LIDAR Plane Points
Posted inSystems & Sensors

LIDAR (Laser Scanner) Fundamentals

This is part of a series of posts talking about some of the common LIDAR's used in robotics. At the end of these sensor profile articles there will be a final post that compares the sensors based on data collected by each of the sensors. Posts: Evaluating LIDAR Guide LIDAR Fundamentals SICK TiM551 - LIDAR Overview SICK LMS111 - LIDAR…
SICK LMS111
Posted inSystems & Sensors

SICK LMS111 Laser Scanner – LIDAR Overview

This is part of a series of posts talking about some of the common LIDAR's used in robotics. At the end of these sensor profile articles there will be a final post that compares the sensors based on data collected by each of the sensors. Posts: Evaluating LIDAR Guide LIDAR Fundamentals SICK TiM551 - LIDAR Overview SICK LMS111 - LIDAR…
SICK TiM551
Posted inSystems & Sensors

SICK TiM551 & TiM571 Laser Scanner – LIDAR Overview

This is part of a series of posts talking about some of the common LIDAR's used in robotics. At the end of these sensor profile articles there will be a final post that compares the sensors based on data collected by each of the sensors. Posts: Evaluating LIDAR Guide LIDAR Fundamentals SICK TiM551 - LIDAR Overview SICK LMS111 - LIDAR…
learning ros book
Posted inMisc

Book Review: Learning ROS for Robotics Programming by Martinez and Fernandez

Hi I have only used the Robot Operating System (ROS) for several small things so I wanted to review a book on learning ROS both so that I could learn more about ROS and because ROS is increasingly being used for more robotics applications and is good for all of us to become familiar with it. ROS is a framework…
quad chart
Posted inMisc

Project Management

Hi all I am going to take a break from the technical to discuss how to run a project. During my career I have experienced several project managers and have heard from many others about their project managers. Here is my distilled list of how to run a technology (and just about any other) project. I am sure there are…
wire harness
Posted inElectrical & Electronics

Creating Wire Harness Diagrams

(See full size wire harness diagram here) Hi all So it is time to think about wiring up your robot, one of the key steps before you begin is to develop a wiring diagram. A wiring diagram is not only needed for wiring the robot but is also a valuable resource to have if you ever need to modify the…
amazon quadcopter
Posted inMisc

Amazon Quadcopter Delivery Plans

Hi all I have received a lot of questions from friends and family about the Amazon Prime Air delivery (if you have not heard about this check out the video at the bottom of this post). I know for some this is old news, but I am talking about it anyway. The basic idea is that you can order an…
CAN topology
Posted inComputing & Networking Electrical & Electronics

CAN bus (CANopen & CiA) for Motor Control

A Controller Area Network, or CAN for short is a common message based protocol used in cars and other vehicles. If you are trying to interface with a car/truck/bulldozer, there is a good chance that you will be reading data its CAN bus, and sending it commands via its CAN bus. It is also used in industrial/robotic applications such as…
kernal panic
Posted inComputing & Networking

Read Only Operating Systems

Hi all Most robots have a computer inside that is responsible for controlling the robot. Many robots will have multiple computers, each responsible for a different part of the robot. How do you make sure that the operating system and possibly the software that runs the robot does not get corrupt (and avoid kernel panics)? To solve this problem we…
LIDAR animation
Posted inSystems & Sensors Testing

Evaluating LIDAR (Laser Scanner) Guide

This is part of a series of posts talking about some of the common LIDAR's used in robotics. At the end of these sensor profile articles there will be a final post that compares the sensors based on data collected by each of the sensors. Posts: Evaluating LIDAR Guide LIDAR Fundamentals SICK TiM551 - LIDAR Overview SICK LMS111 - LIDAR…
husky robot
Posted inMisc Robots

Robot Bases (and other development platforms)

Hi all This is going to be a quick post. There are many cases where instead of building a full robot from scratch, you just want to buy a platform. These platforms can serve as the base of your robot that you build upon, or just as a test platform for developing/testing new software with. Here are some of the…
satellite internet remote location
Posted inComputing & Networking

Remote Internet Access

When you are in the middle of nowhere how can you get online? Often while working with robots you must travel to remote locations with no wired (copper/fiber) internet connection or wifi. In these cases you have two primary ways to get online. When I say "you" it can really be either you or the robot. There are times when…
robot networking
Posted inComputing & Networking

Networking for Robots: A crash course

Hi all There are many people who are familiar with setting up a home network, but now lets look at how to setup a network on your robot. There are two parts to setting up a network; the hardware and the software. This post will go into both of those topics. Before I begin to talk about networking, we must…
debugging rules
Posted inSystems & Sensors Testing

Debugging: A guide to troubleshooting

Hi all For some people debugging comes natural, and they will think that this entire article is obvious, however to many people I hope that this guide will help them become better at debugging systems. If you are one of those people who is an expert debugger (which comes from experience), it is often hard to put into words how…
ring connectors
Posted inElectrical & Electronics

Connectors (cable to cable, wire to wire)

Ahh. Connectors. We love them and we hate them. When you wire a robot there are many places where it can be tempting to take shortcuts to save time and money. Unfortunately connectors often suffer and lose that battle. From experience and many field tests I can not stress the importance of choosing proper connectors and having them located in…
gps satelite
Posted inSystems & Sensors

GPS and Global Absolute Positioning

Hi all Here is a post describing how to get absolute position for your robot. It discusses the basic methods and then ways to assist them for better accuracy. GPS GPS (or Global Positioning System as those in the know call it) is a widely used technology. It is not the "GPS" that you have in your car or on…
drawbar pull test
Posted inTesting

Common Robot Tests – Field Testing Series – Part 6

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
robot data
Posted inTesting

Test Analysis – Field Testing Series – Part 5

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
kalman filter equations
Posted inSoftware & Algorithms

Kalman Filtering – A Practical Implementation Guide (with code!)

Hi all Here is a quick tutorial for implementing a Kalman Filter. I originally wrote this for a Society Of Robot article several years ago. I have revised this a bit to be clearer and fixed some errors in the initial post. Enjoy! Note: The post has been translated into Russian here and is hosted by Everycloud Introduction Kalman filtering…
robot testing
Posted inTesting

Test Execution – Field Testing Series – Part 4

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
robot testing
Posted inTesting

Test Preparation – Field Testing Series – Part 3

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
motor architectures
Posted inElectrical & Electronics

Motor Controllers & Amplifiers

Hi all I recently wrote a post on different types of motors and feedback options, now I want to talk about how to control those motors. Each motor is often refereed to an "axis", so a 8 axis motor controller can control up to 8 motors. There are two different components used in the control of motors and people often…
journal
Posted inResearch

R&D Paper Submission Guidelines

Hi Here at robotsforroboticists.com we wish to change how research papers are presented to the world. As part of that we will accept submissions of papers related to building real robots. We will not accept papers related to things that have not been tested on a robot. Good examples of papers include robot system design, subsystem design, lessons learned, new…
safety first
Posted inMisc Testing

Safe Robots

Hi all Remembering to be (and being) safe is an important aspect of building robots. If you are not do things safely, you might not get the chance to build anything else. I am not going to go into the standard stuff such as soldering, machining, and chemical safety since you can get that in other places. The thing I…
field testing
Posted inSystems & Sensors Testing

Designing for Success – Field Testing Series – Part 2

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…