Current Events
Just to let you know that I've not been goofing off. There has been a lot of activity going on - well, they say that busy hands are happy hands.
Speaking of hands, I'm volunteering for Enabling the Future - a group that donates 3d printed prosthetic hands. I'm just finishing my first "audition" hand to send in for quality control.
In order to create 3D printed objects, I have to have a 3D printer. I've built a Kossel 2020 3D printer by FolgerTech of Milford, NH - just up the road from me here in Nashua. I've added some of my own modifications, plus what I've found on the Interweb. I'm really pleased with both the quality and functionality of my printer. This is not a kit for those who want a "plug and play" experience - there was a lot of fiddling and adjusting to get the quality and consistency out of the printer, but I've got it working.
My other activity is working with the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) as a Corner Marshall. I've written an article about my flagging activities here at GIZMAG. This season I've done about 10 races so far, including the IMSA Northeast Grand Prix (Tudor Racing Series) at Lime Rock Park.
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8/06/2015
6/27/2015
My GIZMAG Author's Page
I've written quite a few articles for GIZMAG, the online technology magazine. Why don't you follow this link and take a look? You'll find flying cars, 3D sensors, 3D printers, and all sorts of other things
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6/26/2015
BOOKS:
INFLUENTIAL SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS
These books have become part of the popular culture, have
influenced thought, or become popular memes in our society, some to the point
of the ideas becoming separate from the book that launched them. Just think of “Open the Pod Bay Doors, Hal”,
or Frankenstein’s monster, or the Three Laws of Robotics. Some have even
introduced new words to our language, like “grok” or “Waldo”.
Lord of the Rings/The
Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Synopsis: Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who lives in Middle
Earth, and finds a magic ring, which he leaves (50 years later) to his nephew
Frodo Baggins to destroy by throwing it into a live volcano.
Why: This story is now famous thanks to the movies, but used
to be a geek right of passage. The archetype
of all “swords and sorcery” fantasy since and the inspiration for countless
video games, Dungeons and Dragons, etc. While this fantasy book is not science
fiction, its influence on the entire genre is so great it has to be included.
Frankenstein – Mary
Shelley
Synopsis: Don’t think
you know this story if you have not read the book. The monster (properly called Frankenstein’s
Creature) in this book is intelligent, articulate, and longs to be accepted by
other humans who seem to fear him. In the
story, Dr. Victor Frankenstein re-animates a body pieced together from various
corpses. The resulting creature is abandoned
by his creator and suffers a lot of neglect and abuse. The creature gets revenge by murdering
Victor’s brother. The creature demands a
mate be made, which the Doctor complies with, then destroys. The enraged creature murders all of Victor’s
family and leads Frankenstein on a chase across the world, ending in the
Arctic.
Why: This story has become so much a part of culture that we
take its precepts for granted, that man should not “play God” and bestow life,
a concept that was repeated with later robot stories. Most of our impressions of this story – the
mute creature with the flat head – come from the movies, not from this book. Read the story yourself and learn why this is
a classic.
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9/06/2011
Airships 101
Continuing the series on Airships:
Some basic comments on airship technical design. I'll be referring to Goodyear's web pages on flying their blimp.
The basic components of the airship are the envelope (outer covering), gondola, fins or aerodynamic controls, engines, and the balloonets.
Lift for the airship is provided by a combination of static (buoyancy) lift provided by the lifting gas - usually helium - and dynamic lift provided by the air moving over the aerodynamic shape of the airship and the thrust provided by the engines. Airships are boyant, like any balloon, by being less dense than the surrounding air. To be specific, the airship weighs less than the amount of air volume it displaces. This difference provides lift. If an airship weighs exactly the same as the air it displaces, then it is neutrally buoyant and will neither rise nor sink. The problem with this is that as you ascend into the atmosphere, the air becomes less dense. Airships are normally trimmed with ballast (added weight) to be slightly heavy at ground level - and to use dynamic lift provided by forward motion to climb.
Read more!
Some basic comments on airship technical design. I'll be referring to Goodyear's web pages on flying their blimp.
The basic components of the airship are the envelope (outer covering), gondola, fins or aerodynamic controls, engines, and the balloonets.
Lift for the airship is provided by a combination of static (buoyancy) lift provided by the lifting gas - usually helium - and dynamic lift provided by the air moving over the aerodynamic shape of the airship and the thrust provided by the engines. Airships are boyant, like any balloon, by being less dense than the surrounding air. To be specific, the airship weighs less than the amount of air volume it displaces. This difference provides lift. If an airship weighs exactly the same as the air it displaces, then it is neutrally buoyant and will neither rise nor sink. The problem with this is that as you ascend into the atmosphere, the air becomes less dense. Airships are normally trimmed with ballast (added weight) to be slightly heavy at ground level - and to use dynamic lift provided by forward motion to climb.
Read more!
8/25/2011
Attack of the Airships!
It seems that all of a sudden, everyone has an airship, a blimp or an aerostat (tethered blimp), either manned or unmanned. Two years ago no-one was talking about them, and now fat, boyant, helium filled UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), OPV (Optionally Piloted Vehicles), and MV (Manned Vehicle) lighter-than-air craft fill the skies. I just attended the AUVSI conference in Washington DC, and I saw a lot of blimps and airships.
A quick note: A blimp is a lighter-than-air craft that is propelled by an engine, has an aerodynamic-shaped (teardrop) body, and maintains its shape via internal pressure, like a balloon. An Airship is the generic name for a powered lighter than air craft. A Zeppelin, or rigid airship, has a metal frame, usually of aluminum, that maintains its shape. The vast majority of airships today are blimps. Zeppelins are heavier, but faster.
I think that the reason for all this interest in airships is fueled by the need for persistent survellance - the ability to maintain overwatch of a large area for long periods of time, and this need is created by the use of IED's to attack US troop overseas, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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A quick note: A blimp is a lighter-than-air craft that is propelled by an engine, has an aerodynamic-shaped (teardrop) body, and maintains its shape via internal pressure, like a balloon. An Airship is the generic name for a powered lighter than air craft. A Zeppelin, or rigid airship, has a metal frame, usually of aluminum, that maintains its shape. The vast majority of airships today are blimps. Zeppelins are heavier, but faster.
I think that the reason for all this interest in airships is fueled by the need for persistent survellance - the ability to maintain overwatch of a large area for long periods of time, and this need is created by the use of IED's to attack US troop overseas, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Read more!
8/14/2011
My Robot Designs - the List!
In my official biography, I said that I have designed of over 20 unmanned vehicles over the years. You may wonder, what 20 vehicles am I talking about? I fell that I need to provide a list of all my original designs – time to “put up or shut up”. So here is the official list - to date:
So in this definition of “vehicle”, we will have anything that can move on its own – on wheels, tracks, or treads, float, swim, or fly. My smallest unmanned ground vehicle weighed just three pounds, while the heaviest a whopping 28,000 lbs (14 tons).
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So in this definition of “vehicle”, we will have anything that can move on its own – on wheels, tracks, or treads, float, swim, or fly. My smallest unmanned ground vehicle weighed just three pounds, while the heaviest a whopping 28,000 lbs (14 tons).
Read more!
8/08/2011
Now entering BOOK MODE
I've finally decided to get off the fence and write a book about robots. The working title is "Don't Fear the Robots: The Myth of the Robot Apocalypse". This means that at some time I will have to learn to spell "Apocalypse".
You are familiar with the Robot Apocalypse of course- you've seen it in movies and read about in books. The story goes that robots become intelligent and decide that they can run the world better than we can and (for our own good) either destroy or enslave humanity. So that includes even the original story "RUR" that gave us the word "Robot", the Terminator Movies, the Matrix, and even the recent fiction book, imaginatively titled "Robopocalypse". You can check out "Armed Robots.com" which keeps track of this subject.
I'm here to say its all bunk.
Read more!
You are familiar with the Robot Apocalypse of course- you've seen it in movies and read about in books. The story goes that robots become intelligent and decide that they can run the world better than we can and (for our own good) either destroy or enslave humanity. So that includes even the original story "RUR" that gave us the word "Robot", the Terminator Movies, the Matrix, and even the recent fiction book, imaginatively titled "Robopocalypse". You can check out "Armed Robots.com" which keeps track of this subject.
I'm here to say its all bunk.
Read more!
A Quick Update
OK, I've not been keeping my Blog updated. Well, its time to get back into the game, so expect to see a lot of updates over the next few weeks. I've been really busy doing some really interesting stuff. What kinds of stuff? I've been designing telemetry systems for race cars, with GPS and IMU sensors to track cars in real time. That job is over, but I'm really proud of the results we got. I'm now back looking for a new job and a new home, and faced once again with trying to figure out what I do when I grow up. At 50 that's both a lot tougher and a lot easier than at 17. Tougher in that I have dependents, a house, two cars, etc. that are affected, and easier in that I have a lot of tools to work with.
We also had a very sad time in our house this week, as our Cat, Aaron, passed away. He usually would sit right behind this computer as I would work at home, and would keep you company and snuggle with you if your were feeling low. He kept stealing my pillow at night and I would wake up with the cat purring happily on my pillow and my head on the mattress. I will miss him greatly. We have another cat, China, who is doing well and we are trying to keep her occupied.
So what do I do next? It all depends on what is open. I look back on what I've done, which includes designing over 20 robots, being responsible for 6 full unmanned ground vehicles (from start to finish), helping design the International Space Station and contributed to the Space Shuttle, and working on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. I guess that my first love has always been aviation, and I'd like to find a place where I can put all of my talents and interests to bear.
Wish me luck!
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We also had a very sad time in our house this week, as our Cat, Aaron, passed away. He usually would sit right behind this computer as I would work at home, and would keep you company and snuggle with you if your were feeling low. He kept stealing my pillow at night and I would wake up with the cat purring happily on my pillow and my head on the mattress. I will miss him greatly. We have another cat, China, who is doing well and we are trying to keep her occupied.
So what do I do next? It all depends on what is open. I look back on what I've done, which includes designing over 20 robots, being responsible for 6 full unmanned ground vehicles (from start to finish), helping design the International Space Station and contributed to the Space Shuttle, and working on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. I guess that my first love has always been aviation, and I'd like to find a place where I can put all of my talents and interests to bear.
Wish me luck!
Read more!
8/04/2010
New this month in ROBOT
I have two new articles in the current edition of ROBOT magazine, now on bookstands everywhere. For the younger crowd, there is an article on "SO you want to be a Robot Designer", with advice for what to study and what skills are necessary to work professionally in the Robot business. The other article is called "Everything is turning 3D" about putting stereo vision on a robot (3D glasses not included).
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Here come the Mummies!
One thing I'm famous for, at least inside my family, is the number of my hobbies. The robot thing that I do now as a profession started as one of my extra activities. I will say in my own defense that all of my hobbies have one thing in common - learning something new. I'm always looking for something new to learn and some new skill. My current favorite extra project is learning to play the electric guitar. I bought a used Fender Stratocaster and I've been enjoying learning to make music on it. The side effect of this is that I'm listening to music again for the first time in years - I had gotten away completely from listening to music other then when I was helping clean house. A recent video special on the HD channel on Sirius exposed me to a group called "Here Come the Mummies". And yes, the group dresses as mummies on stage. They play "funky" music - think Tower of Power or Parliament, if you are that old.
Here is a link:
Here come the Mummies:
Now rumor has it that this is a group of studio musicians who have contracts with various other record companies and conceal their identities so that they can play together legally. What ever the reason, the music is great and you need to give them a listen.
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Here is a link:
Here come the Mummies:
Now rumor has it that this is a group of studio musicians who have contracts with various other record companies and conceal their identities so that they can play together legally. What ever the reason, the music is great and you need to give them a listen.
Read more!
4/15/2010
What I'm working on now...
Right now at home, my personal project is to create a vertical take off and landing, horizontal flying UAV (Unmanned Aeriel Vehicle). I'm starting with an unusual model airplane called a "VFO", or Vertical Flying Object, by Electrifly http://www.electrifly.com/parkflyers/gpma1135.html
This is a "tail sitter" aircraft that takes off in the vertical position, sitting on its tail, and then pitches over and flys conventionally like a regular airplane. Right now I have the model all assembled and it can hover and fly about. I had to stop testing because I blew out my cheap lithium battery charger (from one of my RC helicopters) and need to get another.
I'm expecting to put a Aurdino-based autopilot and GPS on the aircraft and have it take off and land autonomously. It will also get a wireless camera.
There are lots of good video of the VFO on Youtube - just search "Youtube VFO". I'll keep you posted on my progress.
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10/16/2009
Review - Hasbro Interactive R2D2
I've really lost count of how many robots I've got in my collection, but it is somewhere over 20. One of my kid's favorites is the interactive R2D2 made by Hasbro. We got one of the last ones at the Sharper Image -- we bought their floor model. Our R2D2 is about 18" tall and stays in the "three legged" stance that allows it to drive around. There are motors in the outside legs, and a ball caster in the center leg. R2 drives around carpet just fine, and the best part is that he makes all the right beeps, boops, and whistles of his movie prop progenetor.
The interactive part of this robot is all voice command - there is no hand controller or infrared remote for this robot. It really helps if the area is quiet, and you get within about a foot or so of the droid before speaking. It was interesting that my kids particularly liked that the robot did not always respond, or sometimes would just shake his dome in a "no" guesture. Rather than discouraging them from talking to the robot, it became a game to try and get the robot to respond.
My personal favorite feature is right on the front -- there is a separate button that disable the drive system, so that you can sit R2D2 on a table and talk to him without him driving off. The button lights up red for disabled and blue for go.
The interactive features include several that are quite innovative. The robot has a small IR sensor that can detect humans, and some sort of IRPD (Infrared proximity detector) to avoid obstacles. The R2D2 can drive around and even play hide and seek, using the IR sensor to find humans.
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9/12/2009
Coverage of TARDEC robot rodeo
There are some good articles written on the Robot Rodeo that I recently participated in at Fort Hood Texas, that include photos of some of our robots.
You can look at
CNET (first and third pictures)
Popular Science
Also see Dr. Robin Murphy's post on Rescue Robotics
Read more!
You can look at
CNET (first and third pictures)
Popular Science
Also see Dr. Robin Murphy's post on Rescue Robotics
Read more!
8/30/2009
Robot Video: MotoMan dual Robot Arm
I've been fascinated for some time with two-armed robot systems. I found this video on the MotoMan dual-armed robot system, showing assembly of a chair.
It's interesting to watch the dual end-effectors (hands) -- each arm has two hands, that are mounted in different orientations.
Anyway, it is fascinating to watch the smooth motion of this robot. That is a lot of joints all going at once, and keeping track of all that geometry has to be a chore.
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It's interesting to watch the dual end-effectors (hands) -- each arm has two hands, that are mounted in different orientations.
Anyway, it is fascinating to watch the smooth motion of this robot. That is a lot of joints all going at once, and keeping track of all that geometry has to be a chore.
Read more!
8/07/2009
Congratulations Jay and Kay
I want to congratulate my dear friends, Jay and Connie Kay Blanchard and congratulate them on thier wedding we attended last week. Jay, Kay, and I went to high school together, where all three of us worked on the high school newspaper, about 30 years ago. Recently, Jay and Connie Kay got together over planning a class reunion, and started phoning, and talking, and dating long distance over the 200 miles that separated them. Its a classic love story and I'm delighted to see my two friends together with each other. Jay and I have been best friends since junior high school, and have each influenced the other; Jay introduced me to DCI (Drum Corps International) and I got him hooked on Robots. Today, Jay is building a full-scale replica of the B-9 Robot from Lost in Space, and my kids (and I) are big DCI fans (go Cavaliers!).
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8/01/2009
LA Times Moral Tale of EATR
The Los Angeles Times ran a thoughtful article about our recent experience with the Internet, news, and the EATR project under the title "Robot Developers Learn Perils of New Media", on just how our peaceful, leaf-muching robot turned into an Internet flesh-eating zombie.
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7/27/2009
Personal Appearances
I'll be making two important public appearances in the next few weeks. I'll be addressing the IVTT (Intelligent Vehicle Technology Transfer) workshop on Intellidrive - Vehicle Infrastructure Integration this week (July 30) in Washington DC. This is held at the Holiday Inn in Gaithersburg MD, next door to NIST. My presentation will be on "Network Centric Operations".
I'll also be making a presentation entitiled "Reducing Operator Workload" at the AUVSI (Association of Unmanned Vehicles Systems International) conference in Washington on August 10th. My company will have a robot exhibit at this conference with our UGV's, UAV's and USV's. (ground, air, and sea vehicles).
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I'll also be making a presentation entitiled "Reducing Operator Workload" at the AUVSI (Association of Unmanned Vehicles Systems International) conference in Washington on August 10th. My company will have a robot exhibit at this conference with our UGV's, UAV's and USV's. (ground, air, and sea vehicles).
Read more!
Its MAGIC! Another robot challenge
OK, we liked the DARPA Grand Challenge, and its successor the Urban Challenge. And the X-Prize was very exciting, dramatic, and had a wonderful outcome. The Lunar Google X-Prize is a little daunting, and not for the timid, and will require LOTS of fundraising. What else is there to go after for inventors and robotics tinkerers? Now there is a new contest in town, and you have to like the name. Its MAGIC - Multi-Autonomous Ground robotic International Challenge. It's jointly sponsored by the US RDECOM (a research section of the Army) and DSTO, the Australian equivalent of DARPA. The objective is for a team of three robots to perform a task of mapping and searching an urban terrain. And they have to work together as a team. This sounds quite interesting, and I'll be keeping an eye on this. Sounds like a wonderful excuse to go to Australia.
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7/19/2009
The Truth about EATR
It is always gratifying when something I'm involved in gets a wide reception around the Internet. In the case of EATR (see post, below) there has been a lot of speculation and just wild rumors about what we are trying to do with the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot. For example
Bot Junkie: Robot runs on Soylent Green
The Register: Robot to consume all life on earth as fuel
DARPA Funds Flesh Eating Robot
Which stories basically took the concept of a robot that finds its own food, and then wildly speculated on what that food might be, because in the press releases we just said "biomass" without specifying what that might include.
I'm one of the principles involved in EATR, as my company is one of the commercial investors in this project.
THE TRUTH ABOUT EATR
EATR was always conceived as identifying, selecting, and consuming vegetable matter (leaves, twigs, branches, grass) as its energy source. In particular, the easiest vegetable matter to grab from the robot's perspective, is what is already lying on the ground - dead leaves, dropped branches, etc. That material is gathered up and then ground into small bits that can be easily dropped into the burner. EATR IS A VEGETARIAN.
So EATR is far more like a robot cow or horse, grazing for its food to convert to energy.
And frankly, we don't have any means at all of converting protein into energy, so any sort of animal material would be useless.
As noted in the press release, there are four parts of EATR:
the computer system with the sensors,
a large robot arm,
an external combustion engine (in this case, the Cyclone power unit)
the mobility platform (i.e. a car or mobile vehicle like a golf cart)
In the first phase of EATR, all of the components are stationary and mounted on a platform. We will be "teaching" the system to recognize potential food, and be able to pick it up and place it in a container. That alone is a very difficult prospect. In this stationary state, we will be placing different materials near the robot and using various sensors to identify and classify the material, and then use 3D sensors to show the robot where the material is and how to pick it up. Right now we are using small tree branches about 1/2 inch in diameter.
The material will go into a chipper that will render it down into sawdust. What will work best is dry leaves, twigs, and small branches--in other words, dead vegetable matter.
The team chose a steam-type engine (actually an external combustion engine) since that was the simplest and most direct way to make energy out of found material. We can just burn the material and use the heat to make electricity, which is our aim.
So the main food source of EATR, what we will get the best energy from, will be dead plant material that has dried out. Animal biomass would not be usable at all.
We are also planning for EATR to have a helper. It carries one or more smaller "marsupial" robots in a garage in the back of the vehicle (see image). We are thinking that these smaller robots (like the Elbit Beagle Robot pictured) can assist the larger "mother" vehicle to gather material into a heap that would be easier to pick up. The small "joey" robots would be battery powered and recharged by the larger EATR main vehicle. This would help deal with small scale objects like dead leaves that may not be efficiently picked up by the large robot arm by itself.
For our next phase, if we get to do one. is to create a more sustainable fuel source. NASA refers to what we do as "In-Situ Resource Utilization" or ISRU. They are studying using processes to extract fuel, air, and water from local materials on the Moon, and Mars. It is obviously a tremendous advantage if you don't have to carry all of your supplies with you everywhere you go. Here on Earth, the EATR team is considering some sort of bio-mass fuel creation, either using alge to make some sort of oil or bio-diesel, or something to do with either methane or ammonia, both of which can be used in internal combustion engines. It probably would not hurt to suppliment the energy budget with some solar electricity.
What do you do with an EATR? We've come up with a list of ideas, which include long border patrols, pipeline inspection, long term climate studies, wildlife research, mobile observation posts, and forest management. Any project that needs long duration missions away from civilization would be a possible application.
Frankly, I'm as interested in other technological spinoffs as the possiblility of making fuel. Just solving the object recognition and manipulation tasks would have immediate benifits for tasks like humanitarian landmine removal, or creating a robot that could tend plants. EATR represents an serious advance in autonomous robotics, and has tangible benifits to the military and society in general. I'm proud to be a part of the project, and particularly delighted to be working with the calibre of talent that is involved.
Also, by the way, I created most of the artwork that you are seeing in the press on EATR, including all of the pictures on this blog. Dr. Jim Albus created the original robot design, and I created the drawings. The "Tree eating robot" cartoon was my idea.
For our next phase, if we get to do one. is to create a more sustainable fuel source. NASA refers to what we do as "In-Situ Resource Utilization" or ISRU. They are studying using processes to extract fuel, air, and water from local materials on the Moon, and Mars. It is obviously a tremendous advantage if you don't have to carry all of your supplies with you everywhere you go. Here on Earth, the EATR team is considering some sort of bio-mass fuel creation, either using alge to make some sort of oil or bio-diesel, or something to do with either methane or ammonia, both of which can be used in internal combustion engines. It probably would not hurt to suppliment the energy budget with some solar electricity.
What do you do with an EATR? We've come up with a list of ideas, which include long border patrols, pipeline inspection, long term climate studies, wildlife research, mobile observation posts, and forest management. Any project that needs long duration missions away from civilization would be a possible application.
Frankly, I'm as interested in other technological spinoffs as the possiblility of making fuel. Just solving the object recognition and manipulation tasks would have immediate benifits for tasks like humanitarian landmine removal, or creating a robot that could tend plants. EATR represents an serious advance in autonomous robotics, and has tangible benifits to the military and society in general. I'm proud to be a part of the project, and particularly delighted to be working with the calibre of talent that is involved.
Also, by the way, I created most of the artwork that you are seeing in the press on EATR, including all of the pictures on this blog. Dr. Jim Albus created the original robot design, and I created the drawings. The "Tree eating robot" cartoon was my idea.
Read more!
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