Robots

The on board electronics were a main board of transistors for controlling the steeper motors (complete with flashing lights, which, as every engineer knows, is an essential for any hi-tech project). The circuit for the transitors was hevely inspired by Robot Builder's Bonanza (uk) (us) A board for the T2 transputer and a buffer board. You can see the boards to the right. The transputer is a bit out of date now. This sort of project would be easier to do with a PIC (uk) (us) or a STAMP (uk) (us) processor now.

The robots themselves were built in two layers. The top layer housed the electronics and the bottom layer was designed to house sensors but the sensors were not implemented in the project. The project was presented at a conference in the Netherlands in 1994 (for which the pic to the left was taken for (the robot is laying on its side, btw)). It was also entered into the BRA (now BARA) national robotics competition where it won 3rd prize.

I have done a bit of work in telerobotics. This tele-robot (see the pic to the right) was designed and built in a few days for a competition held in the Netherlands. There were 5 of use in a multi-national team and I worked on the software and the most vital component; the flag. I also drove the robot during the competition. The robot was built to navigate round a maze. It also had to build a bridge, go through a door and go over and under a pipe before ringing a bell. In the competition it got half way around the maze.

Apart from the blimp projects mentioned above I have also run a project that looked at developing an autonomous helicopter which also used neural nets for it control. The on board computer for this project was a PDA (uk) (us) .

The robot on the right is an example of the robots that I currently build. It is a rover bot produced using Lego's Mindstorm Robotics Invention System (uk) (us). The robot has three outputs and three inputs. The outputs can be used for controlling motors and the inputs for sensors. It also has an in/out IR port used for communicating with a PC. The standard programming interface is a noddy "plug together" virtual bricks which is very good for children. If, however, you want to do something more serious there is a replacement BrickOS operating system. I use that and then program the robot under linux.

I have worked with industrial robotic arms, writing communication software but the main work I have done with industrial robots have been with Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). On the left is a picture of two types of AGVs. The ones in the foreground carry a load on their back. The one in the background carries its load on a forklift unit similar to a manual forklift truck. I have worked on the communications and control systems for these types of robots as well as simulations of AGV systems. My research is also concerned with using agents to control AGVs.

Building androids (uk) (us) is probably one on the most interesting area of robotics. I have been running been a few humanoid robotics projects. Two of them have centred around a robot called Tolvis. This is a small humanoid, which used servos as its main actuator. On project was concerned with build / repairing the robot and the other was concerned with a behavioural (uk) (us) approach to controlling the robot. Both projects are on going but most of the hard ware is up and running. On the software side a number of behaviours (uk) (us) have been implemented and simulations of the robot have been conducted. In those simulations the robot took a few steps. The third project was about developing the control of a humanoid robot called Ed. This project used an evolutionary approach.