Robot Design/Engineering

We need to know what you mean by robot...

Is this a fun home project..or do you want it to do some thing serious?

Thef irst step (I think) is to decide what you want your robot to do.

Give us a clue...& we'll give a few idas, & hints.

Maybe a robot which wanders around the floor and will fetch beer from the fridge?

Try Radio Shack.

i need installation design for robotics, opperaion, all the instruments in use and the requirements of finding a job, don't forget to send me adresses of all the dealership i'm gooing to apply to at this email adresse:dmapote@webmail.co.za

I think, Nobody have came to moon because NO riset can't explan validly. NASA just make lying. what do you think? plz reply to "electrical_syarif@yahoo.co.id

What on Earth, or the Moon for that matter, are you talking about, what is a riset and how does this relate to robotics?

Do a google search for Yuasa robotics. The available information is endless.

If you want to learn about robots and how they work here is a link for a great place to start. http://mindstorms.lego.com/ You will find many links to information on the internet and lots of ideas for projects.

Mike

As the others have said this is a very open question and its analogous to asking how long is a piece of string.

The term robot can cover just about anything that has some sort of automatic control and can mean anything from a vacuum cleaner through manufacturing systems all the way through to completely autonomous systems like Honda's ASIMO.

If it's a home built project for fun then the Lego Mindstorm is hard to beat for ease and simplicity of construction, but, it all depends on what you wish to achieve and how complex you wish to get.

What if the string is this long: _______________________ ?

From NASA Tech Briefs INSIDER 06/28/07:

NASA NEWS

NASA has released its CLARAty (Coupled-Layer Architecture for Robotic Autonomy) robotic software for public downloading. CLARAty is an integrated framework for reusable robotic software that defines interfaces for common robotic capabilities such as pose estimation, navigation, locomotion, and planning. In addition to supporting multiple algorithms, CLARAty provides adaptations to multiple robotic platforms.

NASA is releasing most of the CLARAty infrastructure and several of its algorithms that have been approved for public release. The long-term goal is to release as much of the robotic functionality as possible in order to engage the public robotic community to develop surface mobility and robotic control algorithms for challenging environments.

The first release provides a sample of the CLARAty reusable robotic infrastructure and includes mechanism models for wheeled, legged, and hybrid vehicles. Other modules include support for generic digital and analog I/O, cameras, and motors. Several modules in this release provide vision infrastructure for images, color images, camera models, 3D point cloud, and surface normal image representations.

For information on downloading the public elements of CLARAty, visit:

http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20070628A6

"Hi! I don't know where to start for getting materials and software to program a robot and make it run on its own. Can someone help me figure out what I should look for?"

Get connected. Join a group of robotics enthusiasts.

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If u are interested to design a robot, you must determine:

- Payload of the robot, how much weight it has to handle

- Freedom of motion, how many axis?. (articulated robot, cartesian robot, linear robot)

- Motor used? e.g. Servo Motor (AC or DC type? , Stepper Motor?)

- Resolver? (This is used to calculate the motor position and match with your software. And can act as Fuzzy Logic Controller, used to achieve closest possibilty to the programmed path)

- The control card for the motors.

- Programming software for the calculating the movements. e.g. a linear robot with XYZ axis has and surely one axis sits on top of another, so u need a software u can program to calculate all this axis put together and program the TCP to move within the area covered by this freedom of motion (FOM). TCP (Tool Center Point, e.g. Your finger tip is the TCP of your finger)

In one of my university classes we had to design an autonomous robot as an R&D project. It had to run a 3D course and "rescue" a Beanie Baby off of a "cliff" (not as impressive as it sounds, I assure you. But still fun ). It helped teach me the basics of robot design. You should consider the following:

-What is the primary task of the robot?

This will help determine what kind of mobility and tools it will have on it, and consequently what kind of motors, processor etc. it will need. Google around for various actuators and motors.

-How will it find what it is supposed to operate on?

Without either a very accurate programmed course of movements or a signal of some kind to track to, you will have one very blind robot. The one I helped design ran part of the course using optical sensors to track black electrical tape. At a certain point the tape ended, and it then tracked towards an infra-red beacon. I'm sure you could google around for local manufacturers of these things, like various electronics shops.

-How many individual inputs/outputs will the robot have?

Determining how many seperate input and output signals you need to control for this robot will determine what kind of processor you need. The one we used was a Handy Board, http://www.handyboard.com/. This useful little thing can be directly programmed in C, and allows for PID control. I personally didn't do much of the computer stuff on this project, I focused more on the mechanical construction and design.

- What materials do you need?

Depends on the required physical forces that your 'bot has to put out/endure. It could be anything from advanced Titanium alloys to Lego. Mine was made out of a combination of Meccano and parts I machined out of aluminum and steel. If you have machining equipment like a lathe/mill available to you, that greatly expands your options.

-How is it powered?

If the robot is stationary (such as something bolted on a frame and having a flexible 'arm' for doing work) this isn't a major issue, but if it is partially mobile you will need to look at cabling options, and if it is a fully mobile, potentially outdoor device you will need a decent battery pack on the thing, which will also add to the weight and maneuverability.

If you gave some more detail about what this robot is specifically supposed to do, I could give some more advice.