320M
1987 3800 $300M
1988 4000 $325M
1989 4500 $510M
1990 5000 $510M
1991 4000 $410M
1992 5250 $500M
1993 6800 $630M
1994 4335 (6 mos) $383M (6 mos)

>From Industry Flash Vol1, No. 4, Dec 5, 1994:
DEMAND FOR U.S. INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS SURGING
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - U.S.-based robotics companies are
enjoying the best of times. The Robotics Industries
Association (RIA) says surging demand recently led American
robotic companies to their best nine-month totals ever.
Through September, new orders totaled 6,218 robots valued at
$548 million, a 12 percent increase in units and 13 percent
increase in revenue over the previous nine-month period last
year. The greatest demand, says the trade group, is coming
from U.S. manufacturers which are finally learning what the
Japanese have known for years: robots can play a significant
role in improving productivity, quality, flexibility and
time-to-market. But, even though demand is surging and the
U.S. is the world's second largest robotics user with some
53,000 systems, the Japanese have more than seven times as
many robots in use, RIA says.

_____________________________________________________________________________
[8] What companies sell or build robots?
[8.1] Mobile robot companies
[8.1.1] AGV Companies
[8.1.2] Underwater robots
[8.2] Manipulator companies
[8.3] Other Organizations doing robotics
[8.4] Small Inexpensive Robots

------------------------------
[8.1] Mobile robot companies

There are a small number of companies targeting the research community
for the mobile robot market. TRC, RWI, and Cybermotion have all sold
and are selling mobile devices for research and real
applications. There are a number of Automatic Guided Vehicle companies
as well and their primary applications are factory operations.
Companies manufacturing Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGV) are listed at
the end of this section. Robot lawn mowers too!

Action Machinery Co.
One Vulcan Drive
Helena, AL 35080, USA
tel: 205.663.0814
fax: 205.663.3445
Severe-duty hydraulic robots and manipulators. Payloads from
65kg - 7000kg. Primarily forge, foundry, and casting operations.

Applied AI Machines & Software
Suite 504, Gateway Business Park
340 March Rd, KANATA
Ontario, Canada K2K 2E4
net: <73051.3521@compuserve.com>
MIT subumption architecture style robots. Ghengis-II walker runs
$8636.00 including a development system and downloading board, but
without LISP.

Arrick Robotics
2107 W. Euless Blvd.
Euless, Texas 76040 USA
tel: 817.571.4528
fax: 817.571.2317
net: rarrick@ix.netcom.com

R20 mobile robot platform for use by AI software developers. 3-wheel
design, 14" wide, 14" long, 10" tall, 15lbs. 20lb payload. On-board
controller connects to the user's laptop computer by cable or low-cost
RF modem. Sensors include compass, tilt, wheel travel, temperature,
light level, bumpers, battery status, etc. Price as of 1/1/95
$2,900.00. Units in use at UTA Automation Robotics Research
Institute. Send for detailed specifcations.

Bell and Howell
Mailmobile Company
81 Hartwell Avenue
Lexington, MA 02173-3127
tel: 617.674.1110
Mailmobiles were developed by Lear-Siegler in the mid-70's for the
industrial cleaning market. They left this market and
Bell & Howell, the audio-visual company, was refocusing on office
automation products and picked
up this product from Lear-Siegler. There are three models of
Mailmobile, the Packmobile, the Sprint and the Trailmobile. About 3000
systems sold and about 2000 probably in operation. They use a chemical
trail that floureseces under UV light. Payloads up to a couple of
hundred kg. Some systems have been operating for over 15 years.

Branch & Associates Pty Ltd
1153 Tasman Highway
Cambridge, Tasmania 7170
Australia (operating in Europe, Asia and America)
tel: +61-02-485-807
fax: +61-02-485-809
contact: Alex Vail, Division Manager
Since 1979, specialist in autonomous navigation and guidance;
products and technology for applications, research, and teaching.
Conquerer series of fully autonomous AGV's, mapping system,
non-accumulated error, accuracy 1cm, 1 degree, no environmental
modifications, $12K - $25K.
Fander: research and educational mobile robot. $5.5K includes
everything: built-in software demonstrates in real situations numerous
exmaples of roboti mobility technologies for teaching, research and
teaching manual, stand-alone and remote PC modes, real time graphics.

Cybermotion
5457 Jae Valley Road
Roanoke, VA 24014
tel: 703.562.7626
John Holland's company. Mobile K2 bases making use of ingenious
torque-tube synchronous drive system. Security markets and research
platforms, manipulators for base as well. Map building software too.

Cyberworks
31 Ontario Street
Orillia, Ontario
L3V 6H1 Canada
tel: 705.325.6110
fax: 705.325.8566
Primary product are 'building blocks' for mobile robot
development including controllers, sensors, softare and chassis'.

Denning Branch International Robotics
1401 Ridge Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
tel: (412) 322-4412
fax: (412) 322-2040
email: Soon. Messages to hpm@cs.cmu.edu will be forwarded.
Denning-Branch is a merger of Denning Mobile Robotics, once
located in the Boston area, and makers of human-size mobile
robots since 1983, and Branch and Associates, of Hobart,
Australia, designers and builders of smaller mobile robots
since 1979.
Among the first products available is an MRV retrofit kit,
which substitutes a modern Intel 80486 system with more power and a
simpler interface for the 1985 vintage MC 68000 based controller.
Fander
Small (~60x30x30 cm) 80486 based robot for educational
purposes, with infrared and rotating sonar sensors, preprogrammed for
several autonomous navigation tasks, and externally controllable via
serial link. $5.5K
MRV 1&4
Large (~90x90x120 cm) heavy payload capacity synchro drive
robot, with optional sonar ring and laser nav sensors and software.
$13.5K
LaserNav
Robot-mounted scanning infrared laser unit that uses wall
mounted bar-coded retroreflectors or active transponders to navigate
to centimeter precision in 10-meter-scale areas. $8K
RotoSonar
Small-scale revolving sonar head with 4 sonar units and
software. $3K
Sonar Ring
MRV-scale belt of 24 sonar units and driving hardware and
software.

IS Robotics
4353 Park Terrace Drive Suite 6, 22McGrath Hwy
Westlake Village, CA 91361 USA Somerville, MA 02143
tel: 818.597.1900 tel: 617.629.0055
net: fax: 617.629.0126
R-2 Wheeled machine $7K
Gripper with 7.5cm opening, 18cm lift, 1kg lift force.
R-3, wheeled robot, $14K
Genghis II, 15" walking robot, $8.6K
Pebbles III, tracked robot, $12.5K
Nexes, high end walking robot, $16K
T-1 tracked robot approx 50cm x 36cm. $5k
Options:
CCD video camera for Nexes(TM), $2,500
Gripper system for Nexes(TM), $1,500
Radio Position/Communication for R-3(TM) or Pebbles III(TM), $2,500
Use the ubiquitous MC68HC11E2 microcontrollers. Robots include IR
and bump sensing for obstacle detection. Pyro sensors and color
camera with pan-tilt are optional.

Kentree
Kilbritten,
Co. Cork, Ireland
tel: +353 23 49791, 49808
fax: +353 23 49801
Teleoperated bomb disposal vehicles in a range of sizes.

mecos Robotics AG
Technopark
Pfingstweidstrasse
CH-8005 Zurich
Switzerland
tel: + 41 1 445 11 35
fax: + 41 1 445 11 34
email: mecos@mecos.ch

Contact: S. J. Vestli
Company formed as a spin off of the Institute of Robotics, ETH
(Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). "mecos Robotics"
specialises in modular and adaptive robot manipulators and
robot vehicles (mobile robots). All "mecos Robotics" systems
uses the same type of controller, a VME based computer. This
system comes with high level development tools, and for
research institutions the systems have the advantage of being
open. The overall goals of all "mecos Robotics" systems are
flexility and modularity.

The mobile robot program from "mecos Robotics" follows this
principle. The physical size and the mechanical configuration
can be altered. The standard configuration has three wheels
with air tyres and independant suspension. One wheel is used
for steering and propulsion (imagine a kids tricycle). The
overall size is 0.7 m (W) * 1.0 m (L) * 0.5 m (H). The price
depends on configuration and starts around the 70.000,- Swiss
Franks mark.

Nomadic Technologies
1060-B Terra Bella Avenue
Mountain View, CA 94043
tel: 415.988.7200 ext. 203
fax: 415.988.7201
net: nomad@robots.com
Nomad 200 is an integrated mobile robot system with four
sensing modules including tactile, infrared, ultrasonic, and
2D laser. Integrated software development package for the
host computer includes a graphic interface, robot simulator
and a library of motion planning, motion control and sensory
data interpretation functions. Geared toward teaching and
research in Robotics and AI. The Nomad utilizes a synchronous
steering system (ala Cybermotion and RWI). Speeds up to .5
meters/second and onboard battery power.
Nomad 200 Mobile Base $10,000
Nomad 200 Control System $ 6,000
Sensus 100 Tactile Sensing System $ 1,500
Sensus 200 Fixed Sonar System $ 2,500
Sensus 500 Structured Light Vision System $ 7,000
RF Modem Kit $ 2,000
Digital Compass $ 450

OTO MELARA
Via Valdilocchi 15
19136 La Spezia ITALY
Tel. +39 187 58 2843
Fax +39 187 58 2669
contact: Gian Carlo Caligiani, Robotic Systems Office

OTO MELARA R.2.5.Robotized System
The Robotized R.2.5 (R.2.5.R) Project aims at prototyping a
mobile robot for intervention in hostile environments.
The system is composed by three main units: the transportable
control station, the radio communication set and the mobile robot
based on an armoured, diesel propelled, wheeled platform called
R.2.5. Gorgona, produced by OTO MELARA.

Robot can be remotely controlled via full-duplex radio link. Can be
teleoperated and provides supervised modes as well. Speeds from
30cm/sec to 30km/h. As of May 1994 the locomotion system and
teleoperated system are complete. Additional functionality in the form
of supervised and autonomous operation are planned.

Poulan/Weed Eater
c/o Robotic Solar Mower Dept.
PO Box 91329
Shreveport, LA 71149-1329
tel: 318.687.0100 X3939
[Boiled out of their press release - Gareth Branwyn]
The Robotic Solar Mower is a 12.5 lb. automated solar-powered "lawn
groomer." It uses a wire boundary system to keep it inside the
mowing area. It runs continuously when the sun shines. Its operation
is "virtually noise free." It continues on its constant mowing course,
taking between several hours and several days to complete a
grooming cycle (depending on size of yard, obstacles, etc.). Instead of
cutting 1/3 of the grass blades (as in a conventional mower), it only
trims the tips. It can handle a yard up to 13,500 sq. feet and has a
slope tolerance of 15-20 degress. A pilot program is currently
offering the mower in the US for $2,000.

Real World Interface (RWI) P.O. Box 375
15 Fitzgerald Dr.
Jaffrey, NH 03452
tel: 603.532.6900
fax: 603.532.6901
net: rwi@mv.mv.com
RWI Manufactures the B12 and the B21 Mobile Robot Systems.
The B12 Robot System is for research at the university level and is
based on the widely used B12 Synchro Drive Base. Sensors available
include: ultrasonic ranging, infra-red proximity, tactile heading, and
vision.
The B21 Robot System is for mobile autonomous research and
emerging commercial/military applications. It is based on the B21
Synchro Drive Base which has a payload of 200 pounds (90 kg) and
carries 1500 watt hours of battery power. Sensors include: ultrasonic
ranging, infra-red proximity, full body tactile, heading, and vision.
The B21 CPU section mounts 3 networked Linux 486DX2/4's. Console
computer runs X-Windows. Power management allows no-shutdown battery
charge/exchange.
(B12) B12 Base $6,850
B12 Base Tactile $1,500
B12 Enclosures $2,500-$2,950
B12 68000 Computer $1,850
B12 Ultrasonics $1,900
B12 Infra-Reds $1,750
(B21) B21 Base (low IR, tactile sensors) $19,500
B21 Enclosure (high IR, ultrasonic, tactile) $11,500
B21 486DX4 (linux, 16mb ram, 420mb HDD, etc) $2,750+/-
B21 Console Computer $2,495+/-
(Acc) Pan-Tilt Head $1,800
Radio Links (RS-232 & ethernet) $1,295-$5,995
CCD Cameras (color & B&W) $800-$1,500
Frame Grabbers Inquire
Digital Navigation Compass $695

Remotec
114 Union Valley Road
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
tel: 615.483.0228
fax: 615.483.1426
The ANDROS line of teleoperated mobile robots. These were
designed to be useful in the nuclear industry and in other
hazardous applications, and are very rugged. You can hose them
down. Available in a range of sizes, with a variety of
optional attachments, such as video cameras, arms, etc.

TAG Technology
5 Bowlands Mill,
Alnwick, Northumberland, NE661LN, UK
tel: +44 655 604895
fax: +44 665 510624
Frank - a tracked vehicle. Cost $UK 2000 - 5785 depending on
functionality.

Transistions Research Corporation (TRC)
15 Great Pasture Road
Danbury, CT 06810
tel: 203.798.8988
fax: 203.791.1082
Labmate research platform - $7500, plus additional optional
sensors etc. Other products for hospital markets and floor
cleaning machines. (Helpmate and RoboKent respectively)

Visual Inspection Technologies
27-2 Ironia Road
Flanders, NJ 07836-9124
tel: 201.927.0033
fax: 201.927.3207
VIT specializes in remote visual and ultrasonic testing but sells or
rents a small tracked rover for inspection work. Products include
ROVVER, SPOT, and PIPECAT vertical pipe crawler. VIT also makes
miniature remote pan and tilt devices.

Yamazaki Construction Company, Tokyo Japan.
Intelligent Robot Lab
Kaika Building
2-7-1 Sotokanda
Chiyoda-ku 101 Tokyo
Japan
tel: 81-3-5256-0715
LR1 robot - small research robot, basically a VME cage on
wheels with some ultrasonic sensors and a nice constant force
suspension. Has shown up at IEEE R&A conferences $30K.

RoboSoft SA
, ,
6, allee Paul Cezanne
93360 Neuilly Plaisance
FRANCE
tel: +33 1 4944 3035
fax: +33 1 4944 3297

-----
[8.1.1] AGV Companies

AGV Products
9307-E Monroe Road
Charlotte, NC 28270-1485
tel: 704.845.1110
fax: 704.845.1111
Controls and components for AGV's. Supplier of Schabmuller
motor-in-wheel drives.

Apogee Robotics
2643 Midpoint Drive
Fort Collins, CO 80525
tel: 303.221.1122
fax: 303.221.1774
Standard and custom-designed AGV's

BT Systems
7000 Nineteen Mile Road
Sterling Heights, MI 48314
tel: 313.254.5200
fax: 313.254.5570
Automated Handling Systems (Formerly Volvo Automated Systems)

Caterpillar Industrial
5960 Heisley Road
Mentor, OH 44060
tel: 216.357.2935
fax: 216.357.4410

Manufacturer and distributor of fork lift trucks and guided
vehicles. Cat's SGV's use rotating laser scanner and barcodes
as opposed to traditional wire-guided systems.

Control Engineering Company
Jervis Webb Company
34375 W. Twelve Mile Road
Farmington Hills, MI 48331-5624
tel: 313.553.1220
fax: 313.553.1253

Eaton-Kenway
515 East 100 South
PO Box 45425
Salt Lake City, UT 84145-0425
tel: 801.530.4000
fax: 801.530.4243
AGV's and integrated systems

Elwell-Parker
4205 St. Clair Avenue
Cleveland, OH
tel: 216.881.6200
fax: 216.391.7708
Designs/manufactures rider style, electric, fork and platform
mobile material handling equipment. Line includes AGV's, high
tonnage capacity. Mobile cranes, explosion proof forklifts.

Eskay Corporation
563 West 500 South
Bountiful, UT 84010
tel: 801.295.5315
fax: 801.299.9990
Automated material handling systems including AGVS.

Fata Automation
37050 Industrial Road
Livonia, MI 48150
tel: 313.462.0678
fax: 313.462.0997
Sales and service of AGVs.

FMC Corporation
400 Highpont Drive
Chalfont, PA 18914
tel: 215.822.4300
fax: 215.822.4342
AGVs, Automated Handling Systems, Consulting, Trolley and
Power and Free Converyors, Tow lines, Integrated Systems and
Controls, Roll Handling Equipment.

IDAB Incorporated
1 Enterprise Parkway, Suite 300
PO Box 8157
Hampton, VA 23666
tel: 804.825.2260
fax: 804.825.9307
Automatic handling systems and AGV's

Litton Industrial Automation
2300 Litton Lane
Hebron, KY 41048
tel: 606.334.2033
fax: 606.334.2847
Full service material handling company.

Mannesmann Demag Corporation
29201 Aurora Road
Cleveland, OH 44139-1895
tel: 216.248.2400
fax: 216.248.3086
Overhead cranes, wire rope and chain hoists, AGV systems,
automatic storage and retrieval systems, monorail, aircraft
maintenance equipment.

Mentor AGVS Products
8500 Station Street
PO Box 898
Mentor, OH 44060
tel: 216.255.4051
fax: 216.255.3430
AGV systems and automated transfer cars.

Munck Automation Technology
315 E Street
Hampton, VA 23661
tel: 804.838.6010
fax: 804.826.5651
Manufacturer and integrator of automated material handling
systems. AGVS of many configurations (unitload, forklift,
towing)

The Raymond Corporation
South Canal Street
PO Box 130
Greene, NY 13778
tel: 607.656.2311
fax: 607.656.9005
Material handling equipment.

Roberts Sinto Corporation
3001 West Main Street
PO Box 40760
Lansing, MI 48901-7960
tel: 517.371.2460
fax: 517.372.4930
MGV's (Mechanically guided vehicles)

Professional Materials Handling Co, Inc.
4203 Landmark Drive
Orlando, FL 32817
tel: 305.677.0040
Steinbock fork trucks. Wire guided, use regenerative braking.

------------------------------
[8.1.2] Underwater robots

[new section, need more information]

There are a number of companies building underwater remotely operated
vehicles (ROV's).

Hydrovision Tel UK ? 224-740145

Benthos Tel US 1-800-446-1222

JW Fishers Tel US 1-800-822-4744

Sutec Tel Sweeden ? 46-13-15-80-60

Rovtech Tel Uk ? 229-813641

Deep Ocean Engineering Tel US 501-562-9300

UWI Tel UK ? 224-896913

------------------------------
[8.2] Manipulator companies

-----
Adept Technology
150 Rose Orchard Way
San Jose, CA 95134
tel: 408.432.0888
fax: 408.432.8707
High speed direct-drive and harmonic-drive SCARA style arms. 0.001"
(.025mm) repeatabiliy. Payloads from 4-25kg Can be used in clean room
and food applications as well. Adept sells vision systems and
controllers also.

-----
AEA Technology
AEA is the commercial division of the UK Atomic Energy
Authority. markets the NEATER series telerobots for decommssioning in
the nuclear industry. The system includes a bilateral input device and
active (autonomous) force control.
The system can deploy drills, reciprocating saws, nibblers,
grippers for insertions etc. Larger range of robots including the AEA
Technology 200 Kg arm, use filtering compliance to avoid damage to the
robot when deploying heavy duty dismantling tools.

-----
Antenen Research
PO Box 95
Hamilton, OH 45012
tel: 800.323.9555
tel: 513.887.4700
fax: 513.887.4703
New and used robots for manufacturing, research and
training. Used at savings of 40% - 70%. Also lots of parts and
accessories.

-----
Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), Vesteraas, Sweden
ABB Robotics
2487 South Commerce Drive
New Berlin, WI 53151
tel: 414.785.3400
fax: 414.789.9235
Now own Cinncinatti Milacron robotics group, Graco and
Trallfa. Many types of larger industrial robots.

-----
Comau - Italy
Via Rivalta 30
10095 Grugliasco
Torino, Italy
tel: 011 33341
fax: 011 7809156
A variety of industrial manipulators ranging in payloads from 6kg to 125kg. All electric AC drives. One of the novel designs is a 6DOF, 12kg payload robot The SMART-3 6.12 R. It uses a carbon fibre forearm, absolute resolver feedback and 0.15mm repeatability.

-----
CRS Plus,
PO Box 163, Station A
830 Harrington Court
Burlington, Ontario
Canada L7R 3Y2
tel: 416.639.0086
fax: 416.639.4248
Sells several manipulators. 5-DOF around $25K, 6DOF around $33K.
Sell end-effectors as well (electric, vacuum and penumatic)
Wrist can be bought separately. Controllers use RAPL, a VAL-like
language. Fairly open architecture. 3Kg payloads +/- 0.05mm
repeatability.

-----
International Submarine Engineering Ltd
International Submarine Engineering Research Ltd
1734 Broadway Street
Port Coquitlam, B.C.
Canada V3C 2M8
Tel: (604) 942-5223
Fax: (604) 942-7577
E-mail: ise@cs.sfu.ca
Underwater manipulators and teleoperated underwater vehicles.

-----
Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.
24402 Sinacola Court
Farmington Mills, MI 48331
tel: 313.474.6100
fax: 313.474.6101
Kawasaki was the first Japanese mfg to lead in the production
of industrial robots. They licensed the former Unimation line
of robots and now make about a dozen types of electric arms
for welding, painting and assembly.

-----
Kraft Telerobotics
11667 W. 90th Street
Overland Park, KS 66214
tel: 913.894.9022
fax: 913.894.1363
Nice telerobotic arms for underwater work.

-----
Labman Automation Ltd
Stokesley, North Yorkshire. TS9 5JY. UK
net: tel:INT 44 642 710580
Contact: Andrew Whitwell
Tailoring mainly gantry based systems for laboratory applications. Designs
include storage systems, multiple manipulators, special probes, modification
of instruments and laboratory equipment. PC driven stepper drives, linear
drives, dc motors, pneumatics, all sensors, RS232 links, LIMS communication.
Systems include powder feeding, wet chemistry analysis, microtitre plate
handling and many more.

-----
mecos Robotics AG
Technopark Zurich
Pfingstweidstrasse 30
CH-8005 Zurich
Switzerland
tel: + 41 1 445 11 35
fax: + 41 1 445 11 34
net: mecos@mecos.ch
Contact: E. Nielsen
Spin-off of the Institute of Robotics, ETH (Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology). Modular and adaptive robot
manipulators and robot vehicles (mobile robots). All mecos
Robotics systems use a VME based computer as controller. The
system comes with high level development tools, and are open
systems. The manipulator's mechanical configuration can be
changed at will (number and type of joints, length of links,
etc.) Manipulators use linear aluminum extrusions with
integral motions for joints. The controller accounts for
configuration changes. With this principle of modularity and
flexibilty hybrid force / position controllers have been
realised on "mecos Robotics" arms. Price depending on
configuration (50.000,- Swiss Franks and upwards). NTSC or PAL
videos available for Sfr. 40 per tape.

-----
Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi PA-10 portable robot.
o 7 DOF, with continuous path control
o supposedly *open* control architecture, using PC
o 30 Kg arm, 25 Kg controller, 10 Kg payload
[I have no other information on this, anyone?]

-----
Motoman [Hobart/Yaskawa]
3160 MacArthur Boulevard
Northbrook, IL 60062-1917
tel: 708.291.2340
fax: 708.498.2430

Also have this address:
805 Liberty Lane,
West Carrollton, OH, 45449.
tel: 513.847.3300

Large industrial manipulators for welding, painting, palletizing,
dispensing, etc. Can be floor, ceiling or wall mount units. Payloads
for the 8 robots in the K-series range from 3kg to 100kg and
repeatability of 0.1 to 0.5 mm over that same range. They are vertical
jointed-arm type manipulators. (i.e. 4 bar linkage to reduce arm
intertias). 3 S-series robots are SCARA-type manipulators with
payloads of 50-60kg and varying workspace sizes

Yaskawa also has bought the rights to RobotWorld, Vic Schienman's unique
gantry design robot system. This system allow a number of mobile
modules in the same workspace to zip around at speeds up 80"/sec (3G
accel). RAIL and C can be used in a multilevel programming
environment. 0.002" Accuracy, 0.0005" repeatability. Neat stuff.

-----
Oxford Intelligent Machines (OxIM)
12 Kings Meadow,
Osney Mead Industrial Estate
Oxford, OX2 0DP, UK
tel: +44 (0) 865 204881
fax: +44 (0) 865 204882
contact: Dr. Peter Davey
Incorporated in 1990, OxIM provides a complete design service
in the related fields of industrial sensors and automation. OxIM is
manufacturing and developing robots and advanced industrial equipment.
The MAP-IT vehicle is an open architecture research vehicle for indoor
environments. The top surface, complete with an array of mounting
holes, is available to the user for moutning experimental sensors and
payload. Two direct drive motor-gearbox units provide locomotion. An
extended 3U rack contains a controller card and power converter drive
card. A third spare slot is provided. 400mm diam with payload surface
200mm above ground. Remote base station including power supply, dual
RS232 ports, Full ANSI source code, 2 spare axes of servo control,
bumper system, 10kg payload, 65W power supply. Several options are
also available including PC interface.

-----
Salisbury Robotics, Inc.
20 Pemberton St.
Cambridge, MA 02140
tel: 617.661.8847
net:
Sells the three-fingered Salisbury hand and force sensing fingertips.
Contact: Ken Salisbury,

-----
Sarcos Research Corporation
390 Wakara Way,
Suite 44, Salt Lake City, Utah 84108
tel: 801.581.0155
Spinoff of University of Utah's Center for Engineering Design (CED).
Teleoperated systems, manipulators. Audio-animatronic work as well.
Beautiful force reflecting work and systems. High performance and
small hydraulic valves and actuators.

-----
Schilling
1632 Da Vinci Court
Davis, CA 95616
tel: 916.753.6718
fax: 916.753.8092
Electro-mechanical engineering and manufacturing company
specializing in telerobotics. Various remote manipulator and
telerobotic manipulator systems.

-----
Seiko Instruments
Torrance, CA
tel: 310.517.7700
Seiko has made a wide variety of pick and place machines and
newer 6DOF manipulators.

-----
Sony Corporation of America
Factory Automation Division
542 Route 303
Orangeburg, NY 10962
tel: 914.365.6000
fax: 914.365.6087
Several SCARA type manipulators including a double armed
manipulator. This model is used for the assembly of 8mm
camcorders!

-----
Robotics Research Corp.
P.O. Box 206
Amelia, OH 45102
tel: 513.831.9570
fax: 513.381.5802
RRC offers a variety of dexterous manipulators which can be
operated individually or in dual-arm mode. Their second
generation, denoted the "i-Series", is lighter and provides
great dexterity. They are currently building
"spaceflight-qualified" manipulators for NASA (GSFC) using
this new generation of their product. They have also been
doing some work developing sensor-based automatic obstacle
detection and avoidance technology which uses a patented
algorithm with arm-mounted sensors. They have also built two
massively-redundant 17-DOF Anthropomorphic systems for Grumman
and JPL to serve as testbeds for researching "man-equivalent"
robots for space applications.

-----
Robotic Systems International (RSI), Ltd.
9865 W. Saanick Rd.
Sydney, BC V8L 3S1
Canada
tel: 604.656.0101

-----
UMI Microbot
[no longer in business in the US]
In the UK:
Oxford Intelligent Machines, UK
tel: 0865 204881
Originally known as the Microbot teachmover. A small cable
driven manipulator for desktop robotics. Excellent teaching tool.
Original design by John Hill (now at SRI) Microbot was bought out by
the British company UMI two years ago. In May, 1991 they moved from
Silicon Valley to Detroit, MI. As of Early 1994, only the UK company
was still in business.

-----
USA Robot
PO Box 4018
Portland, ME 04101
tel: 207.761.9039
Maxym production robots for business. Simple accurate 3D
linear motions coupled with power tooling such as routers, air drills
and sanders. Workspaces up to 60cmx147cmx15cm. IBMPC software for
designing parts and production path but takes DXF files as input.
Not a machine like the giant production turning and routing machines
used by large furniture makers but is a nice small machine for small
production shops. Prices range from $14.5K to $19.9K.

-----
Western Space and Marine
111 Santa Barbara St.
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
tel: 805.963.3831
fax: 805.963.3832
Telerobotic manipulators for space and undersea applications.

-----
Zebra Robotics
Jeff Kerr
Menlo Park
tel: 415.328.8884
Small manipulators with integral force control.

-----
Zymark Corp
Hopkinton, MA
Robots for laboratory automation. Zymate

-----
Other companies: (no addresses, yet)

Furukawa
Sumitomo
Chubu
Beckman Biomark
HP ORCA
Tecan
------------------------------
[8.3] What other Organizations are working with robotics?

This list is a small fraction of companies and other organizations
that are actively working in robotics. One way to obtain more
companies is to search through proceedings of conferences or find
member companies of many of the organizations listed in previous FAQ
sections. Industrial robotics is used widely throughout a number of
companies. Most large aerospace companies have groups working in or
looking into robotics. Martin Marietta (Denver), Rockwell
International (Downey, CA), Boeing (Seattle) to name a few. Mitre
Corporation of McLean VA and Houston TX, are also doing quite a bit in
robotics.

-----
Advanced Robotics Research Centre
Salford, UK.
The Advanced Robotics Research Ltd (incorporating the National
Advanced Robotics Research Centre, UK) is a joint UK Government and
UK Industries funded research organisation involved in the research
of enabling technologies for the advanced robotics systems.

-----
Automation and Robotics Research Institue (ARRI)
7300 Jack Newell Blvd. South
Ft. Worth, Texas 76118
tel: 817.794.5900

-----
Mechanical Engineering Lab (MEL)
Tsukuba City, Japan
Kazuo Tanie: Robotics and cybernetics

-----
Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL), AIST, MITI.
1-1-4 Umezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305 Japan.
General description:
ETL is a govermental institute with about 630 staffs and
annual budget of over 10 billion yen including personnel expenses,
covering a broad area related to electronics, physics, material
sciences, device technology, energy technology, standards and
measurements technology, bio-electronics, information science,
computer science, computer systems, artificial intelligence, and
robotics.
Gopher host: etlport.etl.go.jp

Robotics group:
Intelligent Systems Division covers robotics and related areas.
It consists of following sections; Intelligent Machine Behavior,
Autonomous Systems, Computer Vision, Interactive Interface Systems, and
Communicating Intelligence.
The robotics group in the division foucuses on intelligent robots
and system integration. Its current research topics include, but not
limited to, Dextrous manipulation, Motion planning, Active vision,
Multi-sensor fusion, Multi-fingered hands, Hand-eye systems, Mobile
robot navigation, Multiple-robot cooperation, Intelligent teleoperation,
Learning, and Architecture.
The robotics group at ETL has continuously been at the frontier of
intelligent robotics research.

PostDoc positions:
ETL accepts postdoctoral research fellows from all over the
world. Mainly two support programs are available: STA fellowship and
AIST fellowship. They require a doctoral degree, age no greater
than 35, fluency in Japanese or English, etc. Typical research
period is one year (2 yrs max.). The fellowship includes a basic
allowance (270,000yen/month) plus family allowance (50,000yen/month),
housing cost, and a round trip air ticket (1 person).
The fellowships are highly competetive and have different application
procedures depending on an applicant's nationality.
Those who are interested should contact their local governmental
agency for international research cooperation (such as NSF in USA).
A more convenient way might be to catch a member of ETL staff at some
conference and inquire about the fellowships.

Graduate Summer Institute Program:
ETL is a member of the graduate summer institute program. The
robotics group hosts a couple of guest student researchers every summer.
The Graduate Summer Institute program is based on Japan-USA contract on
research cooperation in science and technology.
It is open for graduate students in the USA who are majoring in
science and technology fields.
The aim of the program is to provide opportunities for the students to
get acquainted with Japanese culture, science and techonology, and to
promote future collaboration in research in science and techonology.
Here is some data from last year's example.
Period: 2 months (Late June -- Late August).
Program (subj. to change): Japanese classes. Research at host
institutes. Lectures, Meetings, Going to Kabuki, Kyoto tour,
Official Receptions.
Support: Return air ticket, domestic transportation, accomodation,
japanese classes, tours.
Contact: Japan Programs, Division of International Programs, NSF.
I, TROV and Ranger projects.
http://maas-neotek.arc.nasa.gov/

-----
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Contact: Stephen Leake
Since the cancellation of the Flight Telerobotic Servicer
(FTS), the Robotics Lab has been concentrating on work in the
area of automated space craft servicing. The goal is to
replace or supplement Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) with
teleoperated or semiautonomous robotic systems for external
vehicle maintenance. Current project includes a robot to
assist in second Hubble servicing mission.

-----
NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Houston, TX
Contact: Charles Price
More of an operations house but lots of shuttle RMS work. A number
of robot projects including testing of space station manipulator
systems happens at JSC.
http://tommy.jsc.nasa.gov

-----
NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC)
Robotics Group
Contact: Bill Jones
Like JSC, KSC is an operations house with responsibility to keep
shuttles flying and integrate payloads. There is a small but
growing robotics group that is emplacing ground support robotics
applications. Recent work includes filter inspector for launch pad
payload areas, shuttle radiator inspector and a mobile system for
thermal protection system tasks.
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/ksc.html

-----
NASA Langley Research Center, (LaRC)
Hampton, VA
Contact: Jack Pennington - vision, inspection, 3-D sensors
http://www.arc.nasa.gov/

-----
National Laboratories

The US National Laboratories are large complexes with a number of
robotics efforts. One current focus is the enormous and costly cleanup
of the weapons complexes throughout the country. Remediation, removal
and cleanup of hazardous materials will require hundreds of billions
of $$$ and many years. Robotics will be a key in much of this.

Sandia National Laboratories,
Albuquerque, NM
Sandia is a DOE National Laboratory with a substantial program in
robotics at its Intelligent Systems and Robotics Center. The Center
has interests in manufacturing, hazardous material handling, site
remediation, and research to support these
applications. Consequently areas of focus include assembly planning,
robotic interfaces, control theory, motion planning, sensor
fusion, sensor development, mobile vehicles, telemanagement, mobile
vehicles, and so on. At the time of writing (2/15/93) the center has
nearly 100 full-time staff with degrees in computer science,
mechanical engineering, mathematics, electrical engineering, as well
as a few in other fields. The mix is about 30% PhD, 40%MS, and 30%
BS. Recent hires have come from Cornell, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU,
Illinois, Penn, ... The center operates over 20 fully equipted labs
including robots from Puma, Adept, GCA, Cincinnati Millacron, and
Schilling. The virtual reality lab includes stereoscopic viewers
from Fake Space, audio, speech recognition and synthesis, and big
boxes from SGI to drive the graphics. In addition to the normal
complement of departmental computing we have use of other compute
resources at Sandia including a 1000 node N-cube, a 1000+node Intel
Paragon, several crays, a CM-200 (16K procs).
Contacts: Randy Brost, Pat Xavier, Sharon Stansfield, Pang
Chen, David Strip, Jim Novak, Ray Harrigan, Pat Eicker, Bob
Anderson.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research
P. O. Box 2008, MS-6364
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6364
tel: 615.241.4959
fax: 615.574.7860
Contact: Dr. Lynne E. Parker, email: ParkerLE@ornl.gov
Research in mobile and manipulator robotics, including
redundant and multiple manipulators, cooperating mobile robots,
parallel vision systems, sensor fusion, laser range finder
research, real-time quantitative reasoning and behavior based
control, and machine learning. Current applications include
robots for nuclear power stations, environmental restoration
and waste management, material handling, and automated
manufacturing.
Researchers: James Baker, Marty Beckerman, Chuck Glover, William
Grimmell, Judd Jones, Reinhold Mann, Ed Oblow, Lynne Parker,
Nageswara Rao, David Reister, Phil Spelt, Michael Unseren.

-----
Redzone Robotics
2425 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4639
tel: 412.765.3064
fax: 412.364.3069
contact: Dave White
A spin-off of CMU, Redzone has focused on hazwaste and nuke
manipulator applications but is also developing mobile
applications. Primarily protoypes and not multiple unit
manufacturing at this time.

-----
Southwest Research Institute
San Antonio, TX
Robotics and Automation Department
Some large systems for servicing aircraft (painting, spraying,
deriveting etc)

-----
Germany:
Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Groforschungseinrichtungen (AGF)
(Association of National Research Centers)
Wissenschaftszentrum
Ahrstrae 45
Postfach 20 14 48
53144 Bonn
tel: (02 28) 3 76 74-1
fax: (02 28) 3 76 74-4
http://www.gmd.de/AGF-Anschriften.html
These are sixteen research centers in Germany. One of the
research centers is GMD and they do robotics. GMD is at
http://borneo.gmd.de/AS/janus/pages/janus.htm

------------------------------
[8.4] Small Inexpensive Robots
One of the most common discussions on the net are related to
finding, building and working on small and low cost robots. There are
a few small robots on the market and a number of construction kits
that robots can be built from such as Lego, FischerTechnik and
Capsula. None of these require large investments. These systems are at
most several hundred $US and can run on a desktop. There are also a
number of kit robots that include printed-circuit boards and
components.

-----
Advanced Design, Inc.
6080 N. Oracle Road, Suite B
Tucson, Arizona 85704
USA
tel: 602.544.2390
fax: 602.575.0703
net: desk@robix.com
url: ftp://ftp.robix.com/pub/robix/

ADI makes the Robix(tm) RCS-6 Robotic Construction Set, priced at
US$550, or US$565 for 220V/50Hz and PAL video. The RCS-6 is designed
specifically for use by educators and industrial modelers, and is used
to build and operate a wide variety of PC connected desktop robots.
Included are many construction parts, 6 hobby-type servos, an
electronics interface with an 8-channel 8 bit A/D, power supply,
software, manual, video, carrying case, and more, even including a
pair of safety goggles. The 40-minute video that comes with the set
is also available separately for just the airmail postage cost: US$3
to US locations, $4 to Canada, $5 to Mexico and $8 to all other
countries. Shown in the video are 5 different arms built for (and
performing) 5 different tasks, a pair of 3-servo-each opposable
fingers twiddling a ball, 3 animatronic figures, and a 3-legged (but
6-footed) walker with both a walking and galloping stride. In
addition, an arm is built step-by-step in the video, and then
programmed interactively. The software includes a scripting interface
as well as complete C and QuickBasic 4.5 libraries with documentation
and sample code.

For complete technical information, a faq section, text of a cover
story about the RCS-6 in Popular Electronics Magazine, plus over 50
image files (.gif's), a DOS PC .gif viewer, a useful section on what
the set does *not* do, and more, download from the anonymous ftp site:
ftp.robix.com from directory /pub/robix. See the readme.txt file
there first.

To get the video, order by phone or fax, or by email from desk@robix.com.
Visa and Mastercard are accepted.

-----
Aleph Technology
Parc Heliopolis
16 rue du Tour de l'eau
BP 295-38407
Saint Martin d'Heres cedex, France
tel: +33 76422999
fax: +33 76444620
Small, turtle robot for education. 17000FF

-----
Angelus Research
6344 Sugar Pine Circle
Angelus Oaks, CA
tel: 909.794.8325.
contat: Don Golding
A small differentially-steered mechanism (no casters!)
utilizing a 68HC11 controller w/ 32K RAM and RS-232 interface. Four
visible collision sensors (range 3-12 inches depending on ambient
light) and two whiskers. On-board battery (Pb- acid and built in
charger) monitors current as well for stall current. Software included
with easy-to-use high-level command set. Operable right out of the
box. A lot of features for a very affordable device. Fully assembled
and tested: $695, wireless version $1195. Intro to Whiskers Curriculum
$95. Controller board available separately for $249. Future
developments include IR obstacle detector, sonar, pyro (people
detector) sensors, and magnetic compass. Video available for $5.

-----
Capsula
Play-Jour International
Room 914, New World Office Building
(East Wing), 24 Salisbury Rd
Tsimshatsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Capsula is a robot construction set. Looks like a series of bubbles
connected together. Some intriguing modules including IR control,
voice commands, motorized clutches etc. Edmund Scientific sells this
as do many toy stores.

-----
Circuit Specialists Inc
PO Box 3047
Scottsdale, AZ 85271-3047
tel: 800.528.1417
tel: 602.464.2485
Quickshut robot arm sold by Circuit Specialists for
$259. Appears to be a nice low cost 5 axis arm for education. IBM (or
compatible) interface, kit including all components and board, power
supply kit, software package, logic probe and experiments and
instructions. If anyone has information as to who actually makes this
please send me email. CSI has a FAX back service at 1(800)622-5426.
At the voice prompt, enter 3060 for more information on the arm. The
software package supplied includes test routines and Robot control
proceedures. The software is written in BASIC and Assembly languages.

-----
The Electronic Gold Mine
PO Box 5408
Scottsdale, AZ 85261
tel: 602.451.7454
Roamer Robot Kit. A simple, hardwired robot kit with all parts
necessary to complete the kit. It sells for $39.95.

-----
FischerTechnik
[Germany]
Fischerwerke
Arthur Fischer GmbH & Co. KG
Weinhalde 14-18
D-72178 Waldachtal
tel: germany + 07443 120
fax: germany + 07443 12222
[USA]
Model Technology
2420 Van Layden Way
Modesto, CA 95356
tel: 209.575.3445
fax: 209.527.6016
[UK]
Economatics Ltd
Epic house, Darnell Road
Attercliffe, Sheffield
United Kingdom
tel: +44 742 56 11 22
fax: +44 742 43 93 04
telex: 5 47 095 ECOMAT G
Like Lego, Fischertechnik is a european-developed construction kit
but much more comprehensive in scope. Electro-mechanical parts
galore including a wide variety of switches, relays, slip rings,
contacts, etc. Many types of building block units as well and
computer interfaces available. More expensive than Lego. Model
Technology, listed above, is one distributor. See also the Robot
Explorer in the publications section.
Here is a listing of some of the kits that they build:
Interface for Macintosh: "Service II" from Boenig and Kallenbach, sold
by Pandasoft Uhlandstrasse 195 D-1000 Berlin 12 Fax: germany (030)
315913-55 for DM 498.- for Mac Plus or better. 8 digital in and
outputs, 2 analoguous inputs. With Hypercard Stack Computing
Experimental and driver software for all Pascal versions, 4th
Dimension and Ragtime (comparable to MSWorks). Works also with the
FischerTechnik Robot and Plotter assembly kit, 80 pages manual in
german?, 3 Diskettes.
There are also computing kits containing interfaces for C64, PC and
Apple II.
-Profi Computing by Fischer Technik:
"High-end" kit, 3 motors, 6 switches, 4 lights, 2 fotocells,
20 plugs patch bay, construction base-support plate, 12 models
explained as there are a robot with a controlled hand, a plotter, a
slot-machine, a credit-card reader and a CD-player (certainly without
audio out), 888 parts in total: DM 376, needs the Service II
interface.

-Training robot by Fischertechnik:
3 rotation axes which may be controlled simultaneously.
Working radius between 12 and 37 cm, fetching height: 6 to 25 cm,
driven by 3 Fischer Technik S-motors, positioning with infrared
photocell, with cabling and manual, needs the Service II interface,
for DM 547.

-Plotter/Scanner by Fischertechnik:
Scanning head not included, "heavy duty" construction,
precision < 0.5 mm on a A4 surface, driven by 2 bipolar stepper
motors, needs the Service II interface. For DM 487.-

-Computing by Fischertechnik:
10 models possible, all explained: antenna rotor, Plotter,
Graphic Tablet, 2-axis robot etc., needs Service II and power supply
for DM 298.-

-----
Johuco, Ltd.
Box 390
Vernon, CT 06066
Muramator and Photovore. These are simple robot control boards that
are hardwired but can be adjusted using potentiometers. They sell
bare PCBs and you can get the parts from Radio Shack or DigiKey. The
PCBs sell for about $25.00.

-----
Khepera Support Team
LAMI - DI - EPFL
INF Ecublens
1015 Lusanne
Switzerland
tel: ++41 21 693.52.65
fax: ++42 21 693.52.63
net:
contact: Franscesco Mondada
Web site is at http://lamiwww.epfl.ch/Khepera

A VERY small mobile robot. Motorola 68331 Processor with 256K RAM and
256 or 512K ROM. Serial port. Six 10bit analog inputs. DC motor
powered with incremental encoders. Eight IR proximity and light
sensors. NiCd batteries. Additional capabilities can be added by using
stackable K-extension bus. Software environments: Calm assembler (PC
or MAC), Gnu C compiler (on all machines supported by GNU) and LabView
(PC, Mac or Sun).
Size: 55mm diameter, 30mm high
Weight: 70grams
Cost: 3000 Swiss Francs [About $2K US]
Vision and Gripper modules under development.
Reference:
Mondada et al. Mobile Robot Miniaturisation: A Tool for
Investigation in Control Algorithms. Third International
Symposium on Experimental Robotics, Kyoto, Japan, Oct 28-30,
1993

-----
LEGO
Lego Dacta
555 Taylor Road
PO Box 1600
Enfield, CT 06083-1600
tel: 800.527.8339
fax: 203.763.2466

Canadian office for Lego/Dacta
tel: 800-387-4387.

LEGO Dacta is the educational branch of the LEGO company. Dacta
sells the LEGO Technic product line. These are the geared and
motorized versions for the LEGO system.

Use anonymous ftp to obtain a list of a variety of lego information
and application programs from:
location: earthsea.stanford.edu
directory: /pub/lego
filenames:

Directory Structure: ~ftp/pub/lego/
CAD/ contains several languages for specifying models
faq/ contains latest faq sheet for alt.toys.lego
games/ Rules for games using lego people and pieces
images/ Pictures and drawings of sets and instructions
sets/ Database listings of lego sets and catalog numbers
upload/ Place your files here!

Lego kits recommended for robotics work include:
1038 Technical Universal Buggy - dual drive vehicle. $60
1032 Technic II w/ motorized transmission - $76
9605 Technic Resource Set - general parts kits - $200

Lego-to-Mac software:
Paradigm Software 617.576.7675
Bots 415.949.2126
MIT has papers on LEGO projects available via FTP from:
site: kame.media.mit.edu.
dir: pub/el-memos
file: memo8.* "LEGO/LOGO: Learning Through and About Design"

-----
M & T Systems
POB 7816
Huntington Beach CA 92615
Contact M&T Systems at:
tel: 714.969.3166
fax: 714.969.3167
net: mandtsys@ix.netcom.com (NEW EMAIL ADDRESS!)

[Tom Thorton]
The HexWalker(tm) walking robot kit is based on the Insectoid built by
Gary Malolepsy of The Robotics Society of Southern California (RSSC),
and chronicled in the February, March and April 1994 issues of Robot
Builder (the newsletter of RSSC). The Insectoid robot was given
passing mention by Scott Edwards in the June 1994 issue of Nuts and
Volts (How Far Can a Stamp Take You?).

RSSC Club Officers had discussed kitting the walking robot up for
members for several months, but had taken no action. Finally, I built
one for myself. It generated so much attention at meetings that I
decided to kit it out. The HexWalker(tm) robot kit is the result.

As supplied in the kit the Hexwalker(tm) robot detects the world by
means of two feelers. Normal movement for HexWalker(tm) is to walk
forward using the opposing triangle gait. When the robot detects an
obstacle (when a feeler switch closes) it pauses, backs up several
steps, turns left or right, and resumes forward walking. HexWalker(tm)
turns left when the right feeler switch closes, or right when the left
feeler switch closes.

HexWalker(tm) is large enough to work on easily. It measures 8 1/2 inches
(22cm) long (plus feelers), 6 1/2 inches (16cm) wide, and 2 1/2 inches
(6cm) tall. It is strong, able to support its own weight (12 ounces) plus
about an 8 ounce payload.

Modifying the basic robot is encouraged. Ideas for
modification/improvement include: Substitute LED photodetectors for
the feeler/snapswitch sensors. Add a second Stamp to HexWalker(tm)
that performs sensor monitoring functions. Add additional sensors
to HexWalker(tm).
backup sensor to prevent walking into objects when walking backwards.
down sensor to detect "cliffs" and prevent walking off edges.
sonar for long range sensing."

HexWalker(tm) sells for US $125.00.
California residents add 7.75% sales tax.
Shipping throughout North America is US $3.00.
Shipping to all others is US $15.00.
The kit without Basic Stamp (if you have your own controller) is
US $100.00 plus s&h.
The construction manual alone is US $10.00 plus US $1.00 s&h.

-----
Meccano/Erector
[many addresses around the world]
363, avenue de Saint-Exupery
62104 CALAIS CEDEX - FRANCE
Tel. 21.96.63.90
Fax. 21.96.34.35
There are several mechanical construction systems available.
The best source of info I've seen is a list put together by Colin
Hinz:
location: psych.toronto.edu
directory: /ftp/pub/
filenames: meccano
The German model train company, Maerklin makes a Meccano
compatible construction set. They also have a 1007 Robotic Arm kit and
programmable controller as well. ~$300 You may be able to order it
through a local train and hooby shop.

-----
Mondotronics
524 San Anselmo Ave.,
#107
San Anselmo, CA 94960
tel: 415.455.9330
800.374.5764 (orders)
fax: 415.455.9333
800.455.9333 (orders)
net:

A wide variety of Nickel-Titanium Alloy products. Mondo can supply an
email brochure as well as a Muscle Wire FAQ. Products include:

Muscle Wire Project Book- New 3rd Edition. Presenting everything you
need to successfully design, build, and operate devices with Muscle
Wire - nickel-titanium filaments that actually contract when
electrically powered and lift thousands of times their own weight.

Topics include: Basic lever action, ratchets and latches, model
railroad crossing, AC power circuit, solar power circuit, paper
airplane launcher, life-like butterfly, rubber tube "flexi",
proportional control, radio control interface, programmable multiple
wire controller & serial port interface, PC parallel port interface
and much more. Boris the six-legged motorless miniature walking
machine.

BORIS - A miniature motorless six-legged walking machine
SPECIFICATIONS
Length: 13.5 cm
Height: 4.5 cm
Weight: 30 grams
Power & Drive:
- Eight 100 um dia. Muscle Wires (50 centimeters total).
- 6 volts, 500 milliamp max.
- Full software control via PC parallel printer port.

MUSCLE WIRES PROJECT BOOK 3-133 $17.95

MUSCLE WIRES PROJECT BOOK & DELUXE KIT
Includes meter each of Flexinol
050, 100 and 150, plus crimps and instructions. Enough to build all
the projects in the Project Book including Boris the motorless walking
machine. An ideal starter package for engineers, students and
experimenters of all ages.

Project Book & Deluxe Kit 3-168 $59.95

MUSCLE WIRES RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT PACKAGE
A complete package designed for corporate and laboratory Research
and Development work with shape memory alloys. Includes to following:
* Muscle Wires Project Book
* Five meters each of Flexinol 050, 100 and 150
* One meter of Flexinol 250
* Crimps & instructions

Muscle Wires R & D Package 3-102 $249.00

A wide variety of NiTiNol lengths and diameters are also available.
Send email to info@mondo.com.

-----
OWI (Movit robots)
tel: 310.638.4732
fax: 310.638.8347
Available from:
Kelvin Electronics 800.645.9212
Pitsco 800.835.0686
Edmund Scientific 609.573.6260 (See Robot Parts Section)
These are small toy-like robots that reflexively respond to obstacles,
sounds or light depending on the model. They're cute and show what can
be done with a relatively small amount of hardware. The top of the
line model is the Wao II which has two 'feelers' for bump sensors and
can be programmed with an on board key-pad or via a host computer. It
sells for $89.95. Most of the other robot kits sell for between $35
and $55. The kits usually only require mechanical hardware assembly
(no soldering required.) Edmund also has a Robotic Technology
Curriculum with lessons and tests featuring the Movit
robots. Curriculum is $65 from Edmund Scientific.

-----
Reality Robots
Marvin Green,
821 SW 14th, Troutdale, OR 97060
tel: 503.666.5907
net: marvin@agora.rdrop.com

Starter Kits

The B-BOT Frame: This is a complete robot frame with a 360 degree
bumper skirt and clear head dome. The frame is six inches in diameter
and uses two modified RC servos (not included). The B-BOT can be
controlled by a small microcontroller, such as the BOTBoard, Mini
Board, PIC or BASIC STAMP. The B-BOT Frame is expandable, flexible,
and makes it easy to get your robot projects off the ground quickly.

The B-BOT Frame and assembly manual is $29.95. The B-BOT
jr. (smaller, with single level base) is $19.95. Please add $4.00
shipping for first kit, $1.00 for each additional kit. Please make
check or money order to Marvin Green at the above address.

The BOTBoard: The BOTBoard is a bare printed circuit board designed
for robotic applications. The BOTBoard uses the popular 68HC11
microcontroller in a minimum configuration, and is easily programmed
>from your PC. Engineered to be flexible, the BOTBoard is also
powerful and easy to use. Each board measures 2" X 3" and contains 38
I/O pins, and a small prototyping area.

The BOTBoard is $5.95 each, or three for $15.00. Add $1.25 plus $.25
for each board for shipping.

The ARMBOT: The ARMBOT is a flexible three axis robotic arm. It is
designed to use small unmodified RC servos and a microcontroller. The
ARM-BOT provides clockwise and counter clockwise rotation of greater
than 180 degree, shoulder lift of greater than 45 degree a gripper
range of about two inches. The ARMBOT is surprisingly strong. It's fun
to use, and can easily be build within a couple of hours.

The ARMBOT kit and instruction manual is $12.95. Please add $2.00
shipping and handling.

NOTE: These kits are designed to spark your intuitive engineering
skills. Each kit comes with a detailed manual, assembly instructions,
diagrams, parts list, and all the custom parts needed to build the
kit. Common parts, such as RC servos or ICs are not included because
they can be purchased elsewhere. Keep in mind that you may need to
drill some holes or use a soldering iron.

real_bot.zip contains three gif images of the ARMBOT and B-BOT.

ftp://cherupakha.media.mit.edu/pub/incoming/real_bot.zip

SRS BBS (206) 362-5267 Seattle Robotics Society BBS.

I designed these kits to help inspire people to build robots. The kits
are high quality and inexpensive. Please contact me for more
information.

-----
Rug Warrior
A K Peters
289 Linden Street
Wellesley, MA 02181
tel: 617.235.2210
fax: 617.235.2404
net: kpeters@geom.umn.edu
A companion kit for the book, Mobile Robots: Inspiration to
Implementation. See Books section of FAQ. The Rug Warrior circuit
board is designed to support the construction of small, yet
sophisticated mobile robots. The board provides all the processing,
memory, and sensor circuitry needed for a custom designed
robot. $289.00. Does not include chassis, skirt and motors.

Rug Warrior offers the following features: Motorola MC68HC11
microcontroller, LCD display (32 alphanumeric characters), 32K of
battery backed RAM, RS-232 serial port, Collision detection from any
of 6 directions, Photoresistor light sensors, Infrared obstacle
detection, Microphone for sound detection, Piezoelectric buzzer
generates tones of arbitrary frequency, Motor driver chip allows
control of two DC motors, Dual shaft encoders allow
velocity/position control, Four user controllable LEDs, Optional
pyroelectric (heat) sensor, Expansion capabilities for more sensors
and actuators.

The kit consists of a circuit board with the logic and interface
components already soldered on and tested, plus all the sensors and
other circuitry needed to build the robot board as described in our
book "Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implimentation."

The kit includes Interactive C (IC) on a disk for either Mac or PC.
Self test routines are also provided for each of the standard
sensors and actuators. In the near future A. K. Peters plans to
offer a complete robot kit including chassis, skirt, and motors.

-----
Stiquito
A small nitinol-based mobile robot is available from Indiana
University in a technical report and as a kit. Send your request for
the report with payment to:
Computer Science Department
215 Lindley Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
To receive the technical report only:
Send $5.00 PRE-PAID and add ATTN: TR363A
To receive the technical report and a complete kit:
Send $15.00 PRE-PAID and add ATTN: TR 363A Squito Kit

TR 414 - Stiquito II and Tensipede: Two Easy-to-build
Nitinol-propelled Robots

...is available in FINAL DRAFT via anonymous ftp from
ftp://cs.indiana.edu/pub/stiquito

the report is archived as four .hqx (binhex encoded) .sea (stuffit
lite self-extracting archive) Microsoft Word 4 documents. There are no
plans to archive a postscript version, as word 5 & 6, available on PCs
& Macs, are supposed to be able to read and print word 4 documents.

stiq.II.p1.sea.hqx contains the introduction, the build-a-leg tutorial, and
the instructions to build tensipede

stiq.II.p2.sea.hqx contains the instructions to build both a rigid and an
articulated version of stiquito II

stiq.II.p3.sea.hqx contains the instructions to build the ibm pc and
compatible computer parallel printer port interface

stiq.II.p4.sea.hqx contains the programmer's guide to the interface and
examples of a pulse frequency modulated nitinol driver,
a metachronal wave program for tensipede, and a tripod
gait program for stiquito II, as well as stiquito's
family crest.

-----
Tomy Armatron
Sold by Radio Shack in the US, the Armatron was a popular small
plastic manipulator and later a mobile version was sold. A number
of articles appeared in the hobbyist press regarding linking the
Armatrons to computers. The mobile version is still being sold in
Japan and is called the "GO ROBO ARM" You might be able to pick one
up at a flea market or garage sale. Buy it - they are neat clever
devices and fun.

-----
Ublige Software and Robotics Corporation
P.O. Box 18034
Huntsville, AL, 35804
net: usr@delphi.com
tel: 205.518.9422
contact: Luis Lopez
Kits and pre assembled robots (insects). USR produces Electro-Optic
components and software tools for compound eye robotics. The catalog
lists a low-cost walking system kit called Prometheus (TM) for $US 610
- 1799. Several modules are also available (eg. RS232, motor driver
etc.)

_____________________________________________________________________________
[9] What is a Robot Architecture?

A robot 'architecture' primarily refers to the software and hardware
framework for controlling the robot. A VME board running C code to
turn motors doesn't really constitute an architecture by itself. The
development of code modules and the communication between them begins
to define the architecture.

Robotic systems are complex and tend to be difficult to develop. They
integrate multiple sensors with effectors, have many degrees of
freedom and must reconcile hard real-time systems with systems which
cannot meet real-time deadlines [Jones93]. System developers have
typically relied upon robotic architectures to guide the construction
of robotic devices and for providing computational services (e.g.,
communications, processing, etc.) to subsystems and components. These
architectures, however, have tended thus far to be task and domain
specific and have lacked suitability to a broad range of applications.
For example, an architecture well suited for direct teleoperation
tends not to be amenable for supervisory control or for autonomous
use.

One recent trend in robotic architectures has been a focus on
behavior-based or reactive systems. Behavior based refers to the fact
that these systems exhibit various behaviors, some of which are
emergent [Man92]. These systems are characterized by tight coupling
between sensors and actuators, minimal computation, and a
task-achieving "behavior" problem decomposition.

The other leading architectural trend is typified by a mixture of
asynchronous and synchronous control and data flow. Asychronous
processes are characterized as loosely coupled and event-driven
without strict execution deadlines. Synchronous processes, in
contrast, are tightly coupled, utilize a common clock and demand hard
real-time execution.

Subsumption/reactive references
-------------------------------
Arkin, R.C., "Integrating Behavioral, Perceptual, and World Knowledge
in Reactive Navigation", Robotics & Autonomous Systems, 1990

Brooks, R.A., "A Robust Layered Control System for a Mobile Robot",
IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, March 1986.

Brooks, R.A., "A Robot that Walks; Emergent Behaviors from a Carefully
Evolved Network", Neural Comutation 1(2) (Summer 1989)

Brooks, Rod, AI Memo 864: A Robust Layered Control System For a Mobile Robot
look in ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/

Brooks, Rod, AI Memo 1227: The Behavior Language: User's Guide
look in ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/

Connell, J.H., "A Colony Architecture for an Artificial Creature", MIT
Ph. D. Thesis in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1989.

Erann Gat, et al, "Behavior Control for Robotic Exploration of
Planetary Surfaces" To be published in IEEE R&A. FTPable.
site: robotics.jpl.nasa.gov
location: pub/gat
filename: bc4pe.rtf

Insect-based control schemes
----------------------------
Randall D. Beer, Roy E. Ritzmann, and Thomas McKenna, editors, Biological
Neural Networks in Invertebrate Neuroethology and Robotics, Academic Press,
1993.

Hillel J. Chiel, et al, "Robustness of a Distributed Neural Network
Controller for Locomotion in a Hexapod Robot," IEEE Transactions on
Robotics and Automation, 8(3):293-303, June, 1992.

Joseph Ayers and Jill Crisman, "Biologically-Based Control of
Omnidirectional Leg Coordination," Proceedings of the 1992 IEEE/RSJ
International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 574-581.

Asynchronous/synchronous (i.e., "traditional", "top-down", etc.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Amidi, O., "Integrated Mobile Robot Control", CMU-RI-TR-90-17,
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 1990.

Albus, J.S., McCain, H.G., and Lumia, R., "NASA/NBS Stanford Reference
Model for Telerobot Control System Architecture (NASREM)" NIST
Technical Note 1235, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, July 1987.

Butler, P.L., and Jones, J.P., "A Modular Control Architecture for
Real-Time Synchronous and Asynchronous Systems", Proceedings of SPIE
Applications of Artificial Intelligence 1993, Orlando, FL, 1993.

Fong, T.W., "A Computational Architecture for Semi-autonomous Robotic
Vehicles", AIAA Computing in Aerospace conference, AIAA 93-4508, 1993.

Lin, L., Simmons, R., and Fedor, C., "Experience with a Task Control
Architecture for Mobile Robots", CMU-RI-TR 89-29, Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University, December 1989.

Schneider, S.A., Ullman, M.A., and Chen, V.W., "ControlShell: A
Real-time Software Framework", Real-Time Innovations, Inc., Sunnyvale,
CA 1992.

Stewart, D.B., "Real-Time Software Design and Analysis of Reconfigurable
Multi-Sensor Based Systems", Ph.D. Dissertation, Dept. of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

Stewart, D.B., M. W. Gertz, and P. K. Khosla, "Software Assembly for
Real-Time Applications Based on a Distributed Shared Memory Model",
in Proc. of the 1994 Complex Systems Engineering Synthesis and
Assessment Technology Workshop (CSESAW '94), Silver Spring, MD,
pp. 217-224, July 1994.

______________________________________________________________________________
End of Part 3

___________________________________________________________________________
Part 4/5

[10] What Robotics related products are there?
[10.1] Sensors
[10.1.1] Cameras
[10.1.2] Inertial measurement devices and gyros
[10.1.3] Rangefinding devices
[10.1.4] Force/torque, accelerometers, tactile
[10.1.5] Sonar sensors
[10.1.6] Pan/tilt mechanisms
[10.1.7] Measuring robot position
[10.1.8] Measuring linear motion
[10.1.9] Interfacing sensors
[10.2] Actuators
[10.2.1] RC-Servos
[10.2.2] Shape memory materials
[10.2.3] Stepper Motor Controller
[10.3] Imaging for Robotics
[10.4] Wireless Communication
[10.4.1] RF Modems
[10.4.1] RF Video
[10.4.2] RF Ethernet
[10.5] Robot Parts: Suppliers and Sources

____________________________________________________________________________
[10] What Robotics related products are there?
Robots are amazingly interdisciplinary; systems are comprised
of mechanics, electronics, hardware and software and issues germane to
all these catagories. As a result, the design and constructions of
such systems requires a corresponding variety of components and parts.

This section provides information about products available for some of
these areas.

------------------------------
[10.1] Sensors

This list covers only the most frequently requested types of
robot sensors. These include point-range sensors, cameras, and
acoustic devices. See Sensors magazine directory for a large and comprehensive list. This list covers
the following:

[10.1.1] Cameras
[10.1.2] Inertial measurement devices and gyros
[10.1.3] Rangefinding devices
[10.1.4] Force/torque, accelerometers, tactile
[10.1.5] Sonar sensors
[10.1.6] Pan/tilt mechanisms
[10.1.7] Robot position and 3DOF input devices
[10.1.8] Measuring linear motion
[10.1.9] Interfacing sensors

------------------------------
[10.1.1] Cameras

There are a large number of cameras on the market and even
many consumer products such as the smaller camcorders are inexpensive
and suitable for some imaging applications. I'll try to list some
different and unusual ones here.
Note that although some of these cameras are very small many
of them are appended to a large box of electronics via a cable that
supplies power and transmits video. For mobile applications DC power
inputs may be an issue as well. I've also included servo-lens products
as well in this section.

CCTV Corporation
280 Huyler St.
South Hackensack, NJ 07606
tel: 201.489.9595
tel: 800.221.2240
fax: 201.489.0111
CCTV makes a number of small CCD surveillance cameras. Some as
small as a pack of cigarettes that sell for less than $300. Small
cameras -- 'Pincam' 1.5"x1.5"x.75" pinhole camera for $200. MOD-250
and MOD-275 are all single PC board cameras with wide angle 3.6 mm
lenses 514x491V resolution, and composite outputs. Other cameras come
in unique enclosures for surveilance (e.g. cigarette packs, clocks,
smoke detectors).

Cohu
P.O. Box 85623
San Diego, CA 92186-5623
tel: 619.277.6700 X225
fax: 619.277.0221
Cohu makes a number of solid state cameras including board
level and remote head devices. The 1100 series is designed for OEM
use. It outputs standard RS-170 with 768x494 CCD resolution.
10cmx4.5cmx1.6cm w/o lens. Other units include the 550 series
Intensified Monochrome CCD Camera for low-light applications. The 4110
has digital output (eliminates pixel jitter), The 6X00 series are
small monochrome remote head cameras and the 8000 series cameras are
color remote head devices. A variety of ouputs are available
includeing NTSC, RGB, PAL/Y-C. A high resolution unit, the 8410
series, provides 1134x486 pixels (850 horz TV lines)

DAK Industries
8200 Remnet Ave
Canoga Park, CA 91304
tel: 800.325.0800 (ordering)
tel: 800.888.9818 (technical)
fax: 818.888.2837
DAK sells all kinds of gadgets for the home and business. One
device is a security camera that is smaller than a credit card (length
and width) and 38mm deep. B/W 251,904 pixels, 60 degree lens and
built-in microphone. Has built-in IR transmitters for seeing in total
darkness. $199 for camera, 20m cable, AC adapter and stands. Other
packages include monitors and two-camera switcher for $299 total.
Extra cable is $29.90

Dalsa Inc
605 McMurray Rd.
Waterloo, ON, Canada N2V 2E9
tel: 519.886.6000
Modular cameras -- you choose the entire configuration from
the CCD device to the video output format. Known for their large
selection of high speed, high sensitivity and high resolution CCD
chips (up to 25 million pixels on a single chip CCD).

Electrim Corp.
P.O. Box 2074
Princeton, NJ. 08543
tel: 609.683.5546
fax: 609.683.5882
Offers digitial cameras and acquisition cards in an integrated system
for use with PC's. The EDC-1000C is a complete image acquisition
system with a 751x488v resolution camera that supports 24 bit color for $950
(including the PC interface card). The EDC-1000HR is the monochrome version.
A recently released system (11/94) offers a ADSP2101 DSP on board the
acquisition card.

Elmo Mfg Corp
70 New Hyde Park Rd.
New Hyde Park, NY 11040
tel: 516.775.3200
800.974.ELMO
fax: 516.775.3297
Micro-sized cameras including a 12mm color unit, the UN411E.
The ME441E is a remote head B&W ccd camera for machine vision
applications. 17mm, 14g. Wide variety of features including
electronics shuttering, field/frame modes, interlace and non-interlace
etc.

Fortunel Systems, Inc.
103 Ivywood Lane
Cary, NC 27511
tel: 919-851-9100
fax: 919-859-9800
Internet: fortunel@vnet.net
Servolens is a video-based computer-controlled motorized lens designed
for active vision. It is connected to the computer through a standard
RS232 serial port. Each axis (field of view, focusing distance, iris
opening) is independently controlled and fully calibrated (encoder
feedback). The following auto functions are supported: auto-iris,
auto-focus and auto-zoom (keeps apparent size of object constant). Two
models are available, based on zoom factor: x6 and x10. A C++ class
library in source code format is also available to control the lens
on DOS and UNIX platforms.

Gateway Electronics, INC.
8123 Page Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63130
tel: 314.427.6116
Ultra Minature Camera $149.50. 1.6" X 1.8" X 1" with a 3.6 mm
wide angle lens a 1/3 CCD sensor 380 lines of resolution and
electronic sutter time of 1/60 - 1/50,000 sec. 12 VDC Video Camera and
monitor combination 9" solid state monitor. This is a closed circuit
camera monitor system that runs on 115 VAC. There is also a microphone
in the Camera. $125.00

Hamamatsu Corp.
360 Foothill Road
Bridewater, NJ 08807-0910
908 231-1116
908 231-0852 (fax)
Offers a linup of general purpose single CCD cameras. The
C4200 is a 768x493V single CCD color camera. The C3967 is a 3 CCD
remote head color camera with 786x493V resolution. They also offer
off-the-shelf image improvement/enhancing hardware and CCD chips
(1024x1024V)

Images Company
P.O. Box 140742
Staten Island, NY 10314
tel: 718.698.8305
Microminature B/W video camera $200.00. TV Transmitter (KIT)
$45.00

Marshall Electronics
Culver City, CA
Contact: Steve Kraig
tel: 310.390.6608
World's smallest low-cost digital camera on a single chip;
under $10 for volume users. It is the first commercially available
image sensor to have a built-in A/D converter. The Digital Video
Camera Chip, VVL1070 delivers a digitized B&W image through
processor-compatible serial and parallel ports. The IC uses a
proprietary CMOS sensor technology developed by VLSI Vision Ltd.,
which also is developing a whole series of single-chip EIA cameras
that will be shortly introduced to the American market.

The chip features a 160 x 160 pixel array. Pixel size is 10.5 x 10.5
microns. All circuitry to drive and sense the array is packaged in a
single Optical Quad Flatpak. The digital converter provides an 8-bit
digital output for serial or parallel interface. Other features
include an analog output with sync pulses, wide-range electronic
exposure control for use with a variety of low-cost fixed-aperture
lenses and automatic black level circuitry. Power consumption is less
than 100mw.

An Engineering Level Evaluation Kit is available to reduce development
costs and allow designers to rapidly develop a prototype using their
own defined interface circuitry. The kit includes a fully operational
PCB using an LCC with glass lid mounted in an anodized aluminum
enclosure with both a "C" mount 12mm lens and a wide-angle 4.3mm
fixed-focus lens.

Also offers both a 330 line and 510x492v resolution miniature color cameras.

Micro Video Products
16201 Osborne
St. Westminster, CA 92683
tel: 714.842.4648
tel: 800.473.0538
Mini B/W camera $179.00 2.5x2.5x5cm and 70g. 7-14 VCD and
80 milliamps Also carry underwater cameras, and transmitter/recievers
for video.

NEC America
1555 Walnut Hill Lane
Irving, TX 75038
tel: 214.751.7000
tel: 800.323.6656
Offers many types of general purpose monochrome cameras as
well as a 811x508V resolution color camera with a variety of output
formats (RGB, NTSC, Y/C). The TI-324A is a small high-res B/W CCD
camera designed for machine vision and robotics applications. A
variety of other B/W and Color CCD cameras are also made.

Panasonic
tel: 201.392.4576
John Gregler - sales rep
Sells a complete line of monochrome cameras and a high performance
broadcast quality 3 CCD RGB color camera.

Pulnix America Inc.
1330 Orleans Dr.
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
408 747-0300
800 445-5444 x127 Katie McVeigh - sales rep
Offers gereral purpose, reasonably priced CCD cameras. The TMC-7RGB is a
768x494V resolution color camera with electronic shutter for $1100.
Many monochrome cameras are available including a high resolution 1024x1024V.
The 'Card-Cam' line of cameras are small PC board cameras with simple C-mount
remote heads.

Resources UN-LTD.
8030 South Willow Street, Bldg 2
Manchester, NH 03109
tel: 603.668.2499
CCD Micro Camera From Chinon. $159.00 B/W 1/3" CCD with a full
250,000+ pixels. 350 lines of resolution. Auto gain control and
electronic shutter. 9 VDC at 80 milliamps. Adjustable focus 4mm, f 1.8
lens (provides 78 degree FOV, 10mm to infinity). Standard Composite
video out. Weighs 14g, IR Sensitive.

Sony Electronics Inc.
1200 N. Arlington Heights Road
Itasca, IL 60143
tel: 708.773.7604 Karel Heike -- sales rep
Sony XC/999/999P is a nice small color CCD camera the size of
a microphone. CCD resolution is 768Hx493V. The 999 is NTSC and the
999P is the PAL format. XC-75 has small camera head and separate
electronics. The XC711 is a nice general purpose single CCD color
camera with 768x493V resolution, but not as expensive as to XC999.
The XC-711 RR is the remote head version. An appreciable lineup of
monochrome cameras are offered as well.

Supercircuits
13552 Research Blvd #B
Austin, TX 78750
tel: 512.335.9777
fax: 512.335.1925
net: info@ccd.scx.com
Electronic timers and beepers, miniature cameras and
transmitters. Super Circuits specializes in affordable microvideo
products. One of the tiny cameras, the PC-9XS is about the size of a
silver dollar, has 380 lines resolution, 1 lux rating at a price of
only $149. Some of the cameras go down to .2 lux. Other products
include small color cameras, ATV UHF transmitter kits, Short range
transmitter sets, and other specialty video products.

Texas Instruments
TI makes a $35 CCD Imager, the TC-211, with 192x165 resolution.
Following article is on a design for a camera using this chip over a
parallel port from a PC. Telescope Making, Issue 46, Winter 91/92
Newark Electronics sells the TC211-M for around US$50.00 See TI's
Array Image Sensor Products data manual for more details.

Toshiba America
Information and Imaging Technologies Group
1010 Johnson Drive
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-6900
tel: 800.253.5429
fax: 708.541.1927
Toshiba IK-M40A high resolution microminiature color camera.
Camera head is 39mm long, 17mm diameter and weighs 16g. 1/2" CCD w/
410,000 pixels, high sensitivity (5 lux at F1.6) and electronic
shutter. RGB output standard. uses cables up to 30m. Several lenses
available. About $2K.
Toshiba also makes a very small C-mount Lens color CCD camera,
the IK-C40A. It is only slight larger than a 30mm cube.

Wintriss Engineering Corp
6342 Ferris Square
San Diego, CA 92121
tel: 619.550.7300
tel: 800.733.8089
Wintriss makes a 2048 pixel line scan camera that can be used
for object imaging, velocity measurement and positioning with multiple
cameras. Can be used to determine spped and trajectory of objects in
flight. This has been used in archery applications. RS485 interface
with 8Mb/sec serial data rate. Can be linked directly with Wintriss
DSP boards for post-processing and communications. Price $1250.

Xillix Technologies Corporation
Suite 200
2339 Colombia Street
Vancouver B.C. V5Y 3Y3
tel: 604.875.6161
fax: 604.872.3356
Specializing in High-res CCD cameras. Product line includes a
12-bit 1317x1035 pixel resolution. Target market has been medical
imaging. Full computer control and compatible with a number of image
capture and display boards.

------------------------------
[10.1.2] Inertial measurement devices and gyros
This includes such devices as accelerometers such as
accelerometers, gyros, and inertial devices used for measuring
orientation or acceleration of moving vehicles. Accelerometers are
devices for measuring the rate of change in velocity and can provide
estimations of distance or be used to detect high forces.

There are several gyros mainly for radio controlled helicopters. These
are rate gyros, used to sense the rate of turn about a particular axis
(usually vertical, for tail rotor control), and are designed to
connect between an R/C receiver and a servo.

These gyros work by modifying the PWM signal that the rx produces,
before it gets to the servo. The sensing is usually done by a linear
hall effect device, which senses the position of a magnet on the
bottom of the flywheel assembly. The gyros have both sensitivity and
gain controls, and some can be switched on and off remotely. They have
been used for sensing rotation about an axis for a VR headset, with
some success. The big advantage is they are relatively cheap, the big
disadvantage is high drift rate.

Andrew Corporation
10500 W. 153rd Street
Orland Park, IL 60462
tel: 708.349.5957
fax: 708.349.5294
Fiber-optic gyro. 77mm diameter by 88mm high. Analog out
porportional to rotation rate. Also digital version available. Rate
+/- 100 degrees/sec. Stable over -40C to +85C. Power 8-13.5VDC at
250mA. Bias drift 0.005 deg/sec (18 deg/hr). 0.63kg $1100.00 for
digital version, $950 for analog.

BEI - Systron Donner
2700 Systron Drive,
Concord, CA 94518-1399
tel: 510.682.6161
fax: 510.671.6590
GyroChip - a very small solid state angular rate sensor. Based
a quartz tuning fork device - all support electronics are included.
Max range available: +/-10 deg/sec to +/-1000 deg/sec. Input +/- 5VDC
Output scale +/- 2.5VDC. Systron Donner also makes a variety of linear
accelerometers and inertial measurement products.
Solid state six axis inertial sensor. It provides analog
signals for 3 axis acceleration and 3 axis rate. The package is
7.5cmx7.5cmx8cm, weighs ~600grams and takes +-15V unreg in (7W). Bias drift
is on the order of 0.005 deg/sec short term (0.1deg/sec long term).
Cost is $12,000 for one or $10,000 for 2-9 (a good single axis
rate gyro usually costs $6K+). Various acceleration and rate range
combinations are available (up to +- 20g). Delivery is about 6wks.
A new Gyrochip two is available as well. Specs aren't quite as good
but it is cheaper.

Gyration Inc.
Saratoga CA
tel: 408.255.3016
fax: 408.255.9075
Sells small vertical and directional gyros for ~$500. These
are standard gimballed gyros, but the drift specs probaly aren't as
good as aircraft-quality gyros. Now also sell innovative computer
pointers and devices termed 'Gyroengines' that provide quadrature
outputs from heading devices. Gyroengines are $3.5K

Honeywell
11601 Roosevelt Blvd
St. Petersburg, FL 33716
tel: 813.579.6604
fax: 813.579.6696
Honeywll manufactures the modular azimuth and postioning
system (MAPS) and utilizes ring-laser gyros. (RLG). The RLG uses two
beams of laser light rotating in opposite directions along a path
within a sealed and enclosed cavity. As the unit changes heading, the
distances the beams travel differ. This difference is can be measured
and is directly related to heading. When combined with linear
accelerometers the unit provides position and orientation. MAPS has an
RS-422 interface, is approx 22x27x38cm and is 20kg. 100W power draw.
[Rad hard and rated for howitzer gunfire!]

Humphrey
[Need Address]
Wide variety of gyro and accelerometer devices.

KVH Industries
110 Enterprise Center
Middletown, RI 02840
tel: 401.847.3327
Nice small well-designed units that provide heading data. About $1K
w/ RS232 adapter.

Lucas NovaSensor
1055 Mission Court
Fremont, CA 94539
tel: 510.490.9100
Lucas makes a 1"x1"x0.5" accelerometer for about $200. Good noise
immunity but fragile.

Murata Erie North America
2200 Lake Park Drive
Smyrna, GA 30080
tel: 800.831.9172
fax: 404.436.3030
Gyrostar piezoelectric vibrating gyroscope. Uses equilateral
triangular prism with PE elements attached to faces of prism. High
precision compared to other vibration gyroscopes. Measures augular
velocity with good linearity. Max augular vel +/- 90 deg/sec, No
hysteresis, 58x25x25mm, 45g, output is DC voltage porportional to
angular rate. 22.2mV/deg/sec scale factor.
Gerhard Weiss has provided some results of experiments with the unit:
location: ag_vp_file_server.informatik.uni-kl.de [131.246.192.2]
directory: /Public/Gerd/Public/
filename: Gyrostar.ps

Pewatron AG
Hertistr. 27
CH-8304 Wallisellen
Swiss
Tel: +41 1 830 29 44
Fax: +41 1 830 51 57
Two-axis Inclinometer. Weight: 2.3gr, voltage: 5V, current:
20mA, dimension: 12 x 12 x 7 mm, Output: 2 analog output. Sine and
cosine for 360 degree, voltage swing: +/- 0.4V, Price: about $100.
Rumored to have a US distributor: Dinsmore. [if you have further info,
please send it to me - nivek]

Summitt Instruments
Ohio
tel: 216.659.3312
Three-axis accelerometer. A tiny cube just under 2.5cm on a
side. Approx $1K

Sundance Model Products
2427 W. Adrian St.
Newbury Park, CA 91320
tel: 805.498.8857
Lists a solid state gyro for model helicopters. The SSG/1 is
38mm x 38mm x 13mm and weighs 43g. Completely solid state with no
motor or moving parts. Claims to draw 10% of the power of a gyro with
moving parts. No drift specs.

Electrolytic tilt sensors or clinometers (not using anything so
nasty as mercury, but a conductive fluid whose resistance across
various electrodes provides an analog signal proportional to tilt
angle). They're not too expensive, although they do tend to have
long settling times (up to a few seconds). A couple of US sources:

The Fredericks Company
tel: 215.947.2500
fax: 215.947.7464

Applied Geomechanics
tel: 408.462.2801
fax: 408.462.4418
The smallest, cheapest model is 5x5x2 cm and about $250. It
has a 5-terminal electrolytic cell that can measure tilt in two axes
to +-20 degrees (optional +-45 degrees). The characteristic "slosh"
frequency is about 10 Hz, and it exhibits sub-second settling times
and a resolution of 0.01 degrees. The output is two analog signals (X
and Y, or Roll and Pitch, if you prefer). It runs off of a 9-volt
battery.

------------------------------
[10.1.3] Rangefinding devices

Principles
There are four basic techniques for distance measurement using electro
magetic radiation.

These are
1 Pulse Timing
2 Phase Comparison
3 Doppler Methods
4 Interferometry

All are used in practice for distance measurement depending on the
particular application.

Pulse timing, as the name suggests, involves measuring the round time
for a signal to be transmitted to a reflective surface and return.

This is the principle used in Radar, DME for aircraft, LORAN,
Satellite Altimetry, Airborne RADAR Altimetry, Lunar Laser Ranging
etc. Some of the newer EDM instruments used by surveyor are also using
pulse timing and accuracies of +/- 5mm are possible. Most of the
military range finders also use pulse timing. The GPS system uses
pulse timing for coarse distance measurement. Very Long Base
Interferometry (VLBI) is also a pulse timing technique where signals
>from pulsars are timed from two or more radio telescopes and the
difference in times of arrival are converted to intercontinental
distances with a precision of a few centimetres.

Phase difference involves the use of a carrier wave which may be
modulated at different wavelengths. By measuring the difference in
phase between the transmitted signal and the received signal after it
has been reflected from the other end of the target, the distance can be
determined as an integer number (unknown) of wavelengths plus a
fraction of a wavelength which is known from the phase comparison. By
using a range of modulation frequencies the ambiguity can be
resolved. There are many applications of this technique. A wide range
of carrier frequencies are used ranging from visible through infra red
to microwave and right down to VLF. Typical instruments used by
surveyors have accuracies of +/-(1to2 mm +1to3 parts per million) and
use infra red as the carrier. Precise positioning using GPS can be
achieved by phase comparison of the carrier wave signals of the
various satellites. Accuracies in position of better than 1 part per
million can be achieved.

Doppler techniques were used in the earlier satellite positioning
systems. The received frequency of a low orbit satellite is compared
with the actual transmitted signal as a function of time. The rate of
change of frequency gives the slant range between the satellite and
the observer while the instant when the two freqencies are the same
gives the point of closest approach. By knowing the orbital parameters
of the satellite which are transmitted, the observers position can be
determined.

Interferometric methods are the same as those used in the original
Michelson Interferometer. It is used for metrology, high precision
distance measurement over short distances (up to 60 metres) and in the
definition of the metre.

There are a variety of laser rangefinding devices that have
been built and used over the past decade for robotics use. The 3D
devices are still large, power hungry and heavy but give very nice
images suitable for fast map building and navigation work. Expect to
pay over $50K for these time-of-flight devices. Most AM Lidars measure
phase shift between outgoing and reflected beams. A mirror system
rasters the beam forming a video-camera-like image. Some devices
supply the reflectance image as well as range which is nice for
corresponding the two. Comprehensive references include:

Electronic Distance Measurement by JM Rueger, Springer-Verlag

P. Besl, ``Active, Optical Range Imaging Sensors'', Machine Vision and
Applications, v. 1, p. 127-152, 1988.

A longer version of Besl's paper appears in ``Advances in Machine
Vision: Architectures and Applications'', J. Sanz (ed.),
Springer-Verlag, 1988.

Other good surveys are Ray Jarvis' article in IEEE TPAMI v5n2 and
Nitzan's article in IEEE PAMI v10n2.

A good report on the characterization of a particular scanner is:

Experimental Characterization of the Perceptron Laser Rangefinder, In
So Kweon, Regis Hoffman, and Eric Krotkov. Carnegie Mellon University
Technical Report, CMU-RI-TR-91-1. 1991.

M. Hebert and E. Krotkov. 3-D Measurements from Imaging Laser Radars:
How Good Are They? Int. Journal of Image and Vision Computing,
10(3):170-178, April 1992

International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 13, No. 4,
Aug. 1994, pp 305-314. {get title}

A number of laboratory works have also demonstrated FM or chirp
systems which can be highly accurate (e.g. high resolution elevation
maps of coins) but these are very specialized and I don`t know of
commercial devices currently.

-----
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL)
contact: Narinder Bains (nbains@bart.candu.aecl.ca)
net: 905.823.9040 x6120
Laser Eye ranging system. It consists of a robotic head with a
combined vision / range sensor. The sensor provides colour images and
distance to an object in the centre of the camera field of view. There
is of course software to process images from the camera and detect a
target, to control the head, communication, nice GUIs, etc. Is being
used for vehicle navigation.

>From the head position you get the bearing to the target and the
rangefinder provides you with the distance. Angular resolution is
better than 0.05 degree, the distance can be measured up to 100m with
accuracy of ~5 cm. Note that the range measurement is 1D along the
camera axis.

The cost of the vision system and complexity of the software depends
on your specific application: how difficult is it to detect and track
your vehicle, how fast is it moving, is it possible to use special
markers, is illumination constant, etc.

-----
BCT GmbH
Martin-Schmeisser-Weg 9
D-44227 Dortmund
BCT in Germany makes laser-3D-scanners with a CAD-interface

-----
ERIM (Environmental Research Institute of Michigan)
ERIM has built a number of custom AM laser rangefinders
including those used in the ALV (Autonomous Land Vehicle) program. CMU
and Martin Marietta have both used this systems in extensive work.
Basic system was a 128x64 2fps 20m (ambiguity interval) system.

-----
Erwin Sick GmbH.
UK:
Erwin Sick
Optic-Electronic Ltd.
Waldrich House
39 Hedley Road
St. Albans
Herfordshire AL1 5BN
tel: 0727/831121
fax: 0727/856767
PLS-100: This device measures distance by TOF from 4 cm up to 80 m,
guaranteed range of 4 m (at a black lether target), is eye-safe (IEC
Class 1), takes a 180 degree scan in 20 ms, total 25 scans a second,
angle resolution 0.5 degree (361 scan points in a scan). This device
is build in a industrial IP65 case. And it is rather cheap (6.900,- DM
+ VAT, in Germany).

-----
ESP Technologies
21 LeParc Drive
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
tel: 609.275.0356
fax: 609.275.0356
$15K LED based IR ranging system. 15cm diameter rotating scanning
device with collimated LED light beam that uses phase differences to
calculate distance. Range 0.6 to 6m. 2.5cm resolution, 15cm accuracy.
1Khz update rate

-----
Hammamatsu Corp.
New Jersey
tel: 908.231.0960
fax: 908.231.1539
Hamamatsu S4282 Light Modulation Photo IC The size of a normal
transistor (approx 1/4" square). It has 4 leads, Vcc, Gnd, Vout,
LED. All you do is attach an IR LED to the LED lead to give you an
instant IR proximity detector (the photo diode detector is built into
the part). Two can be aimed at each other and they won't interfere
since they'll be out of phase. They have another model with a lens
over the photo diode that is claimed could be used up to 30 feet!
Hammamatsu also sells a number of photo sensors like color sensors,
position sensitive detectors, pyroelectric sensors.
S4282-11 short range $7.75 single unit
S4282-72 long range $19.00 single unit

-----
IBEO Lasertechnik
Ingenieurburo fur
Elektronik + Optik
Fahrenkron 125
D 2000 Hamburg 71
tel: 040 645 87 - 01
fax: 040 645 87 - 101
2D and 3D laser scanners. 8frame/sec, 220 degree view, 4600
points/sec. Accuracy +/- 20mm (1 sigma) from 0.5 - 500? 24W power.
System specs can be configured for variety of applications

-----
LaserMax
Rochester, NY
tel: 716.272.5420
Manufactures semiconductor laser diode packages and cylindrical
lenses. Packages and small and rugged.

-----
Odetics
1515 South Manchester Ave
Anaheim, CA 92802-2907
tel: 714.758.0300
Odetics has made a number of smaller laser scanners. That is, smaller
than their larger ERIM and Perceptron brethren. I have not heard any
independent reviews of the product however.

-----
Origin Instruments
854 Greenview Drive
Grand Praire, TX 750750-2438
tel: 214.606.8740
fax: 214.606.8741
The Dynasight sensor is a 3-D optical radar that provides real-time
3-D measurements of passive targets with sub-millimeter resolution.
Automatic search and track is provided, eye-safe operation and no
adjustments or alignment required. Original application was head
tracking of computer users but end- effector tracking is also viable.
Operatin range depends on target size 0.1-1.5m for 7mm target, 0.3-4m
for 25mm target and 1 to 6m for 75mm targets. RS-232 interface.
Accuracies 1mm cross range and 4mm down range, resolutions 0.1mm cross
range and 0.4mm down range.

A number of labs have built light stripe devices using projected light
LCD shutters and laser line projectors determine distance through
geometry (as opposed to directly measuring distance through
time-of-flight means) One common need is that of generating the laser
line.

-----
Perceptron
23855 Research Drive
Farmington Hills, MI 48335-2643
tel: 313.478.7710
tel: 800.333.7753
fax: 313.478.7059
A spin-off of ERIM, Perceptron has also built a number of
AM laser rangefinders. CMU and Caterpillar have used these for map
building and obstacle avoidance work in rough terrain navigation.
LASAR product - provides range and reflectance. Programmable
field of view (15 to 60 deg) Vertical viewing angle from 3 to 72
degrees. Depth of field from 2 to 40 meters. Up to 1024 x 2048 pixels
per image (programmable) and 360,000 pixels/second data acquisition.
VME and PC-compatible interface cards available. Windows software
provides starting point for custom applications. Less than $50K with a
variety of performance and interface options.

-----
Riegl Laser Measurement Systems
[company HQ is Dr. Johannes Riegl GmbH, 85 km, NW of Vienna, Austria]
Riegl USA
8516 Old Winter Garden Road
Suite 101
Orlando, FL 32835
tel: 407.294.2799
fax: 407.294.3215
Laser range finders, laser speed sensors, laser distance
meters, motor scanners, laser radar systems. Pulsed laser devices. One
of the neatest is the Laser Scout, which gives range, azimuth and
inclination to the target and can be used with GPS to give position
coordinates of the device you are pointing at. $10K. Accuracy up to
+/- 10cm (depending on model)
Laser Radar Scanner (LRS 90-3) is a 1D scanner with 36 deg
field of view and a +/- 3cm accuracy. 2-80m distance, $10K. There are
several other distance models as well.

-----
Schwarz Electro-Optics
3404 N. Orange Blossom Trail
Orlando, FL 32804
tel: 407.298.1802
fax: 407.297.1794
Schwarz makes some very nice point range laser ranging devices. These
devices are slightly bigger than a soda can. About $6-12K. CMU
experience for use in simulated unmanned air vehicle platform worked
well. Their MARS (marine angle range system) is a rotating laser
device that reflects off targets in the environment. Max range up to
1000meters using corner prisms. Accuracy +/- 1m. Erebus (Dante)
Scanner used Schwarz device as base.

------------------------------
[10.1.4] Force/torque, accelerometers, tactile

Force measurement provides indications of magnitude and direction of
forces for use in manipulation or locomotion. A variety of control
schemes have been implemented in force controlled systems to allow
smooth and accurate control in situations that would otherwise be
precluded without such devices. A number of load cells and
acceleration measuring devices are described here:

Rich Voyles embarked on a force/torque sensor comparison many months ago and
compiled some of the results in a paper that is available via Mosaic
or anonymous ftp.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/deadslug/ftp/home.html

ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/usr/anon/user/deadslug/ft.sensor.ps.Z

The paper is woefully incomplete. The JR3 sensor we borrowed
was broken so we borrowed another and got limited data. The
old Lord data collection is incomplete and the Assurance
Technologies data is not fully included in the report. There
is some data from California Cybernetics. If there is
sufficient interest, we can finish the compilation.

By the way, we only seek to provide the data we gathered an
make no claims as to its accuracy or completeness. Use at your
own risk. The opinions expressed do not represent those of
Carnegie Mellon University nor any of its sponsors.

Send e-mail to robodude@cmu.edu with the subject "More Force
Data" if you read the report and would like to see it
expanded. Any other comments can be put in the body.

-Richard Voyles

-----
Analog Devices
tel: 617.937.1426
Analog Devices have the ADXL50 accelerometer which comes in a 10-pin
TO-5 can. It is primarily used with air-bags and has a 1994 projected
price of $5 in quantities. In the Electronic Design August 8, 1991
issue it quoted the current price as $21.75 for 1000 off quantities.
Analog Devices ADXL50 accelerometer.
Power Supply........................... +5V (+/- 5%)
Measurement Range...................... +/- 50g
Pre-Amp Zero-g output level............ +1.8V
Pre-Amp output span.................... +1.8V (+/-1.2V) at +/-50g
Uncommitted amp output range........... +0.25V to +4.75V
Overall Accuracy....................... 5% of Full Scale
Linearity.............................. 0.5% of Full Scale
Bandwidth.............................. DC to 1kHz
Voltage Noise (p-p)
at BW = 0.3kHz..................... +/-0.24% of Full Scale
at BW = 1.0kHz..................... +/-0.48% of Full Scale
Transverse Sensitivity................. 2%
Unpowered Shock Survival............... 2000g

Assurance Technologies (ATI)
(formerly Lord Industrial Automation)
503D Highway 70 East
Garner, North Carolina 27529
tel: 919.772.0115
fax: 919.772.8259
Largest supplier of multi-axis force sensors. Use silicon rather than
foil strain gages for lower strain levels and increased life. F/T
sensor ratings from +/- 15lbs to +/- 150lbs (+/- 15 in-lbs to +/- 600
in-lbs) weights are 0.4 and 2.2 lbs for the 4 available sensors.
Serial or parallel digital interface or analog interface. ATI also
makes robotic tool-changers and an RCC device for assembly operations.
An ATI sensor is also incorporated in the Hughes SMARTee end-effector.

Bonneville Scientific
1849 W. No. Temple, Bldg E.
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
tel: 801.359.0402
fax: 801.359.0416
Array sensor system that uses PVDF ultrasonic
emmitter/detector attached to an elastomer material. Time-of-flight of
the pulse as it bounces off of other side of the material is
porportional to distance through the elastomer. The distance is
porportional the pressure on the pad. Bonneville claims it can be made
thin enough for a skin and they have pictures of it being used on a
robot finger picking up a washer which can be recognized on their
output graphics. Example product:
Model 300 - 16x16 tactile sensor system - $5K
TOF resolution - 12.5 ns
Sheet thickness resolution - 6 microns
Pressure resolution - 0.5 psi (3.4 kPa)
Force resolution - 1g
Rubber linearity - 5-15% deviation
Overload - > 1000PSI (7000kPa)
Spatial resolution - 1.8mm
Scan rate on 16x16 pad - 240 Hz
An evaluation kit is available SE-1 Evaluation Kit - $99.00 includes
SE-1 sensor and electronics. SE-1 Sensor is $42 in single quantity.

California Cybernetics
10322 Sherman Grove
Sunland, CA 91040
tel: 818.353.5991
fax: 818.951.3889
Six DOF F-T devices. Up to 1000Hz sampling rate, reportedly easy to
interface.

Cybernet
1919 Green Road
Suite B-101
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
tel: 313.668.2567
fax: 313.668.8780
net:
PER-force - A 6dof compact force-reflecting controller. Can be used
for teleoperationor interactive graphics applications.

Ercon
Need addresses
Somewhere in MA
Conductive rubber and conductive inks. You build a semi-rigid
circuit board with inter-digitated fingers to apply to one side of the
rubber. The rubber has a rough surface that under increasing load
allows more rubber to contact. They can make rubber with all sorts of
conductive properties.

Force Imaging
3424 Touhy Avenue
Chicago, IL 60645-2717
tel: 708.674.7665
tel: 800.348.3240
fax: 708.674.6355
Uniforce Force Sensors. They function similiar to a variable
resistor in an electrical circuit. As a force is exerted on the
sensor, the two layers of pressure sensitive material compress
together and cause a change in resistance which corresponds to a
change in pressure. As force increases, resistance decreases.
A Uniforce experimenters kit is available for $550 and
includes PC-AT card, cables, software, manual and nine Uniforce
sensors in three force ranges. They have ISA boards, PCMCIA version
and a PPIO version as well. Sensors available in ranges from 0-500g to
0-400kg. Uniforce sensors can be provided in a wide variety of shapes,
sizes and force ranges. Software is also available to display force
values in real-time.

Hughes STX
4400 Forbes Blvd
Lanham, MD 20706
tel: 301.794.5016
fax: 301.306.0963
A 6-dof end-effector with automatic load sensing and compensation.
Control modes include position control (cartesian with user spec-ed
poses and frames), impedence and force control modes. Programmable
behaviors (sliding, hinge, move-to-touch, guarded move, follow etc),
open architecture (VxWorks, VME, user-linakable libraries) and a lot
more. Interfaces available included RS-232, ethernet, RS-422 and SCSI.
Pretty amazing end-effector!

Interlink Electronics
1110 Mark Ave.
Carpinteria, CA 93013
tel: 805.484.8855
805.484.1331 (product support)
fax: 805.484.8989
Force Sensing resistors made from polymer thick films. Very
thin. Response is approx. 1/R to force. Article in March 1993 issue
of Electronics Now/Radio Electronics.

JR3
22 Harter Avenue
Woodland, CA 95695
tel: 916.661.3677
6-DOF force-torque sensors. Strain gage technology. Newer packages
have all electronics built into the sensor. Make some high-force
devices as well. CMU's Ambler used JR3's on all the feet with good
success. Complete force torque data at 8Khz, signal digitization
within sensor body, low noise susceptibility, synch serial at 2MHz,
inexpensive cabling.

Merritt Systems, Inc.
P.O. Box 2103
Merritt Island, FL 32954-2103
Contact: Dr. Dan Wegerif
tel: 407.452.7828
MSI is involved in the development of "Whole-Arm Sensor
Technology" under 2 NASA Phase II SBIR's. Their proximity sensing
technology is based on IR arrays which they call "SensorCells". It
allows the use of IR, acoustic and capacitive (under-development)
sensors in the same sensor skin.

Silicon Designs, Inc.
1445-NW Mall Street
Issaquah, WA. 98027-5344
Tel: (206) 391-8329
Fax: (206) 391-0446
Silicon Designs makes capacitive accelerometers.
Model 1010, Digital output:
Produces Digital pulse train in which the density of pulses
(number of pulses a second) is proprtional to applied acceleration.
It operates with a single +5 volt power supply and requires a clock of
100kHz - 1MHz. The output is ratiometric to the clock frequency and
independent of the power supply voltage. Two forms of digital signals
are provided for direct interfacing to a microprocessor or counter.
This devices comes in a PLCC package that is smaller than a penny.

Model 1210, Analog output:
Provides two analog outputs, 1-4 volts, or 4-1 volt, with O g's at
2.5 volts. The outputs can be used either differentially or single
ended referenced to 2.5 volts. Two reference voltages--+5.0 and +2.5
volts (nominal)-- are required; the output scale factor is ratiometric
to the +5 volt reference voltage.

Prices start at about $100 and they offer a digital accelerometer
evaluation board for $200.

Silicon Microstructures, Inc.
46725 Fremont Boulevard
Fremont CA. 94538
tel: 510.490.5010
fax: 510.490.1119
Model 7170 series and 7130 series capacitive accelerometers.
These are relatively large devices with built in ASIC signal
processing. They have very good accuracy specs and are
pre-calibrated. They also make pressure sensors.

Spectra Symbol
3101 West 2100 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84119
Bend sensor for glove device. Their business is custom
membrane controls: switches, membrane potentiometers, and the bend
sensors.

------------------------------
[10.1.5] Sonar sensors
The time it takes for an acoustic pulse to propagate through
air or water, reflect from the environment and return to a detector is
porportional to the distance.
Acoustic time-of-flight devices have been around for awhile
now. The ubiquitous Polaroid device is cheap and easily integrated and
has has found wide use in robotic devices. Other companies have
developed nice complete turnkey sonar devices though and Polaroid is
no longer the only choice.

Polaroid
119 Windsor St,
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: 617.577.4681
fax: 617.577.3213
tel: 800.225.1000 ordering
tel: 800.225.1618 technical assistance
Polaroid Ultrasonic Components Group offers two ultrasonic ranging kits:
Specs:
Distance range: 0.26 to 10.7 meters
Resolution: Nominal +- 3mm to 3m, +-1% over entire range
Sonar acceptance angle: approx. 20 degrees
Power Requirement: 6VDC, 2.5 Amps (1 ms pulse), 150mA quiescent
Weight: Transducer, 8.2gm, Ranging module, 18.4 gm
Designer's Kit:
1 transducer, 1 ranging module, electronics display accurate
to 1/10th meter. Cost is $169
OEM kit:
2 transducers, 2 ranging modules. $99.
NEW Piezotransducer kit
2.5cm-1500cm +/- 1%, RS-232 port and analog output, extra real
estate, $299

This section describes a simple addition to the drive circuitry, the
Polaroid ranging system can detect objects as close as 10cm.

The board has two extra signals: BLNK and BINH. Asserting BLNK
(driving it HIGH) resets the ECHO RS-latch, and asserting BINH
shortens the internal blanking interval (which is 2.38 ms by default).
Thus, the solution would seem to lie in asserting BINH after a
reasonable amount of time (< 2.38 ms after asserting INIT) to detect
objects closer than 1.3 feet. This doesn't work very well because
BINH is very susceptable to noise, and attaching a driver to it wreaks
havoc possibly because of the anomalous current sink during the
transmit phase. This can be fixed by asserting BLNK during the
blanking period (ie the new blanking period) while negating BINH and
asserting BIHN after the blanking period while negating BLNK. This
can be done easily with a one-shot or some other timing device (eg
computer timer, etc).

A computer timer can be used. The timer goes HIGH tblank ms after INIT
is asserted, where tblank=0.15*dist and dist is the threshold distance
in inches). The timer output goes to BINH and the inverted timer
output goes to BLNK. The timer output should be inverted with an
LS/TTL inverter to delay the negation of BLNK, otherwise the RS latch
may do weird things.
[From Richard LeGrand]

Siemans - nice complete sensor package, 5 degree cone angle

Massa - components

Texas Instruments
Type SN28827 Sonar Ranging Module
See TI Applications Notes D2780
Under $50, needs only 5VDC
Not sure if these units are still manufactured but they are often in
surplus catalogs.

------------------------------
[10.1.6] Pan/Tilt devices
A common robotic need. Most pan-tilts sold today by companies
such as Pelco and Vicon are for CCTV applications for continuous
scanning or remote operation. At most these will have potentiometers
for feedback. A number of undersea companies make pan-tilt devices as
well that are rugged and nicely packaged, but these tend to be heavier
and more expensive than their terrestrial counterparts.

-----
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL)
contact: Narinder Bains (nbains@bart.candu.aecl.ca)
net: 905.823.9040 x6120
P02 pan/tilt head. High speed with digital servos (120
deg/sec), encoders and continuous rotation. Controller as well.

-----
Brooks Support Systems
Williamson, NY
tel: 800-836-0285
contact: Frank Dickey
BSS makes a small pan/tilt unit:
4.5" high by 3.5" wide x 3.5" long
40 oz.
12V dc
operating current 150 mA
pan 359 degrees
tilts 160 degrees
Price: $3100

-----
CameraMan
CameraMan is a pan/tilt device built to support any camcorder
and has a wireless interface to an external remote control. 360 deg
pan and 50 deg of tilt. The unit is made by ParkerVision and sold
through Columbia AudioVideo (and probably other suppliers)

-----
CCTV Corporation
315 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013
tel: 800.221.2240
fax: 212.463.9758
Standard CCTV pan-tilt devices like those from Vicon and
others. Inexpensive but no computer control. $557 - $1400

-----
Directed Perception
1451 Capuchino Avenue,
Burlingame, CA 94010
tel: 415.342.9399
Small computer controlled pan-tilt unit Model PTU-46-17.5
Weighs 1kg and can support ~1.5kg camera payload. Very nice specs:
330 deg/sec slew, 3.06 arcmin accuracy, on-the-fly position and speed
changes. 11-40VDC unregulated power input, RS-232 interface. Can use
RS-485 using RJ-11 to provide control of multiple PT units. Cost:
$1935 Includes PT unit, controller, cable and power supply.
$1800 w/o power supply.

-----
Emco Intertest Inc
27-1 Ironia Road
Flanders, NJ 07836
tel: 201.927.2900
fax: 201.927.8004
MicroPan PTX-400 very small P/T designed for remote viewing
with micro-CCD cameras. Weight 115g. Height under 7cm.

-----
Fujinon
10 High Point Drive
Wayne, NJ 07470
tel: 201.633.5600
fax: 201.633.5216
Fujinon CPT-10. 300 deg pan, =/- 95deg tilt. 15 deg/sec speed.
2kg. Payload 4kg. Analog input control.

-----
Omniview
tel: 615.690.5600
Instead of a conventional camera, you use one with a very wide
fish-eye lens. The (very distorted) image is then sent thru a box
that digitizes and processes the data in order to simulate a regular
camera. You can (completely in software) pan, tilt, rotate, and zoom
the image with great flexibility. $10K.

-----
Photosea
6377 Nancy Ridge Drive
San Diego, CA 92121
tel: 619.452.8903
Underwater pan-tilts including Cobra, very small design.

-----
Remote Ocean Systems
5111-L Santa Fe Street
San Diego, CA 92109
tel: 619.483.3902
fax: 619.483.2407
Underwater P/T systems, expensive but very nicely packaged. PT-5 is
a new subminature P/T device that can accomodate a small CCD color
camera and mini wet&dry lights. The P/T is 13.5cm high and 10cm wide.
Uses small brushless motors with harmonic drives. Radiation tolerant
and corrosion resistant. 360 scan on both axes.

-----
RSI Research Ltd.
Pacific Marine Technology Center
#3-203 Harbour Road
Victoria, BC. CANADA V9A 3S2
(604) 360-1025 FAX: (604) 360-1161
Underwater Pan/tilt devices.

-----
Telemetrics
Hawthorne, NJ
tel: 201.423.0347
Computer controlled P/T devices - fairly large though.

-----
TeleRobotics International, Inc.
7325 Oak Ridge Hwy Suite 104
Knoxville, TN 37931
tel: 615.690.5600
fax: 615.690.2913
An all-electronic pan/tilt/zoom resampler. That is, they put a box
behind a camera with a fish-eye lens. The box has digital inputs for
pan, tilt, zoom, rotation. The box resamples the video signal and
produces an output as though the image were acquired by a camera with
those parameters. Used as an alternative to pan/tilt devices.

-----
Zebra Kinesis
(spin-off of Zebra Robotics)
Jeff Kerr
tel: 415.328.8884
Small Pan/tilt head.

------------------------------
[10.1.7] Measuring robot position

How do I measure the postion of my arm/mobile robot/thing?

In many applications there is a need to accurately measure the
position of an end-effector (hand or gripper) or find coordinate
locations on objects, or track motion, or give a time and position
history of a moving object. Virtual reality applications need this
kind of device to provide realtime adjustments to views that are
projected to VR users. See news:sci.virtual-worlds for discussions on this
topic. Robotics people have needed this to provide accurate
assessments of manipulator motions and mobile robot positions.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is an excellent positioning system
that is useful in outdoor settings, although recent developments in
Psuedolites (Pseudo Satellities) may bring GPS technology indoors and
to urban envrionments. While accuracy is intentionally degraded by the
US Military recent advances in differential systems and innovative
tracking techniques can give 20cm real-time accuracy. Even newer
techniques such as carrier-phase are bringing this figure into the mm
range for real-time. See news:sci.geo.satellite-nav for full
discussions of this technology.

Papers:

Useful papers to solve for transforms from positioning devices for
multiple reference frames:

Roger Tsai and Rainer Lenz, IEEE Trans. on Robotics and Automation,
Jun 1989.

C. C. Wang, IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, April 1992.

Useful papers for evaluating 3 ad 6 DOF human input devices:

Shumin Zhai, Investigation of Feel for 6 DOF Inputs: Isometric and
Elastic Rate Control for Manipulation in 3D Environments, Proc. Human
Factors and Ergonomics Society 37th Annual Meeting,Seattle, WA,
October 1993.

Shumin Zhai and Paul Milgram, Human Performance Evalulation of
Manipulation Schemes in Virtual Environments", Proc. Virtual Reality
Annual International Symposium, IEEE, Seattle, WA, September 1993.

Shumin Zhai and Paul Milgram, Human Performance Evalulation of Isometric and Elastic Rate Controllers in a 6 DOF Tracking Task, Proc. SPIE vol. 2057, Telemanipulator Technology", Boston, MA, September 1993.

Commercial Devices:

-----
Blevins Enterprises
tel: 208-885-3805
contact: Nick Sewell
Blevins writes their own utilities and sell 3D digitizers
starting @ around $2,400 on up to around $75,000. Software is
compatible with Lightwave and 3D Studio modelling programs and will be
ported to SGI and PC's soon. Provide software to talk with Polhemus, a
sonic digitizer and a jointed-arm unit from Immersion.

-----
Cyberware
8 Harris Court 3D
Monterey, CA 93940
tel: 408.373.1441
fax: 408.373.3582

Italian distributor:
91-22-6409-949
Has 3D scanner. Cyberware has software for editing 3D models,
and stitching multiple scans into a single coherent whole. Software
is $5-10K each. Cyberware 3030RGB/HIREZ scanner with MM motion
platform, complete with all software, training and one-year support
costs [US] $75,200.

-----
Intelligent Solutions Inc.
One Endicott Avenue
Marblehead, MA 01945
tel: 617.639.8144
fax: 617.639.8144
net: isi@world.std.com
contact: Jim Maddox
Intelligent Solutions Inc. was formed in Nov. of 1993 by four of the
former engineers of Denning Mobile Robotics. They are focusing on building
smart sensors and their first product is the EZNav Position Sensor.
EZNav is a precision optical position sensor that can be used
on moving platforms such as automated guided vehicles, robots, or
material handling equipment. EZNav uses an eye safe scanning laser
with a 360 degree field of view to measure the azimuth angle to wall
mounted reference reflectors. This angle data can be used to
triangulate the position and heading relative to the known target
locations. EZNav is unique in its ability to use passive reflectors
as well as coded electronic targets. Current work includes adding
the triangulation calculations to the EZNav sensor and a new
Ultrasonic based position sensor.
Specs:
Target Range 30m passive up to 180m active
Abs. Accuracy +/- 0.03 degrees RMS
Scan Rate 12 per second
Data Rate 9.6k baud RS 232
Power 24 volts at 300 ma
Size 30cm Dia x 35cm High
Weight 4.5kg
An EZNav sensor with 10 passive targets costs $6,600. There
is a ten percent discount for educational uses.

-----
Polhemus Inc.
tel: 802.655.3139
fax: 802.655.1439
Burlington, VT
3Space, Isotrak, FasTrak:
Electromagnetic devices for sensing xyz and rotations
remotely. Limited to 1m or so radius. Sensitive to metallic objects
in vicinity. Approx $3k

-----
Ascension Technology Corporation
PO Box 527
Burlington VT 05402 USA
tel: 802.860.6440
fax: 802.860.6439
net: ascen@world.std.com
Sales: Jack Scully
Technical Support: Steven Work
Product is called Flock of Birds. A 6d0f measuring device.

Ftp site is ftp://ftp.std.com/ftp/vendors/Ascension/
gen_lit.txt - Contains general literature on 6D motion tracking
system. Accuracy Specifications, comments from prominent
users, list of 3rd party software vendors, FAQ on
tracking system, etc. Ascii text.
tecpaper.wp6 - Technical Description of Flock of Birds (TM) 6D
tracking system. In Binary WordPerfect 6.0 format.
userware.zip - Latest version of our User Software, including source
code. Enjoy. pkzipped binary file.
manual.wp6 - Latest version of our User Manual. In Binary
WordPerfect 6.0 format.
readme.txt - more info on files located in Ascension's FTP
directory. Ascii text.

Sensitivity to metal is claimed to be on the order 5 to 10 times less
than Polhemus tracker. Range and specifications are much better as
well.

The Ascension Flock of Birds tracker is DC pulsed, where the Polhemus
is AC magnetic field. The AC field set up standing waves in metal
(conduction and ferris) which magnify the distortion effect.

Charts provided by Acension:

KEY PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS OF ASCENSION & POLHEMUS TRACKING DEVICES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parameter Ascension Polhemus Polhemus
Flock of Birds Isotrak II Fastrak
Measurement Rate
(Measurements/sec)
1 Receiver 144 60 120
2 Receivers 144 30 60
@ Max Number of Rcvrs 144 30 30
Maximum Number of Receivers 30 2 32
Number of Transmitters to 1 1 4
Support Max Number of Receivers
Maximum Data Output Rate 312K 115K 115K
(Baud or Bytes)
Lag Increase with Multiple No Yes Yes
Receivers**
Range - Standard Transmitter 3' 5'* 10'*
- Extended Transmitter 8' N/A N/A
Accuracy Degradation Due to:
Conductive Metals Low High High
Stainless Steel None High High
(300 series)
CRT Interference Rejection Yes No Yes
LCD Noise Susceptability No Yes Yes
Unit Cost (1 Receiver) $2,695 $2,875 $5,750

* Note 1: Polhemus specifies range at maximum transmitter-sensor
separation distances. At these ranges, outputs will contain significant
amounts of noise, which may render their measurements worthless. We
will provide you with a number of references who have independently
assessed actual range performance of both Ascension and Polhemus trackers.

** Note 2: For a complete discussion of latency in competitive motion
trackers, contact Ascension.

Specifications:
Technical
Translation range: plus or minus 3'(8' optional) in any direction
Angular range: plus of minuw 180 degrees Azimuth & Roll
plus or minus 90 degrees Elevation
Translation accuracy: 0.1" RMS
Translation resolution: 0.03"
Angular accuracy 0.5 degrees RMS
Angular resolution 0.1 degrees RMS @ 12"
Update rate: Up to 144 measurements/second
Outputs: X,Y,Z positional coordinates and orientation
angles or rotation matrix
Interface: RS-232C with selectable baud rates to 115,200; or
RS-422/485 with selectable baud rates to 310,000
Format: Binary
Modes: Point or stream
Physical
Transmitter: 3.75-inch cube (internally mounted in Enclosure or
externally mounted with 10' cable) or extended range
transmitter option: 12-inch cube externally mounte with
20' cable
Receiver: 1.0" x 1.0" x 0.8" cube (or optional 3-button mouse)
with 10' or 25' cable
Enclosure: 9.5" x 11.5" x 2.6"
Power: User provided or optional external plug-in: US/European
version
Environment: Large metallic objects in operating volume may degrade
performance

-----
RSI Research Ltd.
Pacific Marine Technology Center
#3-203 Harbour Road
Victoria, BC. CANADA V9A 3S2
tel: 604.360.1025
fax: 604.360.1161
RSI Research makes a 6 DOF joystick. It has a medium workspace
(about 10 cm radius) and several buttons.

-----
Shooting Star Technology
1921 Holdom Avenue
Burnaby, B.C.
Canada V5B 3W4
tel: 604.298.8574
fax: 604.298.8580
ADL-1 6DOF tracker. Gives position/orientation measurements up
to 240 times/second, with low latency (0.35 to 1.88 milliseconds.)

-----
Abrams-Gentile Entertainment, Inc.,
244 West 54th Street,
9th Floor, New York, NY 10019
tel: 212.757.0700.
Mattel marketed the PowerGlove for use in gaming
(Nintendo). It tracked finger motions through small bend sensors. The
Mattel PowerGlove was developed by Abrams-Gentile. The sensors
themselves are simple resistors varying from about 200K to 500K ohms
depending on the amount of flex.

-----
Denning Branch International Robotics
1401 Ridge Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
tel: (412) 322-4412
fax: (412) 322-2040
email: Soon. Messages to hpm@cs.cmu.edu will be forwarded.
Denning-Branch is a merger of Denning Mobile Robotics, once
located in the Boston area, and makers of human-size mobile
robots since 1983, and Branch and Associates, of Hobart,
Australia, designers and builders of smaller mobile robots
since 1979.
LaserNav
Robot-mounted scanning infrared laser unit that uses wall
mounted bar-coded retroreflectors or active transponders to navigate
to centimeter precision in 10-meter-scale areas. $8K

-----
Guidance Control Systems
44 Hidcote Road, Leicester
011 44 455 822 441 ext 3808
fax 011 44 455 824 551
Contact: Malcolm Roberts
GCS's core group developed the rotating scanner and passive
target system. Featured in several papers out of Oxford. Caterpillar
has North American rights for materials handling applications. Uses
passive targets with barcodes. Targets have unique ID's and surveyed
positions. Rotating laser gives angles between targets. Target
positions combined with angles gives vehicle position and heading. 2Hz
scan rate but clever use of dead reckoned information and kalman
filtering can give very impressive results.

-----
MacLeod Technologies
315 Littleton Rd.
Chelmsford, MA 01824
tel: 508.250.4949
Update speed: 20 hz
position accuracy: +/-0.05inches (1.27 mm)
direction accuracy: +/- 0.05 degrees
3 D reference points cover 1 acre
1D, 2D or 3D feedback
Cost: About $5K for positioning system
They claim to be able to get this kind of accuracy even while
the robot is moving at several meters/sec.

-----
Selspot Systems Ltd
1233 Chicago Road
Troy, MI 48083
tel: 313.583.6940
fax: 313.583.1746
In Sweden:
tel: +46-31-878110
fax: +46-31-278992
Two camera system registers 3D position of IR LED's at very
high rates. Selspots Robot Check System can provide non-contact 3D
measurement and analysis of robot motion at 500 Hz rate. System has
been used for over 20 years. Used in motion studies for people,
animals and robots.

-----
Qualisys AB
Ogardesvagen 4
S-433 30 Partille
Sweden
MacReflex system uses CCD-based cameras for non-contacting
measurement of robots. Two camera system is typical. Uses small
passive targets and IR LED's colocated with the cameras lens. Video
processor calculates centroid of markers and displays in
real-time. Information is used to provide data and analysis of
position, velocity, acceleration, angles, angle velocity and
acceleration and position vs. time. Specs: Noise level 1:200000,
Resolution 1:70000, Relative accuracy: 1:30000, and absolute accuracy
1:10000. Accuracy is defined as standard deviation of difference
between measured and true positions/longest diagonal in measurement
volume.
Qualisys
41C New London Turnpike
Glastonbury, CT 06033
tel: 203.657.3585
fax: 203.657.3595
Selspot is marketed by:
Innovision Systems
30521 Schoenherr, Ste 104
Warren, MI 48093
tel: 313.751.0600
fax: 313.573.9845

Coordinate Measuring Machines are now widely used for process control,
statistical monitoring, entering 3D from a physical part into a CAD
system and many other uses. CMM's tend to be large and expensive.

-----
Supraporte Inc
5145-I Avenida Encinas, Carlsbad, CA 92008
Portable 6-axis measuring system. Model 2000
now available with battery power pack.
Very accurate. Very expensive.

-----
Faro
125 Technology Park
Lake Mary, FL 32746-6204
tel: 800.736.6063
tel: 407.333.9911
fax: 407.333.4181
Metrecom: 6DOF articulated pointer, like a portable CMM.
Endpoint accuracies are around .005" -> .025", depending on model.
Counterbalnaced design. Three models from 1.8m to 2.4m reach and
accuracies ranging from +/- .635mm to .127mm and prices from $14.4K to
$51.4K respectively.

-----
Cheasapeake Laser Systems
222 Gale Lane
Kennett Square, PA 19348
tel: 215.444.2300
fax: 215.444.2323
Laser metrology systems. CMS-3000 is a servo controlled
tracking laser interferometer measureing tool. The tracker follows a
retroreflective target whil providing real-time coordinate information
of the retro center location. Position of the target is provided in
XYZ coordinates via linear distance and two high accuracy angular
encoders. CMS-3000 can provide measurements over a large volume. 30m
radial, > 110 degrees elevation, > 270 horizontal. Down to 0.6 micron
resolution, 2 parts in 10^5 accuracy for range. (1m/sec tracking) up
to 6m/sec tracking at 5 micron resolution. Lightweight and cost
effective versus CMM's and offers speed and accuracy advantages over
theodolites and photogrammetry equipment. System can be leased by
hour/week/month. About $180K to buy.

------------------------------
[10.1.8] Measuring linear motion
There are very few devices to directly give absolute position
for linear motions. Often rack and pinion drives are combined with
geared rotary encoders to give absolute position. Here are some
manufacturers of Magneorestrictive sensors for measuring absolute
linear position. Accuracy is usually around 0.05% of full
scale. Futaba also makes an absolute linear position glass scale
device.

Gemco Magnetek
1080 N. Crooks Road
Clawson, MI 48017-1097
tel: 313.435.0700
fax: 313.435.8120

Balluff
PO Box 937
8125 Holton Drive
Florence, KY 41042
tel: 800.543.8390
fax: 606.727.4823

MTS Systems Corporation (Temposonics)
Sensors Division
Box 13218
Research Triangle Park, NC 27708
tel: 919.677.0100
fax: 919.677.0200

Norstat
PO Box 377
Hibernia, NJ 07842
tel: 201.586.2500
fax: 201.586.1590

------------------------------
[10.1.9] Interfacing sensors

Atmos Technology,Inc
1060 Lincoln Av,
San Jose Ca 95125
tel: 408.292.8066
fax: 408.292.8241
The AT1000A is a single chip sensor interface circuit that has
been used in pressure, acceleration, temperature and humidity
applications. 20 PIN SOIC Package, 12-Bit A/D Converter, 64 Bits
EEPROM memory. Programmable pulsed current source via EEPROM memory.
Three channel A/D: Iout1,Iout2, and Vdiff.

------------------------------
[10.2] Actuators

[This is a new section and there is much to add - contributions welcome]

How do I get a motor under computer control? What kind of
motor should I use? What are the differences between actuator types?
What other types of actuation are there?

Types of motors:
Synchronous
Stepper
AC servo
Brushless DC servo
Brushed DC servo

------------------------------
[10.2.1] RC-Servos

R/C servos for model airplanes, cars and other vehicles are light,
rugged, cheap and fairly easy to interface. For prices etc see one of
the many Radio Control magazines on the market.

Three wire connector for RC-servos:

Pin 1 = White = Signal
Pin 2 = Red = +5
Pin 3 = Black = Signal and Power Ground
[Tang = pin 1]

The signal is a variable width pulse ranging from 1-2ms in duration
and repeating every 12-20 ms. The output shaft rotates to a position
porportional to the input pulse width. Input pulse width is compared
to an internal timer pulse. The timer period is controlled by a pot
coupled to the servo's output shaft. The difference between the two
pulse widths is an error signal. The servo attempts to reduce or
eliminate the error signal by driving the output shaft in the
appropriate direction. When the error signal is within about 5
micro-seconds the drivers are turned off to preventing oscillation or
'hunting'.

How to reverse a servo?

The easiest way to do this is to hit your R/C hobby shop and buy a
servo reverser. This is a dedicated electronic module that plugs
between the servo and the controller (usually the R/C receiver) and
processes the pulse to "reverse" it. Basically, the device uses a 3
msec one-shot and an XOR gate. If your local hobby shop doesn't have
them, check Ace R/C catalog. See ads in any R/C magazine.

A harder way is as follows.
You have to reverse both the motor and the potentiometer leads.

It would be much easier to reverse the control input. All modern
radios have "reverse" switches for all channels. In the past you
could have one of 3 solutions:
a. Live with the servo as-is. Design your model with the servo
direction in mind.
b. Some companies had "reversed" servos. Probably no longer available.
c. Use a gadget between the receiver and radio that reverses
the servo. Possibly a single 4538 (Motorola MC14538) with 2
resistors, 3 capacitors and a trimmer pot.
d. Modify the servo. This is the most difficult and least desired
solution. Impossible if the motor is soldered directly to the
PCB (seen in some servos). [from Itai Nashon]

The following article is an excellent source on servo facts and a
PIC-based circuit to control R/C Servos. (See the Microcontrollers
Section for more info on the PIC)

The Juggler's Delight: PIC-based Controller For Up To
Eight Servos by Scott Edward. The Computer Applications Journal,
October 1994 p14 [A kit is available as well for the circuit,
including PC board, IC's etc]

Commercial controller for RC servos:

Pontech
401 E 17th St Suite B
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
tel: 714.642.8458

Pontech has a SV100 Servo Motor Controller which is based on the PIC
16C84 microcontroller. It accepts RS232 serial data signal from a
host computer and poutput PWM to control up to four RC servo motors.
Multiple boards can be parallel together to allow more servos. They
also sell FUTABA FP-S148 servos. boards: $49.95, servos: $16.95, +
$5.00 shipping and handling

Vantec
460 Casa Real Pl.
Nipomo, CA 93444
tel: 805.929.5055
Design and manufacture of Electronic Systems for remote
control mobile robots and vehicles. Vantec makes a servo control that
has been used successfully in this type of application and can be used
for velocity or position closed loop control. We can also modify R/C
transmitters for operation on special frequencies.
contact: Rich Howe

------------------------------
[10.2.2] Shape memory materials

Nickel-titanium alloys were first discovered by the Naval Ordinance
Laboratory decades ago and the material was termed NiTinOL. These
materials have the intriguing property that they provide actuation
through cycling of current through the materials. It undergoes a
'phase change' exhibited as force and motion in the wire.

Research into shape memory alloys, polymer gels and micromechanism
devices is ongoing. Library browsing is a must to get recent
information on these areas.

-----
Mondotronics
524 San Anselmo Ave.,
#107
San Anselmo, CA 94960
tel: 415.455.9330
tel: 800.374.5764
fax: 415.455.9333
net:
A number of muscle wire (nitinol) projects including a small
walking machine. Book and sample kit with 1m each of 50,100 and 150
um wire - enough to build all 14 projects in book.

-----
Memry Technologies
57 Commerce Drive
Brookfield, CT 06804
tel: 203.740.7311
fax: 203.775.2359
Memry sell a Mitsubishi developed polyurethane based Shape
Memory Polymer. The material undergoes property changes in hardness,
flexibility, elastic modulus and vapor permeability under temperature
change. Medical applications is one focus for this material.

-----
Milford Instruments
United Kingdom
tel: (0977) 683665
fax: (0977) 681465.
Importers of the Parallax BASIC Stamps and Muscle Wires into
the UK.

-----
Bridgestone Corporation
3-2-25 Nishikubo,
Musashino City, Tokyo 180.
tel: 0422 54 5820
Rubbertuators: Rubber-based device that bends under applied
pneumatic pressure. For a rotation unit typical rotation angles are
360,120,90 degrees for linear unit the contraction rate cannot exceed
20%.

-----
TiNi Alloy Company
1621 Neptune Drive
San Leandro, CA 94577
Sheets and wire of NiTinOL alloys.

------------------------------
[10.2.3] Stepper Motor Controller

Wally Blackburn has provided a stepper motor
controller design that easily connects to a parallel port:

ftp://ft.bode.ee.ulaberta.you/pub/cookbook/unsorted/pc_stepr.zip

This is the info file for the Opto-Isolated Stepper Motor Controller.
While the info is oriented towards control via a PC parallel port, the
controller can really interface to just about anything.

The controller uses a UCN5804B controller IC from Allegro. This chip
can control motors at up to 35V and 1.25A continuously. Peaks of up
to 50V and 1.5A can be tolerated according to the data sheet.

The inputs to the UCN5804B are optically isolated from the control
circuitry. Input control voltages from 3 to 12V are acceptable.
Diodes are used to protect the UCN5804B from negative transients from
the motor windings. For efficient low-voltage operation, Schottky
diodes are used.

I have recently rewritten the instructions and included a
simple parallel port control program in QuickBASIC. The Turbo
C source is still included also. I still have kits for the
controller.

Wally Blackburn
wrb@ccsitn.cb.att.com

Here are some files on the operation and use of stepper motors from
Steve Walz:
ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew/
stepper.viz
steppers.tut
ibmlpt.faq
tomlpt.faq

____________________________________________________________________________
[10.3] Imaging and Vision for Robotics

[This is a new and incomplete section - need more information here]

There are a wide variety of frame grabbers, computer vision systems
and image processing tools available. For VME, Multibus, PC Bus, even
SBUS and STD, there are a number of options for getting images into
your computer.

-----
Analogic Corporation
8 Centennial Drive
Peabody, MA 01960
508 977-3000 Howard Cohen
508 977-6813 (fax)

DASM-VIP
Input: RGB, Y/C, NTSC, RS-170A, CCIR, RS-343A
Memory: up to 16mb
Bus: SCSI (2.5 Mb/s asynch, or 5 Mb/s synch.) Can be interfaced
to PC/ISA via SCSI card.
Processing: TMS320C31 33.3 MHz, 33.3 MFLOPs, 16.7 MIPS. Analogic also
provides an 'ISA bus Floating-Point DSP Signal Processor'
AP85c with a SCSI port and 5 TMS320C31 processors for 200 MFLOPs,
and up to 16Mb of global DRAM and upt to 1Mb of local SRAM
per processor.
Other: RS-343A, CCIR, NTSC, or S-Video display output. User programmed
RS-232 port for debugging, or whatever. An optional multi-tasking
realtime DSP operating system written by Analogic is available.
DASM-VIP with 16Mb costs $5995. The AP85c with 16Mb is $12,600.

-----
Cognex Corp.
One Vision Drive
Natick, MA 01760-2059
508 650-3000 Joseph B. Considine - sales rep
508 650-3332
Offers a vision system mostly targeted for industry. Good
selection of image processing routines.

5000 Series
Input: Up to 4 cameras multiplexed, RS-170 or CCIR 12 bit grey scale
Memory: up to 16Mb
Bus: ISA
Processing: 25Mhz 68030, 68882 Floating point coprocessor, 'VC-1' custom
ASIC for 2D correlation, blob analysis, histograms, and
various transforms, 'VC-2' custom ASIC for character recognition,
line finding, edge detection, Gaussian and LaPlacian filtering.
Other: Functions as VGA adapter eliminating the need for a separate
video card -- allows display of images. Also provides RGB and
monochrome video outputs.

-----
Coreco Inc.
6969 Trans-Canada Highway
Suite 113
St. Laurent Quebec
Canada H4T 1V8
514 333-1301
800 361-4914 (USA) Ralph Tesson - sales rep
514 333-1388 (fax)
A variety of ISA DSP-based bus frame grabbers and imaging
cards for PCs. Inputs for many cards includes RGB, NTSC, RS-170, CCIR,
or PAL 24 bit color, Y-C, RS-330, up to 16Mb VRAM and 64Mb
DRAM. DSP-based boards. Outputs include external display support,
composite video etc. Wide variety of convolutions and logical
operations on images available including histogramming.

-----
Current Technology Inc
97 Madbury Road
Durham, NH 03824
603 868-2270 Michael Glover
603 838-1352 (fax)
FF1 Frame Grabber
Input: RS-170 or CCIR
Memory: up to 1024x1024x16 bits image memory.
Bus: Half-size XT slot.
Processing: Analog Devices ADSP 2105 DSP (20 MOPs). Performs 3x3 convolution
in 390 ms.
Other: Library of C callable functions, and windows DLL. Very
inexpensive -- $995.

-----
Data Cube
[real-time frame buffers and imaging analysis]
[need address]

-----
Data Translation
100 Locke Drive
Marlboro, MA 01752
tel: (508) 481-3700
tel: (800) 525-8528
fax: (508) 481-8627
Offers 8 different models of general purpose monochome frame
grabbers with various resolutions and memory sizes.

-----
Dipix
1051 Baxter Road
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K2C 3P1
613 596-4942
800 724-5929 ext 146 Paul Lamar - sales rep

Dipix offers 3 general purpose frame-grabbers:

Comet: captures RGB or 3 NTSC or PAL monochrome channels. 2Mb framestore and
24-bit RAMDAC for RGB display.
Magic: captures RGB, RS-170, CCIR, NTSC, PAL, or Y/C. 3Mb framestore and
EISA bus compatible
IP-8: low-cost monochrome (RS-170A or CCIR) framegrabber with color display
capability.

XPG-1000 Power Grabber
Input: RS-170, CCIR, digital, or programmable. Multiple input modules
Memory: up to 256Mb of image memory, 512Kb cache
Bus: ISA/VL and PCI bus
Processing: 50 Mhz TMS320C40 DSP from TI (which is programmable in C) and
'Power Processing Module'
Other: Functions as SVGA adapter eliminating the need for a separate
video card -- allows display of images. Also provides RGB and

XPG-360F Power Grabber
Input: 4 analog or one 8 or 16-bit digital input, programmable, or
RS-170, RS-330, CCIR
Memory: up to 80Mb
Bus: ISA/VL
Processing: TMS320C30 DSP from TI (which is programmable in C). DT-Connect
bus.
Other: Realtime display available

-----
ImageNation Corporation
P.O. Box 276
Beaverton, OR 97075
tel: (503) 641-7408
tel: (800) 366-9131
fax: (503) 643-2458
Cortex I Video Frame Grabber features half-slot card, real
time imaging with display output, 8 bit, RS-170, CCIR formats
available, Binary, TIFF file formats, EISA & STD bus products
available, single 512 x 484 or four 256 x 242 images

-----
Imaging Technology Inc.
55 Middlesex Turnpike
Bedford, MA 01730-1421
617 275-2700
217 275-9590 (fax)
Offers a modular vision system that can be taylored for the
application. Both VME and PC ISA/VL-bus platforms are supported. It
seems likely, however, that when all the required modules are
selected, the system will have a fairly large pricetag.

A system consists of an 'image manager' or IML which is either a VME
or PC ISA/VL-bus compatible board. It contains some framstore memory
and a slot for the 'acquisition module'. For the PC version, the IML
can be used as the system VGA adapter, eliminating the need for a
separate display card or module. To add one of the many available
computational modules, the 'Computational Module Controller' or CML
must be purchased, which also plugs onto (sort of) the IML. The CML
has slots for either one or two plug-on computational modules. So, as
you can see, it adds up quick. About $23k for a system with 2
C31 DSP computational modules. Device drivers are available for
DOS/Windows, VxWorks, OS-9, and Solaris.

There are 4 available acquisition modules:
Variable Scan: interfaces to RS-170 and CCIR cameras
Fast Analog Acquisition: interfaces to high frame rate analog cameras
Color Acquisition: interfaces to NTSC, PAL, RGB or multiple RS-170/CCIR
cameras. One interesting feature of this module is the ability to program
your own color space. Otherwise, it supports HSI, YUV, YIQ and YCrCb
color spaces.
Digital Acquistion: interfaces to RS-422 or TTL video sources.

There are 5 available computational modules:
Convolver/Arithmetic Logic Unit (CM-CLU): Accelerates convolution. e.g.
a 4x4 convolution on an 8-bit 512x512 image takes 7.5 ms.
Programmable Accelerator (CM-PA): Contains a TMS320C31 DSP from TI (which
can be programmed in C), 4Mb image memory and 1Mb of EEPROM.
Histogram/Feature Extraction Processor (CM-HF): Performs realtime histograms
and feature detection.
Median and Morphological Processor (CM-MMP): performs morphological filtering,
erosion, and dilation.
Binary Correlator (CM-BC): Performs high-speed template matching and binary
morphology.

-----
Mandex Technology, Inc.
1191 Chicago Road
Troy, MI 48083
tel: 810.585.1165
fax: 810.585.3745
contact: M. Gupte
SMART EYE I: DSP-based real-time image processing system
designed specifically for mobile and fixed base robotics
systems. Stand-alone image processing system on a single board. Low
power consumption, small form factor, and low weight. The single
board system includes: four monochrome camera inputs, video digitizer
(gain and offset software adjustable), input look-up table, two frame
grabbers, additional two video buffers, color mappable image display
buffer, color mappable graphics overlay buffer, RGB display driver,
serial communications port, and application program RAM and
EPROM. Program code can be burned into EPROM. Wide variety of language
and development platform support. Additional hardware expansion to
provide addtional I/O capabilities.

-----
Matrox International Corp.
1055 St. Regis Blvd. Dorval
Quebec, Canada H9P 2T4
514 685-2630
800 361-4903 Spiro Plagakis - sales rep
514 685-2853 (fax)

The IMAGE series consists of the following mutually compatible hardware:
IMAGE-1280 Baseboard consists of a TMS34020 GSP, TMS34082 FPU, 4Mb of DRAM,
custom ASICS for fast data transfer, and a high resolution RGB display
driver.
IMAGE-ASD is a monochrome acquisition card that plugs into the ISA bus.
IMAGE-CLD is a color acquisition card that does realtime RGB to HSI conversion
and also plugs into the ISA bus.
IMAGE-RTP performs a whole slew of processing functions using a bunch of
ASICS (e.g. histograms, LaPlacians, morphologies, logical operators, erosion,
dilation, centroids, pattern matching, more)
IMAGE-FPU accelerates large kernel convolutions and FFTs

Matrox also offers an extensive image processing library and utilities
that run under Windows.

-----
Sharp Electronics
16841 Armstrong Ave.
Irvine, CA 92714
714 261-6224
800 562-7427
714 261-9321 (fax)

The basic system that Sharp offers is the GPB-1
Input: 4 multiplexed RS-170 inputs 8 bit greyscale. Optional 'Incard'
allows 3 parallel camera inputs, or one RGB input, but occupies
another ISA slot.
Memory: 12 512x512x8 bit framestores.
Bus: ISA
Processing: High-speed ASICS which perform convolution, histogram analysis,
feature extraction, connectivity analysis, more. These operations
all take place at 40 ns/pixel. Thus, for example, a 3x3
convolution takes 12 ms for a 512x512x8 bit image. Other
processing boards (see below) are available and external
interfaces are provided for the addition of a separate Alacron
i860 card with 80 Mflops of performance (available 2/95).
Other: VGA output for displaying images. An optional 'Single monitor
adapter' acts as the system VGA adapter.

There are 3 function-specific computational cards that plug into the GPB-1:

Alignment card: performs normalized correlation with model data.
Auxlut card: has dual 64k 16 bit input 8 bit output lookup tables.
A possible application would be RGB to HSI conversion.
Auxwarp Card: 'a pixel re-sampler that may be used to modify the
geometric shape of an object.'
Memory Mapping: Maps large amounts of image data to ISA bus and allows
random access of regions of interest, say. Also it allows new GPB-1
commands to be loaded in and ready to go while the GPB-1 is busy with
its current command. Occupies a separate ISA slot.

Sharp also has available a Windows algorithm development tool which allows
the user to develop algorithms using interpreted scripts -- thus eliminating
the compiling step. The scripts can then be converted to C-code and
compiled, if appropriate. Over 250 C-callable image processing functions are
provided.

The basic GPB-1 system costs $11,000. A system with an Incard, and Auxlut
runs around $20,000.

-----
Teleos Research
576 Middlefield Road
Palo Alto, CA 94301, USA
Tel: 415/328-8800
Fax: 415/328-8880
E-mail: info@teleos.com
URL: http://teleos.com/
Advanced Vision Platform, AVP-100 provides:
- stereo range measurements
- motion measurements
- 3D model-based object tracking
- video frame rate performance
AVP-100 consists of a video processing unit containing an
embedded processor, the new PRISM-4 accelerator board, and interface
modules. To use the system, all that is required is a camera and a
host processor with an Ethernet interface.
Connect to http://teleos.com/">http://teleos.com/ for more
information or send e-mail to info@teleos.com with the subject
'AVP-100'.

TIM-40 PC-based Vision Systems
------------------------------
There are about a handful of companies that support TIM-40 module platforms.
(TIM-40 is a specification developed by TI and industry to incorporate
the TMS320C40 into a flexible, modular architecture. A single TIM-40
module is 2.5" x 4.2".) The C40 is often referred to as a 'next generation
transputer' because of its six 20Mb per sec. comports which make connecting
multiple C40s together very easy. The speed at which data can be exchanged
makes it well suited for multiprocessor image processing. A system consists
of a computer host-specific motherboard (that the TIM-40 modules plug into)
and the appropriate TIM-40 modules. All companies listed below support both
VME and PC/ISA daughter boards, however, only the PC/ISA boards are described.
Since these systems typically consist of more than one processor, development
software that supports multiple processors would be nice. 3L Parallel C is an
ANSI C compiler that allows you to write multitasked software and divide the
tasks between the available processors at compile time. It's built ontop
of the TI C compiler which is known for its optimizing and efficient
instruction scheduling. Data is sent between arbitrary tasks (which may
reside on separate processors) by sending C structures. Thus, the
development environment is comfortable and intuitive. All companies listed
offer 3L Parallel C.

-----
Transtech Parallel Systems Corp.
20 Thornwood Drive
Ithaca, NY 14850-1263
607 257-6502 Andy Stevens - sales rep
607 257-2980 (fax)

TIM-40 PC/AT motherboard: 4 TIM-40 sites. Communication between one TIM-40
slot and PC takes place through 1K FIFO buffer. JTAG support for debugging.

RGB/Composite framegrabber module: occupies 2 TIM-40 slots and accepts
RS-170 RS-330, CCIR, NTSC, PAL, Y/C or RGB. Has an onboard 50Mhz TMS320C40
(50 MFLOPs). 3Mb of VRAM and up to 4Mb of DRAM is available.

Flexible Memory TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, has onboard 50 Mhz TMS320C40s
(50 MFLOPs) and up to 4Mb of DRAM.

Dual C40 TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, has 2 onboard 50 Mhz TMS320C40
(100 MFLOPs) and 512k SRAM per processor.

Display TIM-40: allows display of RGB images.

-----
Spectrum Signal Processing Inc.
8525 Baxter Place, 100 Production Court
Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 4V7

604 421-5422
604 421-1764 (fax)
508 366-7355 Mark Coutour
800 232 1842 Paul DeBruyn
800 663-8986

QPC40 Motherboard: 4 TIM-40 sites. Communication between any of the
4 TIM-40 slots and the PC takes place through 2 16 bit ISA bus locations
(one for transmit, one for receive) per TIM-40 slot. JTAG support for
debugging.

RGB/Composite framegrabber module: occupies 2 TIM-40 slots and accepts
RS-170 or RGB. Has an onboard 50Mhz TMS320C40 (50 MFLOPs) and a RAMDAC
for displaying RGB images. 32kb of EEPROM, 512kb of SRAM, and up to 16Mb of
DRAM is available. Currently, (11/94) this module is not supported by 3L
Parallel C, nor does it have framegrab software source available.

Several single C40 TIM-40 modules are offered that differ in memory models --
some have EEPROM for boostrapping, or up to 8Mb of DRAM offered on a single
TIM-40, or up to 65Mb od DRAM on a double TIM-40.

Dual C40 TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, has 2 onboard 50 Mhz TMS320C40
(100 MFLOPs) and 512k SRAM per processor.

Spectrum also offers ILIB -- an image processing library with routines to
perform convolution, LaPlacians, high and lowpass filtering, more.

-----
Traquair Data Systems Inc
Tower Building, 112 Prospect St.
Ithaca, NY 14851
607 272 4417 Steve Bradshaw
697 272 6211 (fax)

HEPC2 Motherboard: 4 TIM-40 Sites. Communication between one TIM-40 slot and
the PC host takes place through 2 16 bit ISA locations (one for transmit,
one for receive). JTAG support for debugging.

CFG-RGB framegrabber module: occupies 2 TIM-40 slots and accepts
RS-170 or RGB. Has an onboard 50Mhz TMS320C40 (50 MFLOPs). 1Mb of VRAM
framestore and 4Mb of DRAM memory onboard. Frame grab software and source
is provided.

VIPTIM convolution accelerator: occupies 2 TIM-40 slots. Contains a
50MHz TMS320C40 and ASICs that can convolve at 12.5 million pixels per sec.
with kernels up to 7x6 or 14x3. 3, 1Mb VRAM framestores and 4Mb DRAM memory
onboard.

HETwin dual C40 TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, has 2 onboard 50 Mhz
TMS320C40s (100 MFLOPs) and 512kb SRAM per processor. Similar model with
2 C44s and 1Mb SRAM per processor will be available early 95.

HEQUAD quad C44 TIM-40: occupies 1 TIM-40 slot, and has 4 onboard
TMS320C40s (200 MFLOPs) and 512kb SRAM per processor.
occupies 1 TIM

Traquair also offers the following software:

EYELIB: image processing library (different than ILIB (?)) that
performs convolution, histograms, logical operations, more.

CDSOFT: a utility that works with 3L Parallel C that allows the display
of RGB image data to the PC host's VGA monitor in less than realtime.

Mathlib: a math library accelerator for the C40 that in many cases more
than doubles the speed of some floating point calculations (e.g. sin).

Matlab interface: allows an arbritrary C40 processor to execute functions
in Matlab (that's running on the PC host).

------------------------------
[10.4] Wireless Communication
Tethers for supplying power and communication are sometimes
impractical and at best an annoyance. Digital communication via RF
and IR links is becoming cheaper and a number of companies are
providing off-the-shelf solutions. For basic serial line communication
a wide variety of radio modems are available that use fixed
frequencies or spread spectrum techniques. In many cases they are also
transparent. That is, you plug them directly into serial ports on the
robot and off-board computing directly. Higher bandwidths such as
Ethernet or high speed synchronous serial require different hardware.
However, with high speed serial communication you may even be able to
SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocal) or PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol)
instead of using a LAN-based device.
This area of communication is changing very quickly and new
products and companies are appearing every day.

[10.4.1] RF Modems
[10.4.1] RF Video
[10.4.2] RF Ethernet

See also a nice list at: [LIST IS NO LONGER THERE - AWAITING NEW SITE]
ftp://csd4.csd.uwm.edu/pub/Portables/Wireless/wireless-modems
or gopher://csd4.csd.uwm.edu
[Maintained by David Kent ]

------------------------------
[10.4.1] RF Modems

Comrad, Communications Research and Development Corporation
7210 Georgetown Road, Suite 300
Indianapolis, IN 46268
tel: 317.290.9107
fax: 317.291.3093
Comrad CCL901-DP 900 MHz Wireless Data Link. 500 meter range
can be extended through additional transponders. RS232 - 38Kbaud.
Battery pack available for portable applications. Two transceiver
units, software, power adapter, serial cables for $449.95. Modems. Two
channels: 1200-38,400 baud, 100m range, 20m range through two
walls. Easy to set up.

Cylink
310 N. Mary Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
tel: 408.735.5800
tel: 800.533.3958
fax: 408.735.6643
AirLink - series of highspeed synch or async modems to
256kb/s. Interfaces include V.11, RS-232, EIA-530. Spread spectrum
device operating in 902-928Mhz range.

GRE America,
Belmont, CA,
tel: 800.233.5973
GINA 6000, spread spectrum, smart wireless modem, up to 128
Kbps, 902MHz, 1 watt

Hamtronics, Inc.
65-D Moul Rd.
Hilton, NY 14468-9535
tel: 716.392.9430
fax: 716.392.9420
1200 and 9600 baud units/modules for a few hundred dollars.

Micrilor Inc
17 Lakeside Park,
Wakefield, MA 01880
tel: 617.246.0130
fax: 617.246.0157
RS-232, T1221 and R1221 transmitters. 902-928MHz, no FCC
license required. Data rates to 64k-baud. >100m range. Power 35mA@3VDC,
Antenna is 60cm RG174 coax. Price: $550 ea.

Monicor Electronics
Fort Lauderdale, FL
tel: 305.979.1907
fax: 305.979.2611
System 310 two-card OEM set for use in palmtops and handheld
computing. System 310 board set transmits at 1mW to 2W for a range of
3 to 3km range. Priced at $660 in quantity. Model IC-15-48 - rugged
RS232 4800 baud modem. Can network a number of these portables. $1630.

Motorola Radio-Telephone Systems Group
Arlington Heights, ILL
tel: 708.632.5000
AltairNet: 18GHz-based system design for wireless, indoors
networking. The boxes are fairly large, about the size of a shoebox,
and are relocatable but not portable. Problem is that is that they
really aren't for mobile applications. The reception area has holes
like swiss cheese. Not a problem with some fine adjustment in
stationary applications but a big problem for mobile devices.

Pacific Crest Corporation
1190 Miraloma ay, Suite W
Sunnyvale, CA 94086-4607
tel: 408.730.5789
tel: 800.795.1001
fax: 408.730.5640
DDR-96 and RDDR-96 Radio modems. To 9600 baud. 2W. Point-to-point
communcations. Uses standard RS-232 9pin DB style connectors. Can also
be used in packet switching networks. Forward error correction
techniques and PLL synchronization. The RDDR is a ruggedized version.
Cost is about $1100 and $1230 respectively. FCC license required.

Proxim, Inc.
Mountain View, CA,
tel: 800-229-1630
Proxlink XR, spread spectrum, smart wireless modem, up to 256
Kbps, 902MHz, 500mW, 800 ft range.

----
Other with little information:

NCR sells the WaveLAN, which has about a 1Mbit/sec data rate. Not
exactly "ethernet", but interfaceable to most networks using MS-DOS
boxes as routers.

Tetherlink in California is experimenting with a 2Mbit/sec cellular
system that is designed for roving portables. [Need address]

O'Neil provides bidirectional 19.2Kps RS-232 links that
you can run a terminal emulator or SLIP over, range about 100 ft.
[need addresses]

A number of articles have also been posted about the modification of
inexpensive walkie-talkies for wireless communication. Typical
bandwidths are limited to about 1200 baud. This may be sufficient for
simple command-level control of a mobile mechanism. See Archives.

------------------------------
[10.4.1] RF Video

For regular frame rate video over relatively short distances
it's hard to beat the price and availability of several consumer
products in the $100 range. Check local stores or place like the
Sharper Image (Gemini Rabbit is one of the companies making these
units) Microwave systems require line-of-site communication,
licensing, and are expensive.

------------------------------
[10.4.2] RF Ethernet

There are some related articles in the Feb/93 Byte Magazine.

Proxim Inc.
295 North Barnardo Ave.
Mountain View, CA 94043
tel: 415.960.1630
fax: 415.964.5181
A product announcement for wireless LAN board on p.68 in May/92 Byte Magazine
Price: $495
Range: 800 ft.
Data Rate: 242 Kbps
Channels: 3

Telesystems SLW
85 Scarsdale Road, Suite 201
Don Mills, Ontario, Canada
ARLAN radio LAN
We've used ARLAN with CMU's Ambler work. It's an ethernet
bridge and it smart about routing traffic across the repeater. The 620
is about $5K. Can be used without a license in the US. (spread
spectrum) 6 miles range.

------------------------------
[10.5] Robot Parts: Suppliers and Sources

Many inquiries on comp.robotics are of the form: Where can I find X?
where X might be motors, gears, fasteners, connectors etc. The
following companies carry a wide selection of electronics and
mechanical parts. With the possible exception of computing these
companies should have all you need to build robot mechanisms.

Also see the file regularly posted to sci.electronics and a number of
the radio newsgroups:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/sci.electronics/My_List_of_Mail_Order_Electronics_Companies

All Electronics Corp.
P.O. Box 567
Van Nuys, CA 91408
tel: 800.826.5432
Electronics parts.

Allied Devices
2365 Milburn Avenue,
PO Box 502
Bladwin, NY 11510
tel: 516.223.9100
fax: 516.223.9172
Standard precision mechanical components

American Science and Surplus
3605 Howard St.
Skokie, IL 60076
tel: 708.982.0870
fax: 800.934.0722

C&H Sales
2176 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
tel: 818.796.2628
tel: 800.325.9465
Surplus parts. Motors etc.

Digi-Key Corp.
701 Brooks Avenue South
P.O. Box 677
Thief River Falls, MN 56701-0677
tel: 800.344.4539
Distributor of electronics components and semiconductors.

Edmund Scientific
101 E. Gloucester Pike
Barrington, NJ 08007-1380
tel: 609.573.6250 order
tel: 609.573.6260 customer service
Lots of optics, science and educational items. A little pricey
but nice selection. Edmund also has a Robotic Technology Curriculum
with lessons and tests featuring the Movit robots. Curriculum is $65.

Electronic Goldmine
PO Box 5408
Scottsdale, AZ 85261
tel: 602.451.7454

Fascinating Electronics
P.O. Box 126
Beaverton, OR 97075
tel: 503.292.5233
Experimenter's kits and other electronics.

Graymark
Box 5020
Santa Ana, CA 92704
tel: 800.854.7393
Robot and electonics kits, tools and instruments.

Herbach and Rademan Co.
18 Canal St.
P.O. Box 122
Bristol, PA 19007-0122
tel: 800.848.8001 (orders)
tel: 215.788.5583 (office)
fax: 215.788.9577 (fax)
Electro-mechanical "surplus" parts, equipment and insturments.

JDR Microdevices
1850 South 10th st
San Jose, CA 95112-9941
tel: 408.559.1200, 800.538.5000
fax: 800.538.5005
bbs: 408.494.1430
Surplus and lots of electronic components including cameras and
some sensors. Some recent components have included:
TV transmitter (part # RK-TV6, $19.95 US) transmits composite video +
audio to any television set withing 600' on one of channels 2 - 6.
Runs on 12VDC.
Microwave doppler radar sensor. Claims to detect a person or animal up
to 12' away (part number RK-MD3, $19.95 w/o case. Claims to come with
complete circuit theory and instructions.

Marlin P. Jones
tel: 407.848.8236
Lots of neat surplus stuff.

McMaster-Carr Supply Company
PO box 440
New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0440
tel: 908.329.3200
fax: 908.329.3772
An amazing catalog of hundreds of thousands of parts. Lots of
mechanical things but not much for electronics or computing.

MECI
tel: 800.344.4465

Mendelson Electronics Co., Inc
tel: 800.422.3525

Newark Electronics
500 N. Pulaski St.
Chicago, IL 60624-1019
tel: 312.784.5100 (check locally)
Major distributor of electronics components and equipment (1200+
pages) with branches throughout the US.

Nordex
50 Newton Road
Danbury, CT 06810-6216
tel: 203.792.9050
Gears, cams, universals etc.

PIC Design
PO Box 1004
Benson Road
Middlebury, CT 06762-1004
tel: 800.243.6125 (except CT)
tel: 203.758.8272
Bearings, clutches, brakes, couplings, tools, belts, pulleys, gears
etc.

Pure Unobtainium [GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!!]
13109 Old Creedmoor Road,
Raleigh, NC 27613-7421
tel: 919.676.4525
net: 74065,1363@compuserve.com
All kinds of unusual and hard-to-find parts. I2C8 bus parts, stepper
motor drivers, microcontrollers, digital power drivers, isolators,
muxes, switching regulators, IR remote control, etc etc. No credit
cards.

Radio Shack
Electronic parts and kits. Local retail stores in just about every
city)

SECS, Inc.
520 Homestead Avenue
Mt. Vernon, NY 10550
tel: 914.667.5600
Gears and gear assemblies, belt drives, couplings, bearings, small
parts.

Seitz
Box 1398
Torrington, CT 06790
tel: 203.243.5115
Drive components, gears etc.

Servo Systems
115 Main Road
PO Box 97
Montville, NJ 07045-9299
tel: 201.335.1007
fax: 201.335.1661
Surplus pieces and prices, motors, actuators, geardrives,
controllers, robots, encoders, transducers, amplifiers.

Small Parts Inc.
6891 NE Third Ave
PO Box 381966
Miami, FL 33238-1966
tel: 305.557.8222
fax: 305.751.6217
Lots of neat small supplies including: materials, metal stock,
fasteners, tools etc. This company is the "misc parts" supplier to
the "U.S. FIRST" competetion where corporations and HS Students form
partnerships to build competing robots like Dr Flowers' ME class at
MIT.

Stock Drive Products
2101 Jericho Turnpike
Bobx 5416
New Hyde Park, NY 11042-5416
tel: 516.328.3300
fax: 516.326.8827
Great set of handbooks of thousands of components.

Winfred M. Berg
499 Ocean Ave.,
East Rockaway, LI, NY 11518
tel: 516.599.5010
Precision Mechanical Components

Any technical library should have catalogs from the larger
distributors. These include McMaster-Carr, Grainger, Allied, Newark,
etc.

____________________________________________________________________________
End of Part4.--

___________________________________________________________________________
Part 5/5
[11] Whatever happened to Heathkit Hero Robots?
[12] What's available for Puma Manipulators?
[13] What kinds of Robotics Simulators are there?
[13.1] Commercial Simulators
[13.2] Shareware and Freeware Simulators
[14] What Real-Time Operating System should I use?
[15] What is NuTank?
[16] Survey of Mobile Robot Development Environments
[17] Small development platforms
[17.1] What is the Miniboard?
[17.2] What is the F1 Board?
[17.3] What is the Bot Board?
[18] What is the XXX Microcontroller?
[18.1] Motorola 68XX
[18.2] Motorola 683xx
[18.3] Intel 80C186
[18.4] Intel 8051
[18.5] Intel 8096
[18.6] Microchip PIC16/17
[18.7] Parallax BASIC Stamp
[18.8] National Semiconductor LM628/629
[18.9] Hewlett-Packard HCTL 1000, 2000
[18.10] Motor Drivers

[19]Acknowledgements
____________________________________________________________________________
[11] What's available for Heathkit Hero Robots?

Heath/Heathkit/Zenith [OUT OF BUSINESS]
Benton Harbor, MI
order: 800.253.0570 (At last report these numbers do not work)
tech: 616.982.3980

Heros are no longer being made but Heath (Zenith) still offers some
replacement parts. They had about 8 years of sales: 4,000 Hero Jr's,
3,000 Hero 2000's, 14,000 assembled Hero 1's. Ones with less
capability didn't do as well but higher priced ones did ok in the
market. Service and maintainability are a problem due to the sheer
number of bolts, pulleys, boards, sensors, cables etc. Used ones can
be picked up cheap - but caveat emptor.

There is a mailing group for hero owners managed by Dave Goodwin:

Send the following command in the message body:
Subscribe Hero-owners

You may also want to include a HELP command line to get the commands
and their syntax. Note that the subject on the message is irrelevant.
Of course, to post a message to the group, just send it to hero-owners
at the same host.

The Mailserv software can handle files as well, but none are currently
available. Hopefully, list subscribers will start to provide any
nifty code they write for the archive.

Finally, the list of subscribers is available from the Mailserv. See
the help file for how to get it. Questions or problems should be
addressed to Goodwin@smcvax.smcvt.edu, not at the waldo address.

_____________________________________________________________________________
[12] What's available for Puma Manipulators?

Pumas are probably the most common robot in university laboratories
and one of the most common assembly robots. Designed by Vic Schienman
and financed by GM at MIT in the mid-70's, the Puma (Programmable
Universal Machine for Assembly) was produced for many years by
Unimation (later purchased by Westinghouse and sold at a loss later to
Staubli, a Swiss company) Found in many university labs as well.

Staubli Unimation, Inc.
211 Overlook Drive
Sewickly, PA 15143-2305
tel: 412.741.1740
fax: 412.741.1789

Staubli Unimation Ltd
Unit G, Stafford Park 18
Telford, Shropshire, TF3 3Ax
UK

PUMA singularities:
The PUMA has three singularities: the ``alignment'' singularity (wrist
is as close to the axis of joint 1 as it can get), the ``elbow''
singularity (elbow is fully extended or folded up; the latter is not
possible because of joint limits), and the wrist singularity (the axes
of joints 4 and 6 are aligned).

The angles corresponding to these depend on the Denavit-Hartenburg
(DH) parameter assignment. For the PUMA, the definitions given in [1]
are perhaps the most commonly used Using these, and letting A2, A3,
D3, and D4 denote the translational DH offsets, the singularities
occur when the following are true:

Alignment: D4*sin(ang2+ang3) + A2*cos(ang2) - A3*cos(ang2+ang3) == 0

Elbow: sin(ang3 - atan2(A3,D4)) == 0

Wrist: sin(ang5) == 0

Typical offset values for the PUMA 560 are

A2 = 431.80
D3 = 149.09
A3 = 20.32
D4 = 433.070

[information provided by John Lloyd ]

Puma Gear Ratios
----------------
Joint # Gear Ratio
-------- -----------
1 0.01597
2 0.00931
3 0.01884
4 0.01428
5 0.01391
6 0.01303

------------------------------------
Tech Report and Matlab Toolbox [Peter Corke]

A technical report is available which provides details of the
Unimation Puma servo system, including details of interfacing via the
arm-interface board, digital board firmware, and analog board/motor
dynamics. (54 pages) It can be found at
ftp://asgard.mlb.dmt.csiro.au/pub/pic/mtm226.ps.Z

A Robotics Toolbox for MATLAB which provides functions for homogeneous
transformations, quaternions, forward and inverse kinematics,
trajectories, forward and inverse dynamics, and graphical animation.
The Toolbox uses a very general method of describing the kinematics
and dynamics of any serial-link manipulators. Descriptors for the
Unimate Puma 560 and the Stanford arm are included. Location -
ftp://ftp.mathworks.com/pub/contrib/misc/robot

That directory contains an extensive manual, doc.ps (72 pages), as
well as all the M-files.

------------------------------------
Trident Robotics and Research, Inc.
2516 Matterhorn Drive
Wexford, PA 15090-7962
(412) 934-8348
email:
A board for replacing the PUMA LSI/11 controller with the CPU of your
choice: The board is basically an I/O board with D/A's, A/D's, encoder
counters and some digital I/O lines and is available to connect to
several bus architectures including VMEbus, IBM-PC bus, Multibus and
IndustryPack bus. (with others under consideration) It comes as a
two-board set: A PUMA board and a bus interface board. This allows
several buses to be supported and keeps the analog electronics away
from the noise of the bus. (It also makes switching buses cheap, if
the need ever arises.) Since it is primarily an I/O board set, it can
be used in applications other than controlling a PUMA.

The user's manuals are available by anonymous ftp:
ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/usr/anon/user/deadslug/trc4um.ps and trd0002.ps

This is a PostScript file that can be printed or viewed (to conserve
paper) and describes the remote board that mounts inside the Unimate
controller, replacing the VAL computer. The file trd0001.ps shows
the board arrangement diagrammatically.
------------------------------------
Useful Puma references:

Richard Paul, Brian Shimano, and Gordon Mayer, ``Kinematic Control
Equations for Simple Manipulators''. IEEE Transactions on Systems,
Man, and Cybernetics, Vol SMC-11, No. 6, June 1981.

B Armstrong, O Khatib, and J. Burdick
The Explicit Dynamic Model and Inertial Parameters of the PUMA 560 Arm
Proceedings IEEE Int. Conference on Robotics and Automation, April 1986
San Francisco, CA pp510-518

P.I. Corke and B. Armstrong-Helouvry
A search for consensus among model parameters reported for
the Puma 560 Robot
Proc. IEEE Conf. Robotics and Automation, 1994 pp. 1608-1613

It is also available via anonyous ftp from
ftp://asgard.mlb.dmt.csiro.au/pub/pic/icra94.ps.gz
_____________________________________________________________________________
[13] What kinds of Robotics Simulators are there?

Simulation allows researchers, designers and users to construct robots
and task environments for a fraction of the cost and time of real
systems. They differ significantly from traditional CAD tools in that
they allow study of geometries, kinematics, dynamics and motion
planning. This list is NOT a comparative analysis of the different
systems but rather a list of systems that are available.

[13.1] Commercial Simulators
[13.2] Shareware and Freeware Simulators

------------------------------
[13.1] Commercial Simulators

-----
Auto Simulations, Inc.
655 Medical Drive
Bountiful, UT 84010
tel: 801.298.1398
contact: Teresa Francis, ext 330
Products: AutoMod II
Platforms: ?
Cost: ?

-----
CADSI
PO Box 203
Oakdale, IA 52319
tel: 800.383.1322
tel: 319.337.8968
DADS - kinematics and dynamics package. Have ProEngineer to CADSI
interface. Supports rigid and flexible body analysis. Animation and
interfaces to FEA/FEM and CAD programs.

-----
Deneb Robotics, Inc.
3285 Lapeer Road West
PO Box 214687
tel: 313.377.6900
Product: IGRIP
Platforms: SPARCs, SGI
Cost: US$50-$60,000.
Allows offline programming, dynamics capability etc.

-----
Mechanical Dynamics Inc.
2301 Commonwealth Blvd
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
tel: 313.944.3800
fax: 313.994.6418
email technical hotline: hotline@adams.com
ADAMS is a general purpose dynamics simulator: it can be used
to simulate any mechanism. You input the model you want to simulate,
and ADAMS builds the system of equations, and solves it through
time. You can do kinematic, static, quasi-static and dynamic
simulations. And then, you can study the results (forces,
accelerations and so on).

It has a good graphical interface, although it's non-standard
(it doesn't use OpenLook or Motif, but it's own windowing system). But
if you want to study something not very common, you will have to deal
with the text interface, and perhaps Fortran programming. It's not
very easy to learn.

-----
Silma/Cimstation
1601 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road
Cupertino, California 95014
tel: 408.725.8908
Product: CimStation
Platforms: SGI-4D, SUN SparcStation, Apollo, Intergraph,
Computervision, HP, IBM Risc6000 and DEC.
Cost: Base system around $55K (commercial license)
They also have a University Partnership
Program to enable universities to purchase CimStation
for around $20K US and $25K International.
Features:
Silma offers application solutions for Spot Welding, Arc Welding,
Painting, Stamping and Assembly, as well as Robot Calibration Tools.
Also, SILMA has direct CAD interfaces to Computervision CADDS,
Parametric Technology Corporation Pro/ENGINEER, IBM CATIA ans MCS
ANVIL5000. We also support VDAFS and SET in addition to IGES. Finally,
in addition to CimStation Robotics, we also offer SILMA(R) CimStation
Inspection - used to create, simulate and edit DMIS programs for
coordinate measuring machines- (CMMs) and SILMA(R) CimStation NC
Verification- used to simulate and verify NC part programs.
Provides: Basic CAD Tools: 2D and 3D solid & wireframe, IGES
interface, Robot Modelling: generate the required governing equations
(iterative or closed form) automatically for "many" classes of robots
Path Generation Kinematic Simulation with Collision Detection Dynamic
Simulation (CimStation only at this point) I/O Operations

John Craig, who wrote the book, Introduction to Robotics is head of
Silma's R&D. Silma has a programming environment called SIL complete
with its own PASCAL-like iterative language with graphics and robotics
extensions. CimStation is built out of this language. This allows you
to add your own functionality. E.g. your own path planner. You can
also write C-code, compile it, and add it to the system.

-----
Comutek
1223 Peoples Avenue
Troy, NY 12180
tel: 518.276.2817
fax: 518.276.XXXX
contact: Vinay Joshi
Products: Work-Out
Cost: Around $25000.

-----
Robot Simulations Ltd.
Lynnwood Busines Centre
Lynnwood Terrace
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE4 6UL
England
tel: +44 (0)91 272 3673
fax: +44 (0)91 272 0121
US contact:
John Lapham
Applications Engineer
International Business Link
17105 San Carlos Blvd. Suite A6151
Ft. Myers Beach, FL 33931
tel: 813.466.0488
fax: 813.466.7270
e-mail: lapham@gate.net

Robot Simulations (RSL) develops and markets the world's first
microcomputer based industrial robot simulation software named
Workspace. The package has been selling since 1989. The package uses
3d graphics to simulate robots and their associated machinery in a
workcell, and is capable of offline programming industrial and
educational robots in many different robot languages. It runs on a PC
and is $5K to educational institutions. $26K for industrial version.

Workspace 3 robot simulation: Kinematic modeller
Discrete event simulation Interactive creation of new mechanimsm
Library of standard robots
Advanced robot languages Dynamics simulator
Variables Forces and torques calculated
Subroutines Graphical representation of results
Loop structures
Sophisticated motion commands Text editor
Accurate representation of mechanisms Integral editor for track and
Calculation of cycle times teachpoint files
Collision detection
Solid 3-d rendering
Integrated CAD system Fast shaded animations in 256 colours
Constructive solid geometry
Library of standard 3d primitives Computer Aided Learning
Extruded polylines Simple authoring of training exercises
Spheres
Cones Calibration
Cylinders In-built robot and fixture
Boxes calibration system
Surfaces
Solids of rotation User Manuals
DXF and IGES import facilities Tutorial exercises
Example robots and workcells

The system is in use throughout Europe and the Far East in both Industry and
Education with several hundred seats. Sales in the USA are relatively recent.
Further details can be obtained from myself, Or from the Robot Industry
Association in the USA, or from our USA representative:

-----
Tecnomatix Technologies/Robcad
39750 Grand River Avenue
Suite A-3
Novi, MI 48375
tel: 313.471.6140
fax: 313.471.6147
Platforms: HP, Silicon Graphics, IBM and Sun
Tecnomatix makes several packages for simulation including ones for
Spot welding, Arc welding, Painting, Teleoperation (Martel), CMM and
Drilling. They also have an open systems environment, ROSE, that
allows user customization and interface design. ROBCAD itself allows
robot modeling (library of 100 robots is supplied), collision free
path generation, importation of IGES, VDAFS and SET files and direct
interface with Catia and ComputerVision.

[GMF - the entry that used to be here, no longer supports OLPW-200,
instead they are a Robcad reseller]

------------------------------
[13.2] Sharware and Freeware Simulators
Many university groups and individuals have developed
simulators for their own work and made them available via the net.

-----
Ars Magna:
The ARS MAGNA robot simulator provides an abstract world in which a
planner controls a mobile robot. The simulator also includes a simple
graphical user-interface which uses the CLX interface to the X window
system. Version 1.0 of the ARS MAGNA simulator is documented in Yale
Technical Report YALEU/DCS/RR #928, "ARS MAGNA: The Abstract Robot
Simulator". This report is available in the distribution as a
Postscript(tm) file, as well as from:
Paula Murano
Yale University
Department of Computer Science
P.O. Box 2158 Yale Station
New Haven, CT 06520-2158
net:
Comments to Sean Engelson:
ARS MAGNA is available by anonymous ftp:
location: ftp.cs.yale.edu
directory: pub/nisp
filenames: *

-----
EROS [Erann's RObot Simulator]:
EROS is a mobile robot simulator. Unlike other simulators,
EROS does not simulate any particular robot. Instead, EROS is a sort
of robot simulation construction kit. It is designed to allow users
to assemble their own robots from reusable software components, and to
run those robots in user-designed environments. EROS draws
inspiration from Hanks and Firby's truckworld simulator, but EROS
operates at a lower level of abstraction than truckworld, and so it is
by some measure more realistic. EROS has been used to simulate actual
physical robots, and the behavior produced by EROS has, in some cases,
made plausible predictions and accurate postdictions of the behaviors
of the real robots.

NOTE: This is a beta-test version of EROS. It runs only under
Macintosh Common Lisp version 2.0. Many of its features have not been
tested (although it has been used in a few applications, so parts of
it work quite well!) and the documentation is not very coherent.

EROS is available by anonymous ftp at:
ftp://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov:pub/gat/eros.sit.hqx

This is an early version for beta testing only. It runs only
under MCL 2.0. It will not run under any other version of Common
Lisp, including MCL 1.3. (EROS relies heavily on Macintosh graphics
and CLOS.) It also includes only a single example robot, so out of
the box it doesn't do very much. You have to be willing to do a
little hacking to use it as it currently stands. A future release
will have more turnkey functionality, but it's pretty much an OEM
product at this point.
Contact: Erann Gat

-----
Flakey:
A mobile robot simulator and controller. Contact: Kurt
Konolige of SRI A Preliminary version of a
mobile robot simulator and controller. All written in C, but you need
Motif to run the graphics.

This is essentially the same software run on Flakey, (robot at SRI
used for research in AI), behaviors using fuzzy control (there's lots
more on Flakey in terms of sensor interpretation and higher-level
control, but I haven't ported that from LISP to C yet). There are
three example behaviors implemented, showing dumb obstacle avoidance
and goal achievement. There's not much documentation yet, but I will
get some out over the next few months.

The intent is to make the simulator/controller suitable for a course
in mobile robotics, and to have eventually a cheap physical platform
that will imitate the simulator (or vice versa).

Available by anonymous ftp from:
ftp://ftp.ai.sri.com/pub/konolige/
filename: erratic-ver1.tar.Z
Uncompress, untar and check the README file for installation.

A collection of five tech reports on Flakey's fuzzy controller is also
available at:
ftp://ocean.ai.sri.com/pub/saffiott
filename: flakey_papers_93.tar.Z

------------------------
Simderella 2.0

Version 2.0 of simderella is here. Major adaptations:
- now features Imakefiles;
- compiles & runs on Solaris and DEC Alpha;
- some C bugs squashed;
- bemmel can grab robot with mouse;
- major improvements to documentation (i.e., an introductory
article describing the package).
- includes a stand-alone version of bemmel for drawing
geometrical objects, with viewoint rotation. Figures
can be dumped to xfig for later inclusion in your papers.

Simderella is a robot simulator consisting of three programs:
connel: the controller
simmel: the simulator
bemmel: the X-windows oriented graphics back-end
Simmel is the part which actually simulates the robot. It performs a
few matrix multiplications, based on the Denavit Hartenberg method,
calculates velocities with the Newton-Euler scheme, and communicates
with the other two programs.

Bemmel only displays the robot. It is a fast general-purpose
display method which places separate objects in space depending on
the homogeneous matrices it receives from simmel.

Connel is the controller, which must be designed by the user
(in the distributed version, connel is a simple inverse kinematics
routine. I didn't include my neural networks.)

The three programs use Unix sockets for communication. This means
that
1. you need sockets
2. all the programs can run on different machines
Since data communication is high-level (meaning, in this case, that
I do not send doubles, integers, and so on, but encode them first),
running the programs on different architectures is no problem. In
fact, it was thus designed that connel can, at the same time,
control a real robot _and_ the simulated one.

Simderella likes to sleep; that is, when nothing happens, no
processor time will be used.

The software is available as a compressed tar file from:
site: galba.mbfys.kun.nl [IP 131.174.82.73]
directory: pub/neuro-software/pd
filename: simderella.1.0.tar.Z

Extract the simulator from the tar file by typing at the Unix
command line:
zcat simderella.2.0.tar.gz | tar xf -
or use your favourite extracting commands. In the simderella/
directory, type
xmkmf
make Makefiles
make depend
make
The sub-directories are recursively visited and executables are
compiled and linked.

Supported architectures: Sun (SunOS and Solaris), SGI, DEC Alpha,
HP700, 386 et al running Linux)

If you're impatient, execute the thing as follows:
cd bemmel; Zoscar & cd ..
cd simmel; source env; simmel1 ns & cd ..
cd connel; connel s
all on one machine. Then type commands like
fix-target 50 50 50
inverse 50 50 50
or move the mouse pointer in the bemmel window and press an `l' or
`r' or `u' or `d' or ....

[CMU ised Simderella recently to facilitate software development
and testing of the Shuttle servicing robot before the hardware and
mechanics are available to test the various parts of the controller.
it has also been linked to TCA calls and worked very well - nivek]

------------------------
Public Domain SGI based simulator:
This is a Silicon Graphics based delux robot simulator with
lots of graphics Stuff. It was written by Andrew Conway and
Craig Dillon as undergraduates for an electrical engineering project
at the University of Melbourne. Not much in installation
instructions. There is a latex manual with usage instructions and
the mathematics. Warning: It is 4.3Mbytes compressed, and the
US-Australia link is quite slow.
Disclaimer: I [Andrew] haven't used this software for
years. If it malfunctions, don't sue me or Craig, we don't guarantee
it.
ftp://krang.vis.citri.edu.au/pub/robot

------------------------
MODULSH:
The complete programe is divided into three menus: Main,
Drawing and Robot Menus. features such as selecting elements or the
complete screen, rotating, translating, zooming, enlarging or
reducing the scale and passing to the two dimensional drawing window
from the three dimensional one are available.
The Drawing Menu also offers many other possibilities like
drawing three dimensional circles, ellipses, arcs, elliptical arcs,
cylinders, cones, prisms, ellipsoids, toroids, etc. In addition to
these, it is also possible to obtain hidden line drawing and to
change the point numbers of the circular drawing elements. Whereas
in Robots Menu, operations like selecting modules from the
sub-menus, containing graphics, which concern body, wrist, hand
systems and work spaces of robots, finding direct and inverse
kinematics solution of these systems, point by point simulation of
the robot motions, changing Denavit-Hartenberg parameters and joint
freedom extremums from the menus can be performed.
site: WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil and OAK.Oakland.Edu
directory: pd1:
filenames: MODULSH1.ZIP Design and animation of robots, 1 of 2
MODULSH2.ZIP Design and animation of robots, 2 of 2
Author:
Dr. Hikmet Kocabas
Istanbul Technical University
MKKOCABS%TRITU.BITNET@FRMOP11.CNUSC.FR
MKKOCABS@TRITU.BITNET

------------------------
Robotica
Contact: Mark W. Spong
Coordinated Science Lab
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1308 W. Main St.
Urbana, IL 61801

tel: 217.333.4281
fax: 217.244.1653
net: spong@lagrange.csl.uiuc.edu

http://uxh.cso.uiuc.edu/~gedept/ge/directory/faculty/Spong.html

Robotica is a trademark of The Board of Trustees of the University of
Illinois

Robotica is a collection of useful robotics problem solving functions
encapsulated in a Mathematica package. Utilizing Mathematica's
computational features allows results to be generated in purely
symbolic form.

Robotica requires inputing the form of a table of Denavit-Hartenberg
parameters describing the robot to be analyzed. Once the table has
been entered, Robotica can generate the forward kinematics for the
robot. The A and T matrices as well as the velocity Jacobian, J, are
generated. Of course, it is possible to display and save to an
external file all of the data generated. If the dynamics equations of
the robot are also to be generated, the input must include the
dynamics description data.

Once the forward kinematics are produced, Euler-Lagrange dynamics
equations can be calculated. The inertia matrix, Coriolis and
centrifugal terms, Christoffel symbols and gravity vectors are all
available to the user once the dynamics routines have run.

Utilizing the forward kinematics results, Robotica can calculate the
manipulability ellipsoids when supplied with a range of joint variable
values. It is possible to generate and save a list of manipulability
measures as well as display the ellipsoids with the robot on the
screen.

In addition, Robotica has the capbability of reading external
simulation (e.g., SIMNON) output files and displaying the motion of
the robot when sbjected to the sequence of joint variables described
in the file. This requires that the robot has been input as a table of
Denavit-Hartenburg parameters, and that the foward-kinematics routines
have been executed.

Robotics contains several functions that can be used to draw the robot
in a specific configuration, or show the robot moving through a range
of joint parameter values. Most of the graphics output can be animated
if the Animation.m package is loaded The animations can be saved and
later restored and viewed again.

To simplify interactation with Robotica, an X-Windows based interface
has been designed. This interface insulates the user from the
inconvenient textual interface Mathematica provides.

Requirements: Mathematica 2.0 or better. X-windows requires 2.1 or
better.

The University has requested that all users of Robotica sign and
return a license agreement. This is mainly to keep a record of
Robotica users for future upgrades, etc. The license agreement states
that you may freely use and modify Robotica as you wish but that you
may not sell it.

You can obtain a postscript copy of this license agreement via
anonymous ftp://ftp.csl.uiuc.edu/pub/robotica. Please print out the
license agreement, sign and date it, and FAX it to me [Mark Spong]

It is important that you also include your email address on the
license agreement. As soon as I receive your FAX I will send you the
Robotica package and the X-windows GUI.

Also in the directory /pub/robotica is a postscript file containing
the Robotica users manual which you may freely copy and distribute.
Any comments that you have after using Robotica would be greatly
appreciated. In addition, any questions you have or bugs you find
can be reported to me and we will do our best to address them.

_____________________________________________________________________________
[13.2.1] What is NuTank?

NuTank stands for NeuralTank. It is a program to simulate complex
networks and interactions. In this program one is given the shell of a
2 dimensional robotic tank. The tank has various I/O devices like
wheels, whiskers, optical sensors, smell, fuel level, sound and such.
These I/O sensors are connected to Neurons. The player/designer uses
more Neurons to interconnect the I/O devices. One can have any level
of complexity desired (640k memory limited) and do subsumptive
designs. More complex design take slightly more fuel, so life is not
free. All movement costs fuel too. One can also tag neuron
connections as "adaptable" that adapt their weights in accordance with
the target neuron. This allows neurons to learn.

The Neuron editor can handle 3 dimensional arrays of neurons as single
entities with very flexible interconnect patterns. One can also design
a Glyph or drawing to represent the robot and/or obstacle. (or bug,
worm, whatever) One can then design a scenario with walls, rocks, fat
(fuel) sources (that can be smelled) and many other such things.

Robot tanks are then introduced into the Scenario and allowed to interact
or battle it out. The last one alive wins, or maybe one just watches
the motion of the robots for fun. While the scenario is running it
can be stopped, edited, zoom'd, and can track on any robot. One can
designate a neuron group as the probe group and get a display of the
neural activity of that group. This helps debug designs.

The entire program is mouse and graphically based. It uses DOS and VGA
and is written in TurboC++

There will also be the ability to download designs to another computer
and source code will be available for the core neural simulator. This
will allow one to design neural systems and download them to real
robots. This feature may be in the Beta release, around August 94.
The design tools can handle three dimensional networks so will work
with video camera inputs and such.

Eventually I expect to do a port to UNIX and multi thread the program.
I also expect to do a Mac port and maybe NT or OS/2

The theory that I eventually want to test has to do with the self
oscillating nature of combined subsumptive and standard neural
nets. One can also work on flock and pack behavior.

I have a paper I've written called Artificial Cognition that discusses
a theory of the combination of regular neural nets and subsumptive
networks. In the shareware file it is called Paper.ps and will need
to be printed on a PostScript printer. You may get copies of it by
sending $5 to Keene Educational Software.

Getting NuTank:
NuTank now has a shareware version. It is about 300k bytes compressed.
The file is nutank.exe and is a PKZip executable for dos machines.
It must be put in a directory called C:\nutank

To unpack nutank firts put nutank.exe in C:
C:
mkdir nutank
cd nutank
..\nutank.exe -d

After it unpacks
nutank.exe is the program

If anyone would like to put it on their server feel free to do
so. If you put the shareware on your sever please tell me so I can
send you updates.

Nutank shareware is available vie the ftp sites
cher.media.mit.edu:/pub/incomming/NuTank
or
ftp.essex.ac.uk:/robot/Simulators/NuTank

The shareware version has the ability to write to disk disabled. Feel
free to pass the shareware version around. The regular version costs
$50 (includes a printed copy of the paper) and can be had by sending
$50 US to
Richard Keene
Keene educational Software
8155 Lone Oak Court
Littleton, CO 80124

After Oct 3rd 1994 I'll be working for the Park City Group
and can be reached at
801-649-2221

_____________________________________________________________________________
[14] What Real-Time Operating System should I use?
[14.1] Commerical RTOS
[14.2] Research RTOS

For general discussion of this topic see news:comp.real-time and
news:news.answers for the complete RTOS FAQ.

ftp:://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/realtime-computingfaq

Here is a complete list of many RTOS'.

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.realtime/Comp.realtime:_A_list_of_real-time_operating_systems_and_tools_(LONG)

Below is a list of both commercial and research Real-Time Operating
Systems (RTOS) which are being used around the world for implementing
robotic systems. Only the names and addresses of the distributors are
included. Since the available features of each are constantly
changing, and the advantages and disadvantages of each are greatly a
matter of opinion and target application, no such descriptions are
given.

------------------------------
[14.1] Commerical RTOS

-----
Chimera
Chimera itself is not available for anonymous FTP as it has
become a commercial product marketed by a Pittsburgh based company
called K2T Inc. (pronounced K-squared-T). Onika is tightly bound to
advanced features in Chimera and hence is not currently suited for use
on other platforms. However, users of Chimera do receive a free copy
of Onika.

However, there are several papers written by the creators of
these software packages that _are_ available via both ananymous FTP
and via the WWW. You may obtain Chimera and Onika papers from the WWW
via the following URL:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/chimera/www/home.html

This link is to Chimera information, but you may also access
Onika information via links in this document. You may FTP some
Chimera and Onika papers as compressed PostScript files from CMU:

ftp://ius4.ius.cs.cmu.eduusr/chimera/public/

If you are interested in purchasing Chimera, please contact Eric
Hoffman of K2T Inc. directly:

Eric Hoffman, Chief Engineer
K2T Inc.
Suite 205, One Library Place
Duquesne, PA 15110
tel: 412.469.3150
fax: 412.469.8120

-----
ControlShell

Real-Time Innovations, Inc.
954 Aster, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
tel: 408.720.8312
fax: 408.720.8419
contact: Stan Schneider
email: stan@rti.com

ControlShell is an Object-Oriented Framework for Real-Time System
Software

Complete object-oriented real-time software environment.
Graphically build your system from reusable components.
Readily include powerful rule-based event responses.
Easily share data between networked processors.
The real-time framework for the future!

ControlShell is a next-generation CASE environment for real-time system
software development. ControlShell's modular, component-based structure,
powerful graphical tools, and integrated data management provide a unique
approach to real-time software development.

With ControlShell, you can:
* Build your system from reusable components with the graphical
Data-Flow Editor. Select and connect your components, set parameters,
and build your run-time system with a few mouse clicks.
* Add new components with the graphical Component Editor. Automatically
generate C++ source code to interface your new component to the system.
* Create structured strategic programs with the graphical State-Machine
Editor. Combine rule-based transition conditions, true callable sub-chain
hierarchies, task synchronization and event management.
* Manage complex system mode changes with the graphical execution
Configuration Manager.
* Perform real-time mathematics with the complete real-time matrix package.
* Take advantage of an ever-expanding library of generic and reusable
components, including controllers, estimators, filters, signal generators,
trajectory generators, and more.

-----
iRMX III
Runs on Intel 80X86-based computers
U.S.A.:
Intel Corporation
3065 Bowers Avenue
Santa Clara, California 95051
tel (408) 987-8080
-----
LynxOS
Runs on wide variety of platforms, including Motorola,
Intel, Sun, and Hewlett Packard.

Lynx Real-Time Systems, Inc
16780 Lark
Los Gatos, CA 95030
tel (408) 354-7770
fax (408) 354-7085

-----
OS-9
Runs on Motorola MC680X0-based single board computers.

Microware System Corporation
1900 N.W. 114th St.
Des Moines, Iowa 50322
tel (515) 224-1929
-----
pSOS+
Runs on a variety of Motorola 680X0 and 88100, and
Intel 80386 computers. Requires a host workstation or
personal computer if pASSPORT+ real-time programming
environment is to be used.

Software Components Group, Inc.
1731 Technology Drive
San Jose, CA 95110
tel (408) 437-0700
fax (408) 437-0711

-----
E-VENIX & VENIX
VenturCom Inc
215 First St.
Cambridge, MA. 02142
P: (617) 661-1230
I: info@vci.com
Product runs on ix86 platforms and PC/104 systems.
Product is real UNIX, SVR3.2 & SVR4.2.
Workstation version requires ~4MB, 120MB, 80{3|4}86 processor.
Embedded version requirements vary depending on features used.
Embedded product allows for completely ROMed UNIX systems,
from read-only root to stand alone applications.

-----
VRTX
Runs on a wide variety of processors, including Motorola 680X0,
Intel 80X86 and 80960, National Semiconductor series 3200.

Ready Systems
470 Potrero Avenue
P.O.Box 60217
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(800) 228-1249
fax (214) 991-8775

-----
VxWorks
Runs on a wide variety of MC680X0 and SPARC-based single
board computers. Requires a workstation for program
developments. Widely used in Unix environments for realtime work.

Wind River Systems Inc.
1000 Atlantic Avenue
Alameda, CA 94501
tel: 510.748.4100 or 800.545.WIND (9463)
fax: 510.814.2010

Tools related to VxWorks:

Real-Time Innovations, Inc.
954 Aster, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
tel: 408.720.8312
fax: 408.720.8419
contact: Stan Schneider
email: stan@rti.com

Product name: StethoScope
Overview: Real-time networked graphical monitoring and data acquisition.

Category: Software, Development tools

Highlights: Real-time data collection and display.
Monitor any program variables.
Export data to MATLAB and MatrixX.
Friendly multi-window environment.
Gain insight into what's happening in your system.

StethoScope is a real-time graphical monitoring, performance analysis,
and data collection tool for VxWorks. Use it to watch any of your
program variables evolve in real time; any value in memory can be
monitored. StethoScope opens a window into your application; it shows
you what's really happening.

Product name: ScopeProfile
Overview: Real-time dynamic execution profiler.

Category: Software, Development tools

Highlights: Detailed procedure-by-procedure analysis of CPU usage.
Tree or flat structure model.
Quickly spot performance bottlenecks.
Minimally intrusive. Run your code at full execution speed.
No special compilation. Analyze already running code.

ScopeProfile is a dynamic execution profiler for VxWorks. It shows you exactly
where you're spending your CPU cycles.

Product name: RTILib
Overview: VxWorks tool and utility package.
Category: Software, Development tools

Highlights: Memory integrity and leak testing
Re-entrant shell program
Execution tracing utility
Fast buffer management

RTILib is a collection of focused utilities and debugging tools.

-----
QNX
Distributed, POSIX, real-time microkernel for Intel x86
processors. Supports fault tolerance and also hosts MS-Windows
in Standard mode

QNX Software Systems
175 Terrence Matthews Cr.
Kanata, Ontario K2M 1W8, Canada
tel: 613.591.0931 x111
fax: 613.591.3579

QNX Software Systems
Westendstr.19 6000 Frankfurt, Germany
tel: 49 69 97546156 x299
fax: 49 69 97546110

Two QNX papers are available via anonymous FTP:
An Architectural Overview of QNX
A Microkernel POSIX OS for Realtime Embedded Systems

ftp://ftp.cse.ucsc.edu/pub/
filenames: qnx-paper.ps.Z, qnx_embed.ps.Z

------------------------------
[14.2] Research RTOS

-----
Harmony
Runs on MC680X0-based single board computers
Canada:
Division of Electrical Engineering
National Research Council of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1A 0R6
ref: NRCC Tech Report No. 30081

-----
REXIS
REXIS (Real-time EXecutive for Intelligent Systems) is a small
multi-tasking preemptive real-time executive for implementing control
programs for intelligent systems such as robotics and distributed
networks. It provides functions for
managing tasks, memory allocation, message ports, timers, and
event processing.
It is distributed as shareware at a low cost to
hobbyists / students. The current requirements for compiling
and running REXIS is an ANSI C HC11 cross compiler and a HC11
target with at least 24K of RAM. Other targets are under
consideration. For more information, please contact
Richard Man
P.O. Box 6
North Chelmsford, MA 01863
(phone+FAX) (508) 452-5203
imagecft@world.std.com, or
man@labrea.zko.dec.com

-----
Robot Control C Library (RCCL)
A robot programming environment embedded in C/UNIX. A graphics
simulator is provided which supports the PUMA, Stanford, and
`Elbow' manipulators. The system can be compiled on SGIs (so
the Indigo should be fine), and the graphics runs under either
X or GL. You can get the system from RCIM for a small fee to
cover copying and shipping. If you are interested send mail
to:
John Lloyd Research Center for Intelligent Machines
lloyd@curly.mcrcim.mcgill.edu McGill University, Montreal
tel: 514.398.8281 fax: 514.398.7348

_____________________________________________________________________________
[16] Survey of Mobile Robot Development Environments

This list provides a look at mobile systems that people are using. The
list includes robot base information, as well as hardware and software
environments used in the systems.

This is an updated and abridged survey compiled by Willie Lim
The complete file, which includes a list of
organizations and the original messages can be ftp'd from
ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu/pub/mobot-survey.text

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; RESPONSES TO INFORMAL SURVEY ON DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS ;;;
;;; FOR MOBILE ROBOTS ;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; Updated: Tue Dec 6 08:59:45 1994 ;;;
;;; Created: Sat May 23 09:37:24 1992 ;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; Maintained by: wlim@lehman.com (for now) ;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; Please send updates, additions, corrections, etc. to: ;;;
;;; wlim@lehman.com ;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; A complete version of this survey including detailed ;;;
;;; descriptions of the various projects is available via ;;;
;;; anonymous ftp from the host ftp.ai.mit.edu as the file ;;;
;;; /pub/mobot-survey.text. ;;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Organization Robot Development Languages &
Type HW Environment SW Enviroment
============= ==== ============== =============
Alcatel Alsthom Indoor robot SPARC II, VME proc VxWorks, MOTIF
Recherche (AAR) Outdoor robot
Brown U. a)Mobile robots SPARC I & II, OS/9, GNU Emacs, Xlib,
VME 68030 MOTIF, Forth, C, C++
b)2 RWI B12's Sparc 10s/Solaris offboard UNIX, Motif, C++, Lisp, Rex, X
c)2 RWI B24's 486 Linux onboard, arms

CMU a) SM^2(walker) VME 68020 & 68030, Chimera II RTOS, C,
Sun Sun tools
b) AMBLER VME 68020 & 68030, MOTIF, VxWorks,
SPARC II, Iris X windows, C
c) Mobile Mani- Z8088s, Sun IPC & ELC, X Window, Lisp, C, Hero
pulator NeXT Basic

d) Mobile robot SPARC, Iris, Mac, X windows, Openwindows,
VME, Maspar, Titan VxWorks, Chimera RTOS,
TCA, GIL, LISP
e) Navlab Sun-4 X windows, C

Colorado Sch. Denning MRV-3 Sparc IIs, IPXs, C, X11, Khoros, potential fields
of Mines IBM RS/6000s X11 visualization tool (homemade)

Colorado St. 6-legged robot 68HC11EVM, AT C

Cornell U. 2 mobile robots Gespak 68000, Intel Scheme, Lucid Lisp
(robot with 80c196, Sun(?)
tank-tread
base coming)

Cray Research(?)Mobile robot MC68HC16EBV, 386 Assembler

Georgia Tech Denning DRV-1 SUN IPC, Decstation, X windows, C,
& MRV-II Microvax II Lisp

Grumman CRC SmartyCat Mac II's/IIci's, C, CLOS, LISP, SAL
(Cybermotion uExplorer, SGI VxWorks(soon)
K2A) 68030 VME board(soon)
LLV (Grumman SGI, 68030 VME board, C, CLOS, LISP, SAL
Long Life Veh., mini-boards.
the US Postal
Truck)

IBM TJ Watson TJ, TJ2 Symbolics, RS/6000, LISP, CLOS, CLIM,
(1989?-1992) 286, 386, Suns C, X-windows, MOTIF,
GNU Emacs

ISX Corp Subsumption Mac II cx's/ci's C(?)

JPL 7 robots Suns to 6811 RCCL, ALFA

McGill U Mobile robot Sparcs, mc68hc11, PC GNU, X, Small-C
C, C++
QUADRIS SUNs, Macs, C-40, 68K C, X-windows, IRIS GL

Michigan Tech. Tracy 6502, Apple IIe, SUN, C, Assembly
U. 68HC11
Unnamed(Andros)
Minirobots 6811

MIT 20 robots Mac II & IIsi, HC6811 Behavior Language
GOPHER (ISR R2) 68332, Mac, Sun GCC, Behavior Language,
Lisp, X-windows
Polly VME, 6811, Mac Senselisp(Scheme)
SOZZY(homemade) 6811, Mac Lisp, Behavior Language

MITRE Denning MRV-1 MacQuadra, uExplorer Lisp, REX/GAPPS, C, C++

Northeastern U. Lobster Robot HC11, Mac C, Pascal, Assembly
Phaeton Sun 4/330, Mac C, epsilon (Cognex),
(Denning MRV3) X-windows

NRC of Canada EAVE Mac II's, 68020's C, HARMONY OS, MacAPP
(Cybermotion)

NC State Mobile robot VME 68020 & 68040, OS/9, P/NET

Osaka U. Homemade VME 68030, SUN IPX, C, X-windows
Sparc 2

Purdue U. PETER Sun4, 68030 C, VxWorks
(Cybermotion)

SRI FLAKEY Sparc10/30, Z80 Lucid Lisp, C, X-windows

Stanford Landmark based Mac IIci C, LISP
Navigation
(Nomadic)

Swiss FIT Mobile robot Mac MacMETH, Modula-2

U of Central a) 6-leg walker Commodore 64 SuperC, C
b) 6-leg walker Amiga 500 C

U of Edinburgh a) ALDER 8052, SUN, PC Basic
(Fischertecknik)
b) CAIRNGORM 68000, SUN C
(Fischertecknik)
c) Bill (RWI) PC, transputers C
d) Ben Hope(RWI) transputers C
e) (LEGO based) 68000 C, CPL

U of Mass., Denning DECstation 5000, C, LISP
Amherst Sparcstation

U of Michigan BORIS (TRC) 486, Decstations, SGI, Borland C++, FORTH, DOS
RS/6000
CARMEL (K2A) 286, 486, (ditto) Borland C++, FORTH, DOS
MAVERIC 486, Sparc 10, Lisp, GCC, Borland C++, X, DOS
Datacube, (ditto)

U of New Underwater Sparcstation, VxWorks, C(?)
Hampshire robots CMOS VME boards

U of South Cybermotion K2A Z-80, 68000 PASM, GEHPL, UNIX,
Carolina & K3A, Heathkit DOS/Windows
Hero 1 ET-18

U Wash. Denning HP 9000 series 300's, Gensym G2, OS/9
68000 LLAMA (Forth), Lisp, C

Worcester Poly- James NEC 76310, 68HC11, Assembly, Small-C (DOS)
technic Inst. (RWI B12) Gateway 2000 PC

Wright Lab, Hero 2000 286 MS C (DOS), Assembly
Wright-Pat. Air
Force Base

VTT (Technical Akseli HP-1100, 386 MS-DOS, LynxOS (soon)
Research Center C
of Finland)

______________________________________________________________
[17] Small development platforms
[17.1] What is the Miniboard?
[17.2] What is the F1 Board?
[17.3] What is the Bot Board?

-----------------------------
[17.1] What is the Miniboard?

New version: Miniboard 2.1 extended -

The Mini Board is an outgrowth of the MIT 6.270 robot course and
design project. It is a small and inexpensive design for a controller
board based on the ubiquitous (yet sometimes hard to find) 68HC11
micro-controller.

The Mini Board 2.1 Extended is the latest version of the Mini Board.
It is based on the Mini Board 2.0 Extended (see file
pub/miniboard/docs/mbextend.txt), and includes the following new
features:

* full six-wire SPI jacks include power, ground, and all four
SPI wires.

* optional diode protection prevents reverse-polarity voltage
input when using DC power jack.

* power and ground on Port A headers may be bridged to motor
power and ground, allowing RC servos to be plugged directly into the
Port A header (when using a 5.5 to 6v power supply).

* extra space between PLCC socket and female header connectors
to allow for newer, slightly larger PLCC sockets.

* mounting holes drilled for single RJ11 jack (for RS-232
serial), saving money on triple RJ11 jack if SPI ports are not to be
used.

Download the file pub/miniboard/docs/mb21ext.PS.Z to see the
silkscreen of the new board.

The MINI BOARD 2.1 is a complete embedded computer board for robotic
applications. It can directly power four DC motors and receive inputs
from numerous sensors. Its miniature size (smaller than a business
card) makes it suited well for mobile applications as well as other
embedded control.

It can be programmed in 6811 assembler code or C for stand-alone
operation, or it can serve as a serial-line based controller operated
by a desktop computer.

* overall dimensions: 3.3" by 1.86", smaller than a business card.
If desired, an off-board serial connector can be used, allowing an
additional .6" of board length can be chopped off.

* nearly all parts can be purchased from Digikey (including all
connectors and switches). Extensive use of resistor packs
minimizes component count.

* uses Motorola 68hc811e2 microprocessor with 2048 bytes of
internal, electrically erasable PROM and 256 bytes of RAM.

* four motor drivers for bidirectional control of small DC motors
(up to 600 mA current, 36 volts each motor).

* eight analog inputs; eight digital inputs or outputs; several
timer and counter I/O pins, all broken out to convenient header
ports.

* on-board 5v regulator allows board to be powered by any DC power
source from 5.6 to 36 volts.

* RS-232 compatible RJ-11 port for communication/program download
between host computer.

* two modular high speed serial jacks, allowing networks of multiple
MB 2.0's to be constructed using common 4-wire phone cable.
Multiple-mastering bus protocols supported.

* optional battery level monitoring using voltage divider from
supply voltage before regulation.

* XIRQ line broken out to a pad: when this line is given 12.5v,
an 'hc711e9 chip with 12K of EPROM can be programmed in place.

* MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Unix software provided for downloading
programs to board. 6811 monitor program provided for recording
changes in sensor state, controlling motors and interacting with
other board features over serial line.

* C/assembler libraries provided for code development using
Dunfield Development Systems' Micro-C compiler, and ImageCraft's
freeware icc11 C compiler.

A fifty-page manual describing how to build and operate the Mini Board
is on-line on the FTP server:
ftp://cherupakha.media.mit.edu/pub/miniboard/docs

People who don't have access to anonymous FTP can do FTP-by-mail,
provided as a public service by DEC. Send a message containing the
single word "help" to "ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com" for instructions.

Also on-line is software for programming the Mini Board from MS-DOS,
Macintosh, and Unix machines.

* Douglas Electronics, Inc.
2777 Alvarado Street
San Leandro, California 94577 USA
tel: 510.483.8770
bbs: 510.483.6548
fax: 510.483.6453

Douglas Electronics, a Macintosh PCB CAD software house and a
commercial PCB fab facility, is a new distributor of blank Mini Board
PCBs. [Thanks to Bill Schuler@douglas.com]

Pricing for the new mini-board is as follows:

1 board only ................. $ 10.00
2 to 9 boards ................ 7.50 ea.
10 to 50 boards .............. 6.25 ea.
50 and over .................. 5.00 ea.

There is also a dollar volume discount on Douglas' breadboard products,
that applies over and above the per-board quantity discounts, as follows:
$ 500 5%, $1000 10%, $2500 15%, $5000 20%
For more info see:
ftp://cherupakha.media.mit.edu/pub/miniboard/douglas.txt

-Two individuals are independent suppliers of Mini Board technology:

* Gregory Ratcliff , 1763 Hess
Boulevard, Columbus, Ohio 43212; (614) 487-0694 (late evenings EST).

Greg sells blank boards for $6, parts kits, and assembled boards.
Please contact him for information.

* Mark Reeves 1117 Braemar Court,
Cary, NC 27511; BBS and voice (919) 481-3170 (voice hours from 5-7
pm EST).

Shipping - all orders will be shipped ASAP, we do not need to wait for
a certain number of orders (although there may be delays while certain
parts are gotten). If a delay happens you will be notified by email or
postcard. No check or MO will be cashed until the order is ready to
ship.

PRICES (subject to change without notice)
All kits include a PCB, a kit without a PCB will be $5.00 less.
A kit without the 1 RJ11 adpt will be $2.50 less, a kit without the
3 RJ11 adpt will be $5.00 less.

K0 - a super basic kit, does not include any RS232 stuff, or motor drive
items, inductors, or most of the other discrete components, it does have a
PCB, CPU, socket, one 36 pin header, and a few other items. Good for
TTL level RS232, via some other chip, for the person wants to use the
board for expansion purposes, or whatever.
Contact us for price.

K1 - basic kit all parts needed to get a board up and going, one
RJ11 jack, no headers, for the true hobby person
$41.00

K2 - same as above, but has all header connectors (3 female, 2 male - 36
pin header connectors)
$46.50

K3 - basic + motor controller the full kit with all needed parts, with
all LED's and motor controller chips, one RJ11 jack
$57.50

K4 - full kit same as K3, but has the 3 RJ11 jacks for interconnecting
with other boards
$60.00

B1 - bare PCB board, double sided, extended version silk screened parts
location, etc.
$5.00

J1 - a DC power jack and power switch for the board. Use if the screw
power connector is not used; this would work with a plug in power supply.
Note- these items are sold at cost, they are not cheap
$6.50

ASSEMBLED KITS
Add $25 to any kit to get it built, add an B to the kit number, i.e. K4-B
or K4-B-A for the 68hc11A1 version of the kit. All assembled boards
will have all parts soldered on them, but to meet FCC requirements
there will be minor work to be done ( you have to install on chip)

NOTE: the basic kits do NOT include the motor controller chips or the
motor LED's, they do have the RS232 parts, they are for people who want
to use the board for things other than robotics. No speaker or sensors
are included. All motor controller chips are the TI version, 1A drive
current. All prices are subject to change without notice; please
e-mail to check if prices have gone up or down since this posting.

Mark is a supplier of the recent board revision called the "Mini
Board 2.0 Extended." This version of the Mini Board includes a
power switch and DC power jack for ease of use. Please see the file
pub/miniboard/mbextend.txt for more information.

Hard copies of the Mini Board manual may be ordered by sending a check
payable for U.S. $5 to "MIT Epistemology and Learning" at Epistemology
and Learning Publications, MIT Media Laboratory, 20 Ames Street
E15-301, Cambridge MA 02139.

There is now a mailing list for discussing the board. The purpose of
the mailing list is to discuss robot controller boards, and robot
control in general. In particular, the list will be used to support
the Mini Board 2.0 and 6.270 board design by Fred Martin and Randy
Sargent of MIT. However, any and all traffic related to robot
controllers is welcome.

Administrative address: listserv@oberon.com
(send a message containing the word "help" for directions)
Mailing list address: robot-board@oberon.com
Maintainer:
Please DO NOT send administrative things to the main mailing list
address, as then everyone will get annoyed.

_____________________________________________________________________________
[17.2] What is the F1 Board?

A PCB board set designed around the 68HC11f1 microprocessor,
which I have made available as a non-profit enterprise to all you
folks on the net. To help those of you in the US, Daniel Mauch of the
Seattle Robotics Society agreed to act as a distributor.

Well, my first shipment of these PCB's to Daniel lasted about
a week, I didn't realise they were going to be so popular! He has now
received the second shipment from me, so if anyone is interested in
these boards please Email Daniel at

If you missed any of my original postings, here again are the details of the
boards:

'F1 Board:
Size 118 x 80 mm (4.6" x 3.2")
Connectors:
Power 6.5 - 35vdc (or 5vdc if you jumper the 7805 socket)
RS485 serial communications
RS232 serial communications
SPI interface (Same as Miniboard connectors but Master/Slave
switchable)
8 Analog inputs
Port A connector
Control bus connector for additional boards
Configuration:
32K Ram memory
32K EPROM (or another 32K Ram - switch select)
MODA & MODB jumpers
Analog Vrh & Vrl jumper to +5 & 0v or user selectable
Motor Board:
Size 107 x 59 mm ( 4.2" x 2.3")
Connectors:
8 Digital inputs
8 Digital outputs
4 x DC motors
2 x Stepper motors (<1.5 Amps each)
2 x R/C servo motors
Configuration:
5 x base address selections (allows for multiple boards to be used)
Stepper / Servo switch selectable
Separate power supply for DC and Stepper motors.
Cost:

F1 board $17
Motor board $13
EPROM (w/Buffalo) $11
Postage $5

This board was designed primarily for embedded control and small robotics
applications, and as such it is as versatile as I could get it. For more
details there is complete documentation (in postscript format) in the file
ftp://cher.media.mit.edu/pub/incoming/F1/f1doc.zip

_____________________________________________________________________________
[17.3] What is the Bot Board?
The BOTBoard is a single chip microcomputer board designed for
general use, and robotics applications. The BOTBoard uses the popular
68HC11 microcontroller in a minimum configuration, and is easily
programmed from your PC. Engineered to be small, the BOTBoard is also
powerful and flexible. Each BOTBoard is 2" X 3" with a 1" X 2"
prototyping area.

Special BOTBoard Features:

. Four R/C Servo Ports.
. Auto start jumper.
. Reset Switch and low voltage circuitry.
. 1" X 2" proto-typing area, with power bus strips.
. Easy to use Networking Port (SPI). With Master/Slave selection.
. Powered RS232 Port (TTL level) for serial communication.
. Pull up resistors on IRQ and XIRQ.
. All I/O pins on .100 grid headers.
. Single sided circuit board design.
. Uses either the MC68HC11 or MC68HC811 .
. Mounting holes that can be used for stacking.
. Power supply connector.

The BOTBoard is a bare circuit board that was designed to give
the most amount of flexibility for the least cost. The BOTBoard
manual contains parts list, building instructions, ordering
information, schematics, and application notes. You can assemble the
BOTBoard in less than a half hour, with a total cost of parts being
about $20.

BOTBoard = $5.95 each or three for $15.
Shipping = $1.25 plus .25 for each board.

Marvin Green 821 SW 14th Troutdale, OR 97060 (503) 666-5907.

_____________________________________________________________________________
[18] What is the XXX Microcontroller?

Which microcontroller should I use and what are the differences
between them? What about motor controllers and motor drivers?

There are a wide variety of microcontrollers that can be used in
robotics projects. Some of the most popular are 6811's (Miniboard and
many single board computers), 80186, and PIC's. This topic engenders
hot debates of the merit of one chip over the other. Therefore, the
best way for you to decide is to understand your problem requirements
and see which devices fit your needs. At that point, you can look at
issues of support platforms, cross-compilers, cost etc to make the
best decision.

Related newsgroups include: comp.sys.intel, comp.realtime,
sci.electronics, alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt

A FAQ devoted to Microcontrollers can be found at the following:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.answers/microcontroller-faq/primer
Maintainer: Russ Hersch

In this FAQ, just brief overviews and pointers are provided for these
families of microcontrollers and related devices.

[18.1] Motorola 68XX
[18.2] Motorola 683xx
[18.3] Intel 80C186
[18.4] Intel 8051
[18.5] Intel 8096
[18.6] Microchip PIC16/17
[18.7] Parallax BASIC Stamp
[18.8] National Semiconductor LM628/629
[18.9] Hewlett-Packard HCTL 1000, 2000
[18.10] Motor Drivers

-----
Basically there are three kinds of "boards" out there that are of interest
to design engineers and the definitions are necessarily broad:

1) The evaluation board. This is a board designed by the manufacturer
of a part to demonstrate its features. Using such a board a DE can
decide whether the part will meet their needs for the design they
are creating. Generally somewhat expensive (because they are
produced in relatively small numbers) except when the part is
being 'pushed' by the manufacturer and there is some sort of
promotional deal going on. Often the evaluation board will have
some sort of breadboard area on the board for custom circuitry.

2) The Single Board Computer or SBC. These are generally produced
by a third party using some manufacturers chip. The are generally
pretty flexible but may not 'expose' all features. SBCs come in
all sizes and price ranges, some are availabe in kit form. Many
have development tools available for them.

3) The Embedded processor. These are generally boards dedicated to
some particular function (like driving a stepper motor, running
a modem etc) and are usually available pretty cheaply on the
surplus market. Unlike SBCs there are rarely any design tools
available to use with them but they can be quite inexpensive.

A FAQ devoted to Microcontrollers can be found at the following:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.answers/microcontroller-faq/primer
Maintainer: Russ Hersch

------------------------------
[18.1] Motorola 68XX
A 68HC11 is an 8-bit data, 16-bit address microcontroller from
Motorola, with an instruction set similar to the older 68xx (6801,
6805, 6809) parts. It has several on-chip resources including digital
I/O, timers, PWM, A/D RAM, various types of ROM, and synchronous and
asynchronous communications channels (RS-232 and SPI). It can easily
be integrated into single-chip applications. Less than 20ma current
draw. Good freeware assembly-language tools are available, as well as
several good commercial C compilers. It is widely used because it is
very inexpensive and the availability of developments tools makes it
very attractive.

Moto nows offers an evaluation kit that includes DOS and Mac
compatible software, low-power design tutorial and extensive technical
literature. M68EBLPIIKIT has batteries included and has 68HC11E9
microcontroller, LCD display, Moto LCD driver, RS232 line
driver/receiver chips, wire-wrap area for custom work, simple
development platform and development code. Includes assembler, several
examples, and extra crystals. $199.11 through 4/22/94.

For a lot more detail see the 68HC11 FAQ at:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.realtime/68hc11_microcontroller_FAQ
The FAQ is also regularly posted to several newsgroups.

To subscribe to a listserv mailing list for 68HC11's send the following
message to listserv@bobcat.etsu.edu

subscribe mc68hc11

There is also a FAQ on news:comp.sys.m68k. This FAQ covers the
Motorola M680x0 and the MC68300 series of microprocessors. There are
sections on the VME bus and PowerPC parts. Sources for software for
all Motorola products including the HC11 series is included. This
list also points to resources provided by Motorola to its customers.
Much of this FAQ is applicable to parts other than the M68K.

This FAQ is available on the World Wide Web at
http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/cards/m68kfaq.html.
ftp://bode.ee.ualberta.ca:/pub/motorola/m68kfaq*
ftp://ftp.ee.ualberta.ca.:/pub/motorola/
ftp://ftp.luth.se:/pub/misc/motorola/faq/m68kfaq*.gz

Although there are reports of shortages of the 68HC11, presumably
because of large customers, here is one vendor who is reported to have
significant stock:

Contact Beall and Glenn at 800-874-4797.
MC68HC11A1 - $2.50 each.
MC68HC11E1 - $3.00 each.
MC68HC11E1 - $3.00 each. ( This is a 12Mhz version.)
If you order over $20 the shipping is free. They also take VISA.

------------------------------
[18.2] Motorola 683xx

The 683xx family from Moto are highly integrated CPU's.
Several have onboard RAM (eg, up to 2K), none have on-board ROM, but
they do have timers, software programmable chip selects, etc, making
it possible to build very small but complete systems.

68302: Designed for communications, especially ISDN. On-board
nice serial controller. 68000 CPU, some memory.
68330: Has CPU32, which is in between a 68000 and a 68020. Not much else.
68331: Add standard async serial controller.
68332: Add separate Time Processing Unit and some RAM. The TPU can do
things like off-line PWM processing. Nice general package.
68340: Delete TPU, add DMA controller.

------------------------------
[18.3] Intel 80C186

An 80C186 is a evolution from the 8086. It is an embedded
processor sold by Intel, and has the same instruction set as the 8086,
with the additional "real-mode" instructions of the 286. It has the
same 16-bit data and 20-bit address bus structure of the 8086. The
80C188 is an 8-bit data bus version, just like the 8088 (of PC & PC/XT
fame). For embedded systems, it is much easier to use than the 8086.
It has an on-chip timer system, interrupt controller, DMA
controller, and clock generator. For DRAM operation, it also has an
integrated DRAM refresh generator. However, it has no on-chip I/O,
nor does it have any memory on-chip. There is, however, extra
circuitry for selecting external memory with a minimum of extra logic.
Can be programmed using most DOS compilers and assemblers, but
requires a linker that knows about locating code in absolute memory.
The '186 is not as accessible; it is harder to set up, the
tools cost more, and robotics & control resources have to be added
externally. The timers can be configured for PWM or pulse timing, It
does, however, run at higher speeds, have more accessible memory, and
can be hooked up to a floating-point co-processor (C187). It looks a
lot like a DOS machine. This may be important when software is run on
multiple platforms and also helps with the learning curve.

------------------------------
[18.4] Intel 8051

A typical 8051 contains:
- CPU with boolean processor
- 5 or 6 interrupts: 2 external, 2 priority levels
- 2 or 3 16-bit timer/counters
- programmable full-duplex serial port
(baud rate provided by one of the timers)
- 32 I/O lines (four 8-bit ports)
- RAM and ROM/EPROM in some models

The 8051 and varients are now sourced by more than a half-dozen
companies including Intel, AMD, Dallas, Signetics, Siemans and others.
The 8051 FAQ can be found at:

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.realtime/8051_microcontroller_FAQ

It includes 8051 ftp sites, public domain langauges, commercially
available software and publications for the 8051.

------------------------------
[18.5] Intel 8096

It is 16 bit, many registers, internal RAM, the usual compliment of
on-board peripherals (serial, A/D, pwm, timer/counters, etc)

------------------------------
[18.6] Microchip PIC16/17

Microchip Technology
Corporate Office
2355 West Chandler Blvd
Chandler, AZ 85224-6199
tel: 602.786.7200
fax: 602.899.9210

UK: Arizona Microchip Technology
tel: 44 062-885-1077
fax: 44 062-885-0178

Japan: Microchip Technology
tel: 81 45/471-6166
fax: 81 45/471-6122

CMOS field-programmable microcontrollers - PIC16/17. high performance
low cost and small package size. Large numbers are used in consumer
electronics and automotive applications, computer peripherals,
security and telecommunication applications.

A FAQ on the PIC exists and is posted regularly to the following
~newsgroups: comp.realtime, comp.robotics, sci.electronics
Maintainer: Tom Kellett
A PIC list address is: pic@figment.mit.edu
Administrative matters go to: pic-request@figment.mit.edu

Internet PIC sites are at:
ftp.sics.se:/pub/mchipsoft/mchipsoft
ftp.funet.fi:/pub/microprocs/PIC

PIC16CXX and PIC17Cxx are 8-bit microcontrollers that use a high-speed
RISC architecture.The PIC17CXX is probably the faster 8-bit
controller. 16-bit instruction word and vectored interrupt
capabilities.You can add external program memory, up to 64K words. The
PIC17C42 has a number of counter/timer resources and I/O handling
capabilities.

Features include: timers, embedded A/D, extended instruction/data
memory, inter-processor communication and ROM, EPROM and EEPROM
memories. assemblers, linkers, loaders, libraries and source-level
debuggers are available. Digi-Key carries PIC's (See Parts Suppliers)

A simulator is available from Compuserve from the MicroChip BBS. The
simulator is SIM42000.zip and the assembler is MPA10200.zip. You do
not have to be a member of CompuServe to get to the MicroChip BBS.

1. Set modem to 8N1
2. Dial your local Compuserve phone number.
3. Type and a garbage string will appear because compuserve is
expecting a 7E1 setting.
4. Type + and Host Name: will appear.
5. Type MCHIPBBS and you wil be connected to the Microchip BBS.

Vendors of PIC boards:
These are from reviews by Chuck McManis :

Micro Engineering Labs
P.O. Box 7532,
Colorado Springs, CO 80933
tel: 719.520.5323
contact: Jeff Schmoyer
MEL has designed a couple of PC boards for prototyping PIC
systems PICProto 18 - $9.95 US including shipping in the US. This
board is 1.5" by 3", double sided, solder masked, and has plated
through holes. the top 7/8" x 1.5" of the board (oriented with the
narrow side "up") consists of an 18 pin socket print, holes to
conviently mount either a crystal or RC oscillator and a set of holes
to mount a 5v regulator, either the TO-220 type or the low power TO-92
type as used on the Miniboard. All of the PIC I/O pins, RB0 - 7, RA0
- 3, RTC, Vdd and Gnd are brought out to a dual row of pads. they are
followed by 15 rows of pads, with the outer pad on one side being the
Vdd bus and the outer pad on the other side being the Vcc bus. After
this there are two rows of pads, offset, that can accomodate a DB9,
DB15, or DB25 connector. This board will accept either the 16C5x
series (in the 18 pin package) or a 16C71 PIC.

The PICProto Dual - $14.95 US
Is similar except it has pads for 1 18 pin PIC and 1 24 pin
(or another 18 pin) PIC. It is 3" x 3" and shares all of the same
properties of the PICproto 18 with respect to setting up crystal or RC
timing for the PICs. It has pads for 1 DB connector that is 25 pins
or less. It adds about 50% more prototyping pads so you can put two
or three more chips on it. The nice thing about this one is that one
PIC can do asynchronous things like be a serial interface while the
other provides I/O pins and monitoring functions.

PIC Prototype-1 - $195.00 from Digikey

This gizmo is made by Depew Engineering (depew@maroon.tc.umn.edu) and
is sold by Digikey and Parallax and possibly others. It is a
breadboarding system for testing out PIC designs. If you have a
Digikey catalog you can look at the picture there, but it is basically
a circuit board with a 28/18pin ZIF socket in the upper left corner, a
9 pin DB-9 connector that is attached to a MAX232 chip to provide
RS-232 levels and a 25 pin DB-25 connector at the top center which is
wired as a "parallel" port like you might find on a PC. Continuing
across the top, now in the right hand corner there is a coaxial power
plug and switch. Along the right side are five 7 segment displays that
are permanently wired to display the value of PORTA, PORTB, and PORTC
(when available) in hex notation, along the lower right are a set of
dip switches for setting the clock rate (500Khz - 32 Mhz in 32Khz
increments). Along the bottom edge are green LEDs showing the state of
all the PORT pins (in binary :-)) and taking up roughly 45% of the
circuit board is a solderless breadboard section. The solderless
breadboard has two primary sections, an upper bus section containing
connectors attached to all of the PIC pins and some useful pins on the
board (like inputs to the MAX chip and outputs from it), and a lower
section which is a standard breadboard with two rows of 5 pin
connectors spaced .3" apart.

Additionally, the circuit has support for Parallax's PBASIC
interpreter PICs and a serial EEPROM for storing your BASIC
program. (Sort of a giant BASIC STAMP). Note you have to buy a PBASIC
PIC ($18 from digikey or Parallax) separately. Overall my impression
is of a product, that does a lot of neat stuff but fails to be the
killer product it could have been. Consequently I'll first discuss the
weaknesses of the board before going on to the stronger aspects.

The board claims to be a 16c5x prototyper, but the manual suggests it
supports 16C71, and 16C84 parts as well. What it didn't do was add the
parts to make it an optional 16C84 programmer. Given how easy this is
I'm guessing that they just didn't think of it or had the design
"done" before they had access to 16C84 parts.

The next weakness is that while they have the EEPROM socket for BASIC
users, they don't bring the pins out the protoboard so it is not
possible to take advantage of the EEPROM in your prototype designs.

On the prototype board, +5/Gnd are available in the bus section on two
connectors but there aren't two strip connectors that you find on all
other breadboards for carrying Vcc and ground. This means that you end
up either daisy chaining your power and ground connections, or
dedicating some of the connectors on the main bread board for Vcc and
gnd.

Another area that could, in my opinion, be improved is the
availability of non-dedicated I/O devices, at the least it would be
nice to have a 4 position dip switch and 4 available LEDs that could
be used in the circuit as needed. A neat feature that would be by no
means required would be using two color LEDs to display the state of
the output as true (green), false (red), or floating (yellow).

Finally there is the issue of cost, at $195.00 this is a fairly pricey
system for what it does. Now I realize that similar systems for other
microcontrollers are similarly priced although the nearest direct
equivalent would be the Heathkit ET trainer series that were much more
oriented to learning about microcontrollers. IF I could program and
emulate PICs with it (like the Parallax tools do) in addition to using
it as a breadboard that would be wayyy cool, but I don't know how much
that would effect the price. I'd probably pay another $50 for that
improvement.

Ok, so all that grousing aside what did I like about it? I liked the
fact that I can now prototype PIC designs (hardware wise) in minutes
as opposed to hours. Prior to this device I would get a
MicroEngineering Labs PicProto board, wire up the PIC section,
wirewrap my I/O hardware or a connector that connected to my hardware,
and then start programming. If I had to redo the hardware that would
be fairly long delay. With this thing I can put the hardware on the
prototype strip or, using the 26 pin IDC connector, connect it over to
my "big" breadboard. I don't have to worry whether or not the PIC is
working and I can do a 10mhz design on a breadboard.

In terms of value for the money my guess is that I'll need to do at
least four and possibly six different designs on it before I've made
back my investment.

If it were part of a PIC seminar, it would be a wonderful teaching tool.
-Chuck McManis

------------------------------
[18.7] Parallax BASIC Stamp

The Stamp is a 1x2" (2.5x5cm) computer that runs BASIC
programs written on a PC. 8 I/O lines which can be used for serial
communications, potentiometer inputs, pulse measurement, switches,
speaker drivers etc. Usually you'll have to add no more than a
resistor or capacitor at most. A BASIC editor on the PC converts
instructions into token that are downloaded to the Stamp via a
3-conductor cable and stored in EEPROM. Whenever the Stamp is powered
up, the on-board interpreter runs the program. Battery clips are built
in for a 9V battery (Stamp has 5V supply built in.) and the Stamp has
a small prototyping area as well. From Digikey the Development Kit
(including a Stamp) is $139, and a Stamp is $39.

There is a BASIC STAMP Mailing List (NOT a newsgroup)
stamp-list@cybernetics.net
Subscribe to it by sending mail to
majordomo@cybernetics.net
with a line of text saying
subscribe stamp-list

There is also an FTP site at "novell.nrc.ca" that has a STAMP
directory structure. It contains (so far) all the stuff from the
Parallax BBS, plus a few other goodies.

------------------------------
[18.8] National Semiconductor LM628/629

Small motor control chip. Does PWM for motion control at a very low
cost. A couple of H-bridges on the outputs. Good reference for using
the 628/9 for motion control is in: Closing the Loop on DC Motor
Control by Tom Dahlin and Don Krantz The Computer Applications
Journal, Issue #28 Aug/Sept, 1992

[18.9] Hewlett-Packard HCTL 1000, 2000

HP's motor and encoder interface chips. Widely used and widely available.

------------------------------
[18.10] Motor Drivers

The L293D, motor driver on a chip, is an SGS-Thomson part and is
second sourced by Unitrode. In spite of its utility it is not readily
available in small quantities. This part is a dual full H-bridge that
can drive motors up to 0.6A.

The significance of the 'D' in L293D is that it is diode protected.
There is a reverse biased diode that shunts the reverse EMF from a
motor to the V+ supply. The L293B doesn't have this diode so it must
be provided externally.

National has an LM18293 which they say is a cross for an L293B. The
price should $4.00 or less and they need the external diodes. A
replacement for the D part is the Texas Instruments 754410 which
actually has a bit better current capacity (1A vs .6A) this latter
part is available from Arrow electronics in the US.

An alternative part is the UDN2998. This is a 3A bridge in an inline
package, it is limited to motor supplies greater than 10V. You can
also build your own H-bridge out of either bipolar chips or MOSFETs.

_____________________________________________________________________________
[19] Acknowledgements
Thanks to those who responded with updates, new material,
corrections, suggestions etc. Some of the names are indirect; that is,
they replied to queries on the newsgroup:

Hans Moravec, Maki Habib, Ken Goldberg, David Stanton, John Nagle,
Sean Graves, Sjur Vestli, Mark Yim, Rich Wallace, Dan Hudson, Sanjiv
Singh, Matt Stein, Dave Stewart, Ed Cheung, Ron Fearing, Klaus
Biggers, Lisa Rendleman, Nobuhiko Mukai, Paul Sharkey, Fred Martin,
Willie Lim, Allen Brown, Erann Gat, Judd Jones, Tony Sprent, Richard
Seldon, Brian Richardson, Ross McAree, Nathan Stratten, Chuck McManis,
Ben Brown, Terry Fong, Jeff Fox, Bill Lye Patrick Arnold, David
Novick, Stephen Klueter Chris Malcolm, Frank Hausman, Sam Miller, Rich
Voyles, Jean-Pierre Merlet, Karl Altenburg, Dave Hrynkiw, Ken Baker,
Vic Callaghan, Gerhard Weiss, Ambarish Goswami, Peter Turner, Peter
Corke, Michael Bakula, Andrew Whitwell, Brian Richardson, Mark Copley,
Bob Bonitz, Karl Altenburg, Mike Cleary, Martin Boyer, Prabal Dutta,
Shane Bouslough, Chris Peters, Carl Wall, John Strohm, Jerry Ethridge,
Gary R. Porter, Mark Kantrowitz, Larry Bradley, Richard LeGrand, Jeff
Collins, Vic Callaghan, Scott Anderson, drsharp, Warrick Wilson, Jan
Paterson,

...and many others who dropped off suggestions, comments and
changes. Thank you!

_____________________________________________________________________________

aka: Kevin Dowling Carnegie Mellon University
tel: 412.268.8830 The Robotics Institute
fax: 412.682.1793 5000 Forbes Avenue
net: Pittsburgh, PA 15213

_____________________________________________________________________________
End of part5